A Breif History of American Theatre

• Early Origins
• After Independence
• The Emergence of Broadway
• The Civil War
• Transatlantic Theatre

Early Origins

The history of theatre in America dates as far back as the latter half of the 17th Century, when there is evidence of attempts being made to stage plays in some of the less Puritanical of the early American colonies. The first actual theatres were those built at Williamsburg in 1716, New York in 1732 (opening with Farquhar's comedy "The Recruiting Officer"), and Charleston in 1736 - none of these remaining in use for more than a few seasons after their initial openings. By 1750, American theatrical tradition had become polarised around the two liberal cities of Philadelphia and New York - both of which are known to have had established companies operating at that time, whilst elsewhere the continuing Puritan influence still restricted theatrical development.

Reliable records on professional theatre in America also begin at around that time with the arrival of a complete company of professional English players - opening with 'Cato' at Philadelphia in August 1749, and in Colly Cibbers version of 'Richard III' at New York in March 1750. Two years later, the English actor/manager William Hallam formed a joint stock company which he sent to America under the management of his brother, Lewis Hallam. Unfortunately, a year of planning went awry when it transpired that a Mr Robert Upton, who had been sent over in advance to secure the necessary licences and erect a building, had been negligent in the duties for which he had been handsomely paid and had, in fact, disappeared with the money!

Upon the arrival of this company in New York, a makeshift venue was found but a further setback was encountered the company, without the proper licences, was then refused permission to perform, and was force to transfer instead to Williamsburg. It is interesting to note at this point, that on one occasion the Chief of the Cherokee nation, with a number of his warriors and advisors, adjourned from a meeting with the governor to see this company perform, and were greatly startled by the fighting on stage with naked swords in scenes from 'Othello'. Returning to New York, an impassioned plea from Hallam eventually secured the necessary permission for the company to perform there, and they were able to then conduct a season in that city followed by one in Philadelphia. When William Hallam came over in the middle of the Philadelphia season to divide the spoils, however, there was not a great deal to be divided, nor had the members of the company found their purses to have been much enlarged by their experiences.

Lewis Hallam subsequently died during a sojourn in Jamaica some time thereafter, but his wife and son, Lewis junior, returned to America four years later. Mrs. Hallam had by this time become Mrs. Douglass, after marrying the man who had taken over the management of the company. The Douglass's then raised new theatres in Philadelphia (the Southewark in 1766, which was the first continental brick-built theatre) and New York (the John Street Theatre in 1767), and even managed a successful season in the puritanical stronghold of Newport Rhode Island - allaying local opposition by presenting plays under the guise of 'Moral Dialogues.' 'Othello', for example, was advertised as a moral dialogue depicting the evil effects of jealousy and 'other bad passions'. Leading lady of the Douglass company at that time was Miss Margaret Cheer who, in August 1768, married the Honourable Lord Rosehill (son and heir of the Earl of Northesk) in Maryland, and thus became the first actress on that continent to marry into the nobility. The company was eventually forced to leave the colonies when the Revolution broke out. During the war years (1775 to 1783) professional theatre was suspended as most of the theatres were taken over by the British Military and used to present shows for the garrisons.

After Independence

After the war, the new American Government led by George Washington brought a new unity to the colonies and a considerable relaxing of the laws and restrictions against the theatre, many of which were repealed. Washington himself is known to have been something of a theatrical enthusiast, and to have frequently attended New York theatres. Another outcome of the renewed peace was that many talented British actors came over to try and make a living in the New World. Many of these would choose to remain on the continent permanently, and so form an experienced foundation for the rapidly expanding core of homegrown American players. The new freedoms also saw new towns and provinces come to the fore as centres of theatrical excellence, foremost among these being Baltimore, Savannah, Richmond, Washington D.C. and Annapolis. Lewis Hallam junior then returned to America and, with an Irish actor named John Henry, founded the "Old American Company," which for several years became the premiere touring company on the American continent, winning considerable fame and even being honoured by Washington himself.

For many years the most popular plays in Ameican theatres were Shakespearean tragedies, Restoration comedies, and farces (particularly those involving political satire). The first 'all-American' play, which is to say one written by an American playwright on an American subject, was "The Contrast" by Royall Tyler, produced by the Old American Company at the John Street theatre in New York in 1787. The first great American theatrical impresario was Thomas Wignell, a former comedian with the Old American Company, who built the first theatres in Baltimore and Washington D.C. and was responsible for bringing to America the English Shakespearean actor Thomas Abthorpe Cooper - who would go on to be recognised as "the greatest of American Tragedians".

By the close of the 18th century, as the population continued to expand, many more cities had grown large enough to join New York and Philadelphia in supporting permanently resident stock companies, in some cases even two or more in direct opposition. The standard of the productions being offered at this time was steadily improving both in terms of the standard of acting and the quality of costumes and scenery. At the same time, conditions for patrons were improving in other ways with the building of better and more luxurious playhouses. In 1794, Thomas Wignell built the Chestnut Street Theatre in Philadelphia, modelled after the Theatre Royal at Bath (in England). With Corinthian columns marking the facade, this theatre could house 2000 patrons in comfort and boasted possibly the best equipped stage in the United States at that time. That same year the first theatre was built in Boston, the most puritanical of the the early colonies and the city which had held out longest in banning theatrical entertainments of any kind. Four years later, in 1798, The Park Theatre was opened in New York and was immediately hailed as another distinct advance in theatre architecture, underscoring New York's emerging advantage over Philadelphia in becoming the leading centre for the theatrical arts on the American continent.

