Orchestras on stage in the Georgian-era playhouse: unravelling the origin of the 'Winston' sketch.

An intriguing 19th-century sketch of a rare Georgian-era orchestra arrangement for London's Drury Lane Theatre is held in a scrapbook in the Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington, DC. The unusual drawing by theatre historian James Winston places the theatre orchestra on an annexe projecting out from the front of the stage and over the pit, seemingly causing some of the benches to be removed. The extension raises the orchestra to the height of the stage in order to showcase a large number of musicians in what was clearly an extraordinary musical event. Despite the scarcity of orchestral seating plans in Britain during this period, the sketch has been ignored by scholars--probably because the event it depicts has remained a mystery. Why would Winston have sketched this orchestral arrangement? And if it was for a special performance, what was the occasion? Seating plans for English orchestras are exceedingly rare, and so Winston's drawing is particularly valuable for those who seek iconographical evidence of how an orchestra of this period might have been arranged. We can learn much about orchestral performances in London's theatres, specifically which instruments were present in the playhouse, prevailing ideas about seating and layout, how the stage might have accommodated the orchestra, and other related matters. Winston's detailed drawing contains some excellent clues, giving us a substantive start at understanding how orchestral music in the late Georgian era theatre might have worked 'on the stage'. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]