[PLAYBILL] [St. George’s Hall, Perth, 4 November 1881] Programme. The original Serio Comic Drama in two Acts, entitled Milky White, by H. T. Craven Esq.

[Perth, WA : s.n., 1881]. Broadsheet, 210 x 130 mm, lithograph-printed recto only in black on mauve paper; horizontal fold, some paper adhesions at left edge, otherwise good condition.

Perth playbill listing full cast of a production by the Fremantle Amateur Dramatic Club. Performers include Mr. A. G. Rosser, Mr. W. H. Turner, Mr. F. E. Stafford, Master Wilkinson, Mrs. Wilkinson, Mrs. L. C. Clifton. Note: a review of the performance appeared in The West Australian, 8 November 1881.

A rare ephemeral printing dating from a time before there was any homegrown professional theatre in Western Australia (the first purpose-built professional theatre in Perth, the Theatre Royal, did not open until 1897).

Provenance: UK trade, ex UK private collection. Originally contained in a nineteenth-century commonplace album which was almost certainly compiled by a British immigrant to Western Australia in the 1870s-80s, possibly Mrs. Elizabeth Wilkinson (Clarke) (1844-1929), wife of Captain George Faulkner Wilkinson (1837-1884).