Rice, E(dward) E(verett)

Rice, E[dward] E[verett] (1848–1924), producer. Born into a poor family in Brighton, Massachusetts, he left home while still in his teens to become an itinerant actor, then worked as a printer and copywriter in Boston until he married the daughter of an important theatrical manager. Soon afterward Rice joined forces with J. Cheever Goodwin to write Evangeline (1874). Following its success he plunged actively into producing, and on rare occasions writing, for the musical theatre of his day. He quickly became one of American musical theatre's most important pioneers. His Rice's Surprise Party was probably the most popular band performing those prototypical musical comedies called farce‐comedies. In 1884 he produced Adonis, the first musical to run more than five hundred performances in New York. With the coming of English musical comedy, he established himself as one of its principal American importers, but he also continued to explore new possibilities with native talents. Rice's 1898 mounting of The Origin of the Cake Walk; or, Clorindy on the roof garden of the Casino Theatre was the first time a musical written and enacted by African Americans had been offered to white audiences. Among the major figures he either discovered or gave important boosts to were Henry E. Dixey, Lillian Russell, Fay Templeton, Julian Eltinge, and Jerome Kern.