Joseph Williams

Joseph Williams was an English stage actor of the seventeenth and early eighteenth century. Williams initially joined the Duke's Company and was apprenticed to the senior actor Henry Harris In 1682 he moved to the merged United Company, appearing at Drury Lane and the Dorset Gardens Theatre. In 1695 when the company split, Williams initially planned to join Thomas Betterton and the breakaways at the Lincoln's Inn Fields Theatre, but ended up remaining at Drury Lane. One of his contemporaries at the United Company was an actor named David Williams, and occasionally it is hard to distinguish their roles listed on playbills. Selected roles Moses in The Town Shifts by Edward Revet (1671) Hadland in The Counterfeit Bridegroom by Aphra Behn (1677) Pylades in Circe by Charles Davenant (1677) Troilus in The Destruction of Troy by John Banks (1678) Cispin in The Counterfeits by John Leanerd (1678) Aeneas in Troilus and Cressida by John Dryden (1679) Abardanes in The Loyal General by Nahum Tate (1679) Sylla in Caius Marius by Thomas Otway (1679) Palante in Caesar Borgia by Nathaniel Lee (1679) Antonio in The Loving Enemies by Lewis Maidwell (1680) Friendly in The Revenge by Aphra Behn (1680) Prince of Cleve in The Princess of Cleve by Nathaniel Lee (1680) Polydore in The Orphan by Thomas Otway (1680) Theodosius in Theodosius by Nathaniel Lee (1680) Henry VI in The Misery of Civil War by John Crowne (1680) Tiberius in Lucius Junius Brutus by Nathaniel Lee (1680) Townly in The London Cuckolds by Edward Ravenscroft (1681) Rochford in Virtue Betrayed by John Banks (1682) Sir Charles Merriwell in The City Heiress by Aphra Behn (1682) Heartall in The Royalist by Thomas D'Urfey (1682) Fairlove in Mr.