Metropolitan Theatre

Metropolitan Theatre, New York, on Broadway. Built on the site of Tripler Hall, which was burnt down on 7 Jan. 1854, this theatre opened unsuccessfully on 20 Sept., and soon became a circus. It was occasionally used for plays, and in Sept. 1855 Rachel, with a French company, appeared there in Racine's Phèdre and Scribe and Legouvé's Adrienne Lecouvreur. In the following December Laura Keene took over and in spite of prejudice against a woman manager was doing well when she lost her lease on a technicality. She was succeeded by Burton, and in 1859 by Boucicault, who reopened the theatre as the Winter Garden with Dot, his own dramatization of Dickens's The Cricket on the Hearth. He also presented a stage version of Nicholas Nickleby and several of his own plays during his first season. An early version of Joseph Jefferson's Rip Van Winkle was seen at the Winter Garden, and important American actors who appeared there included John Sleeper Clarke, Charlotte Cushman, Sothern, and the Florences. Edwin Booth took over the theatre in 1864, appearing there on 25 Nov. as Brutus in a performance of Julius Caesar with his brothers Junius Brutus and John Wilkes as Cassius and Antony respectively, the only time they are believed to have appeared together. Booth's record run of 100 performances of Hamlet took place here in 1864–5. On 23 Mar. 1867, just as Booth was about to appear as Romeo, the theatre burnt down and was not rebuilt.