Actor, playwright, and theater manager, Colley Cibber was a leading figure in the eighteenth-century London theater world. As an actor, Cibber specialized in playing the fop, the man of fashion whose affectations make him a deserving candidate for ridicule. Original works as well as adaptations, Cibber's plays cross the genres: he wrote twelve comedies, six tragedies, one tragicomedy, one farce, and several musical entertainments. Although Cibber is regarded as a professional rather than an artful playwright, his original comedies are representative of the new wave of reform and humane comedies that grew in popularity during the century. Finally, from 1710 to 1732, Cibber served as one of the actor-managers of the Theatre Royal in Drury Lane, where his considerable acumen as a businessman helped to promote his own as well as his company's interests. Cibber's autobiography, An Apology for the Life of Mr. Colley Cibber (1740), is an example of his...