ABSTRACT
The eighteenth century was marked by an unprecedented leap in the wealth, and the leisure time, of the upper classes, and one way this new abundance was consumed was in the creation of dramatic performances. House parties, or even simply families, sometimes organised theatrical performances in private homes. The main run of amateur theatricals in big houses started after this. In 1760 the Earl of Sandwich mounted theatricals, an interest he continued sporadically till 1786. In 1761 Lord Holland began a determined sequence of performances at Holland House where in 1768 his barn was converted into a theatre. Jane Austen, who had absorbed amateur performance from her childhood in Steventon Rectory, performed at Manydown House at Christmas 1808, besides describing an amateur production in Mansfield Park. Such ventures enabled women, otherwise so assiduously ignored, to take responsibility for creating productions in their own domestic space, and often of their own dramas.
