Augustus Harris
British actor and impresario
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Why Is Augustus Harris Influential?
(Suggest an Edit or Addition)According to Wikipedia, Sir Augustus Henry Glossop Harris was a British actor, impresario, and dramatist, a dominant figure in the West End theatre of the 1880s and 1890s. Born into a theatrical family, Harris briefly pursued a commercial career before becoming an actor and subsequently a stage-manager. At the age of 27 he became the lessee of the large Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, where he mounted popular melodramas and annual pantomimes on a grand and spectacular scale. The pantomimes featured leading music hall stars such as Dan Leno, Marie Lloyd, Little Tich and Vesta Tilley. The profits from these productions subsidised his opera seasons, equally lavish, starrily cast and with an innovative repertoire. He presented the first British production of Die Meistersinger and the first production anywhere outside Germany of Tristan und Isolde, and revitalised the staging of established classics.
