historical theatre question

They would have had their own flats, albeit cheap and close by. Bear in mind that, even in an area where theater is important, actors/actresses were consider low-rung and very few theaters would have even had the resources to put their actors/actresses up. If they did provide living space, that space would have been most likely in a decent nearby hotel. Most actors/actresses lived together, but out of necessity rather than choice, theirs or the theater's.

FR

If the actor/actress in your story were very famous and had wealthy patrons, they would have been able to afford a luxurious house or palace, or would have had such lodgings provided by their benefactor without having to pay themselves (well, at least not in money).

In the late eighteenth/early nineteenth centuries there were several options. Famous actors usually had their own apartments. For some, the theater provided an apartment as part of their pay. Moderately successful actors might be able to afford their own apartments, but they would be small and not very nice. Sometimes, big theatres like the Comedie Francais or the Paris Opera did board their students/apprentices, like the corps de ballet either in dormitories or run-down boarding houses. A boarding house would be your best bet for 95% of the actors at that time.

Oops; sorry. Forgot about the apprentices; yeah, they would be set up in dorms if possible (but that's because the students were usually from the upper-class; dance was seen as one of the desirable skills among the aristocrats, and so any decent theater with a dancers would of course take advantage of that situation). Very few dancers would seek a career as a dancer; they were there so that they would learn dancing, possibly to work out any sowing of oats (even though chaperones would be on hand to discourage it).

FR