May Fortescue company. She toured with her company for many years, frequently performing the plays of W. S. Gilbert. A tour of the United States from 1886 to 1887 included the New York premiere of Gilbert's play "Gretchen", with Fortescue in the title role (although "The New York Times" found her performance wanting). During these touring years, she revived at least eight other works by Gilbert, playing such roles as Jenny Northcott in "Sweethearts", Galatea in "Pygmalion and Galatea", Selene in "The Wicked World" and Clarice in "Comedy and Tragedy". Fortescue's troupe premiered Gilbert's 1897 drama, "The Fortune Hunter", in which she
Robert Reece Robert Reece Robert Reece (2 May 1838 – 8 July 1891) was a British comic playwright and librettist active in the Victorian era. He wrote many successful musical burlesques, comic operas, farces and adaptations from the French, including the English-language adaptation of the operetta "Les cloches de Corneville", which became the longest-running piece of musical theatre in history up to that time. He sometimes collaborated with Henry Brougham Farnie or others. Reece was born in the island of Barbados, West Indies. His father, Robert Reece (1808–1874), was a barrister of the Inner Temple. Reece matriculated from Balliol College, Oxford in