Their design was inspired by "the hope,"
they wrote in an unassuming address, "of eventually rendering Sadler's
Wells what a theatre ought to be--a place for justly representing the
works of our great dramatic poets." This hope they went far to
realise. The first play that they produced was _Macbeth_.
Phelps continued to control Sadler's Wells Theatre for more than
eighteen years. During that period he produced, together with many
other English plays of classical repute, no fewer than thirty-one of
the thirty-seven great dramas which came from Shakespeare's pen. In
his first season, besides _Macbeth_ he set forth _Hamlet_, _King
John_, _Henry VIII._, _The Merchant of Venice_, _Othello_, and
_Richard III._ To these he added in the course of his second season,
_Julius Caesar_, _King Lear_, and _The Winter's Tale_. _Henry IV._,
part I., _Measure for Measure_, _Romeo and Juliet_, and _The Tempest_
followed in his third season; _As You Like It_, _Cymbeline_, _The
Merry Wives of Windsor_, and _Twelfth Night_, in his fourth. Each
succeeding season saw further additions to the Shakespearean
repertory, until only six Shakespearean dramas were left
unrepresented, viz.
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