In the opening half of the 19th Century, as the population spread west, so did the theatre and the first permanent playhouses were built in St Louis in 1837, Chicago in 1847, and San Francisco, on the west coat, in 1853. A milestone was also reached when, in 1813, Howard Payne became the first American actor to cross the Atlantic to pursue a successful stage career in England, reversing the flow of talent which for many years had run in the opposite direction. Many of those English actors who had made the crossing to the USA and remained there subsequently became the founders of notable American theatrical families. This period also saw the growth of the "star" system on the American Continent, as the stock companies in the various cities sought to excite their patrons with guest appearances of well-known leading players from other cities.

The Emergence of Broadway

The opening half of the 19th century also saw New York finally shrug off Philadelphia as the undisputed centre for theatrical excellence, as the city's unparalleled growth produced enormous rivalry between the growing number of theatrical companies operating within its boundaries. New theatres built in New York in this period included the Anthony Street Theatre (1813), the Chatham Garden Theatre (1824), the Lafayette Theatre (1826), the Bowery Theatre (also 1826), the Opera House (1833 - becoming the National Theatre in 1836), the Franklin Theatre (1835), and the Broadway Theatre (1847 - the first of that name). As in England, however, fire was a major threat at that time and in the space of only twenty years the Bowery Theatre alone was burned down and rebuilt no less than four times! By 1850, the population of Manhattan was estimated at around half a million, and the Broadway thoroughfare had become the centre for theatre in New York, rivalling London's West End in the number of playhouses being built on it or on its adjacent side-streets.

Civil War

In 1861 the outbreak of the American Civil War brought a temporary depression to the theatre, but this quickly turned into a boom as the populace sought distraction from the hostilities. In Britain at that time, public sympathies were strongly biased toward the Confederacy (a feeling which was only exacerbated when Union warships dared to intercept a British ship in open waters in order to remove Confederate diplomats). An active and often vocal dislike for 'Yankees' during that period resulted in many American players who visited Britain around that time cutting short their stay and returning home.

Famously, only five days after the South surrendered to end the war, President Abraham Lincoln was assassinated in a theatre by an actor. That was on 14th April 1865, during a performance "Our American Cousin". The venue was Ford's Theatre in Washington, and the perpetrator was John Wilkes Booth. Booth came from an established theatrical family, the son of English born actor Junius Brutus Booth and a brother of Edwin Booth, one of the more outstanding actors of the day. John Wilkes Booth was himself an established actor, having trod the boards at Ford's Theatre on many occasions. Booth's motives in the assassination were never made clear, some ascribe him to have been a confederate sympathiser bitter at the defeat, whilst others ascribe his motives to have been nothing more than a desperate attempt to acheive notoriety to match his brother's fame. Ford's Theatre is now preserved as a monument (I have been there and the museum exhibits include, amongst other things, Lincoln's bloodstained coat, whilst, in a small house nearby, the bed in which Lincoln died is similarly preserved, complete with bloodstained pillow). One might have expected Edwin Booth's career to have suffered badly from, or even been ended by, the stain which his brother had wreaked upon the family name, but this does not appear to have been the case. Only four years later his success was such that he was able to build a new theatre at great cost on New York's Sixth Avenue, even calling it Booth's Theatre.

Transatlantic Theatre

During the latter half of the nineteenth century the stage of the American East Coast and that of the English capital became almost as one - the once arduous business of crossing the Atlantic having become increasingly less so as that century advanced. First, the arrival of power steamers had made the crossing a matter of routine, then the advent of purpose built passenger liners had turned it into an experience (for the well-to-do at least) comparable to a stay in a first class hotel. Consequently, impressarios could extend the life of a production by carrying it across the Atlantic to a fresh audience, frequently taking with them the star players rather than suffer the delay of new actors having to learn the parts. The benefits of this Atlantic trafficking of plays was perhaps greatest for the American impresarios (the American theatrical scene having not yet fully caught up with that of England - compare my lists of long running plays for London and New York for exmaple), and consequently, great American theatrical managers like Augustin Daly and Charles Frohman would become equally famous on both sides of the Atlantic. One result of this was that England, who had lost many talented actors to setting up the theatrical establishment on the American continent, then began to reap the benefits as great American stars, some of them descendants of the original emigres, made the return crossing to enrich the English stage - in many cases permanently (eg. from these pages Pauline Chase, Gertrude and Maxine Elliott).

A problem existed, however, in the lack in the USA of any kind of copyright protection. Thus, in a kind of forerunner to the video pirating problem of modern years, a successful play could be easily copied and toured by other companies eager to cash in on its reputation. Furthermore, as the result was often greatly inferior to the original with the script being inexpertly reproduced and the scenes and costumes only the cheapest of imitations, the reputation of the original could be damaged, leading to additional loss of box office takings. An extreme example of this was Gilbert and Sullivan's "HMS Pinafore", which, by the time the original (and only official) company arrived in the USA, had already been produced at almost every playhouse on that continent - the script and production details having been sent over by 'spies' in England. To prevent the same thing happening to their next operetta, "Pirates of Penzance", that production was premiered first in the USA, after only a single performance at an English provincial theatre to establish copyright at home (in fact this was not necessary to establish English copyright but was a widely held, although erroneous, beleif at that time).

The 1880's in America saw the rise of the powerful actor/managers and theatrical combines, and with them the gradual demise in many cities of the local stock companies. The rapid improvements and expansion to the road and railway networks across America also made it considerably easier to send an entire production, including its cast, on tour - which was more economical than maintaining seperate stock companies in each location. In 1896, a small group of theatrical magnates, including Charles Frohman, formed the Theatrical Syndicate which for a number of years exerted monopolistic control over most American theatres, dictating its own terms to managers and performers alike, until its power was broken by the concerted actions of certain independent stars and producers.

That brings us to the period to which this site is dedicated. At that time there was very little difference between the theatre of the USA and that of the British Isles, the major productions and star players being largely interchangeable between the two, and that then, is where this all too brief history will end.