Reputed to be the world’s oldest theater location in continuous use, the site of the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane was first transformed from a cockfighting venue to a location for dramatic productions during the reign of James I. Closed down by the Puritans during the early 1640s, it was revived soon after the Restoration under a patent issued to Thomas Killigrew. The new building boasted an audience capacity of 700 and soon featured the period’s best-known performers, including Nell Gwyn, the mistress of Charles II. Having escaped the Great Fire of 1666, this building was destroyed by a separate fire in 1672. Killigrew rebuilt, reopening in 1674 with a capacity of about 2000. Under the management of Colley Cibber (1710-1733), David Garrick (1747-76), Richard Brinsley Sheridan (1776-1788, though he retained ownership of the patent after that date), and John Philip Kemble (1788-1802), among others, this building was the home of such eighteenth-century theatrical innovations as the naturalistic acting of Garrick and Charles Macklin, the institution of regular rehearsals, and the removal of audience members from the stage. In 1791, Sheridan had the theater demolished and rebuilt to a capacity of 3600. The new building was destroyed by fire in 1809. Its replacement, which stands today, opened in 1812, and in 1817 it became the first theater to be gas-lit throughout. The Theatre Royal Drury Lane has seen performances from many of the world’s greatest stage actors in English, including, during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, Charles Macklin, David Garrick, Susannah Cibber, John Philip Kemble, Sarah Siddons, Edmund Kean, Charles Kean, and William Charles Macready, who, during his tenure as manager from 1841 to 1843, introduced several noteworthy reforms.