Ford, John T(hompson)

The Oxford Companion to American Theatre | 2004 | 700+ words | Copyright

Ford, John T[hompson] (1829–94), manager. Descended from an old Maryland family, he was born in Baltimore, which remained his base throughout his career as a builder and manager of theatres. As a young man he worked in a family tobacco factory but left the company in 1850 to become business manager and press agent for a concert ensemble. In 1854 he assumed management of Baltimore's famed Holliday Street Theatre, which he ran for the next twenty‐five years. He quickly took over the running of numerous other theatres in the South and eventually built many playhouses, including Ford's Theatre in Washington, where Lincoln was assassinated and which remains an active legitimate theatre today; Ford's Theatre in Baltimore, which remained the city's principal playhouse until the 1960s; and the Academy of Music in Philadelphia, which is still the main concert hall there. He was generally acknowledged as one of the most honest and important theatrical figures of his day.

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Gerald Bordman and Thomas S. Hischak. "Ford, John T(hompson)." The Oxford Companion to American Theatre. 2004. Encyclopedia.com. 28 May. 2012 <http://www.encyclopedia.com>.

Gerald Bordman and Thomas S. Hischak. "Ford, John T(hompson)." The Oxford Companion to American Theatre. 2004. Encyclopedia.com. (May 28, 2012). http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1O149-FordJohnThompson.html

Gerald Bordman and Thomas S. Hischak. "Ford, John T(hompson)." The Oxford Companion to American Theatre. 2004. Retrieved May 28, 2012 from Encyclopedia.com: http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1O149-FordJohnThompson.html

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