George Pack (actor)

George Pack (fl. 1700–1724) was a British stage actor, singer and theatre manager of the eighteenth century.^[1][2] His first known performance on the London stage was as Westmoreland in Shakespeare's Henry IV at the Lincoln's Inn Fields Theatre and he remained with the company until it transferred to the Queens's Theatre in the Haymarket in 1705. He played in a mixture of comedies and tragedies, originating roles in plays by many of the leading dramatists of the era including Nicholas Rowe, Mary Pix, John Vanbrugh and Susanna Centlivre.

In 1708 Pack joined the Drury Lane company and remained with it until he left to join John Rich's new company at the revived Lincoln's Inn Fields Theare in 1715. His final original role was in The Chimera in 1721. The following year he announced his retirement but came back briefly to appear in a benefit performance for Frances Maria Knight in 1724 and also received his own benefit shortly afterwards. After leaving the stage he took over an inn located on the corner of Haymarket and Pall Mall which he renamed The Busie Body after the play in which he played his best known role of Marplot. His year of death is unknown but occurred some time before 1749.

Selected roles

References

Bibliography

• Caines, Michael in The Plays and Poems of Nicholas Rowe, Volume I: The Early Plays. Taylor & Francis, 2016.
• Heard, Elisabeth J. Experimentation on the English Stage, 1695–1708: The Career of George Farquhar. Routledge, 2015.

This page was last edited on 17 May 2024, at 02:01