afterpiece

afterpiece, supplementary entertainment presented after full-length plays in 18th-century England. Afterpieces usually took the form of a short comedy, farce, or pantomime, and were intended to lighten the solemnity of Neoclassical drama and make the bill more attractive to audiences. Long theatre programs that included interludes of music, song, and dance developed in the first 20 years of the 18th century, promoted primarily by John Rich at Lincoln’s Inn Fields in order to compete with the Drury Lane. The addition of afterpieces to the regular program may also have been an attempt to attract working citizens, who often missed the early opening production and paid a reduced charge to be admitted later, usually at the end of the third act of a five-act play.

Before 1747, afterpieces were generally presented with old plays, but after that date, almost all new plays were accompanied by afterpieces as well. Although farce and pantomime were the most popular forms of afterpiece, other kinds included processions, burlettas or burlesques, music, and ballad operas, which gained popularity after the success of John Gay’s Beggar’s Opera in 1728.