Katherine Corey

Who is Katherine Corey?

Katherine Corey was an English actress of the Restoration era, one of the first generation of female performers to appear on the public stage in Britain. Corey played with the King's Company and the United Company, and had one of the longest careers of any actress in her generation. In "The humble petition of Katherine Corey", she stated that she "was the first and is the last of all the actresses that were constituted by King Charles the Second at His Restauration."

Correy started her career under her maiden name, Mitchell, but was Mrs. Corey by 1663. "Mrs Corey was a big woman with a gift for comedy. She was popular in a variety of roles, but especially in old women parts: scolding wives, mothers, governesses, waiting women, and bawds." In his Diary, Samuel Pepys, who admired Corey's talents, calls her "Doll Common" after her part in Ben Jonson's The Alchemist.

In her three decades on the stage, Corey played a wide range of roles; in revivals of plays from the period of English Renaissance theatre:

Lady Would-be in Jonson's Volpone

Mrs. Otter in Epicene

Sempronia in Catiline

Arane in Beaumont and Fletcher's A King and No King

Abigail in The Scornful Lady