Arch Street Theatre

Arch Street Theatre (Philadelphia). Built by a syndicate financed from New York but led locally by W. B. Wood, it was based on designs by John Haviland, one of the leading architects of his day, and opened in 1828 as a rival to the Chestnut Street Theatre and Walnut Street Theatre. At first it was unsuccessful, but after William Forrest, brother of Edwin Forrest, took over its management in 1830, it quickly became one of the city's major playhouses. Most of Edwin Forrest's best vehicles were played there when he was in his prime, and several were given their premieres at the theatre. William Burton took over the house in the 1840s, giving it some of its greatest hits, including A Glance at Philadelphia, his localized version of Benjamin A. Baker's A Glance at New York. After Burton left, William Wheatley ran the house. The theatre's heyday is generally considered to have begun in 1861, when Mrs. John Drew assumed the reins and quickly established one of the greatest of all American stock companies. The house remained under her control for thirty‐one years. During the administrations of Forrest, Burton, and Drew, virtually every great performer in America appeared on its stage at one time or another. The decline of the playhouse commenced with Drew's withdrawal in 1892. Another stock company failed, so under Charles E. Blaney the theatre initiated a policy of popular melodramas. In later years the theatre offered musical comedy stock companies, Yiddish plays, and burlesque before it was demolished in 1936.