The Theatres of Inigo Jones and John Webb

As surveyor of the King’s Works, Inigo Jones was responsible for the visual aspects of the masques performed at the various royal palaces, and both he and his pupil John Webb designed a number of regular theatres at Court. This book gathers together all of the drawings for playhouses which they prepared for the drama proper, excluding the more specialised designs for the Court masque. The designs are close to the mainstream of theatre development in the seventeenth century, ranging from the Cockpit in Drury Lane, 1616, to the Hall Theatre at Whitehall half a century later. Some of the designs are newly identified; others are reinterpreted, and many individual drawings are reassigned. As a result Jones and Webb are established as clearly the most effective London theatre builders of the seventeenth century, at least as influential in the architecture of playhouses and stages as they were in the more painterly traditions of scene design.