Theater. The beginnings of the English‐speaking theater in America are dimmer than the candlelit stages of the era. In 1665, the performers, almost certainly amateurs, of a play called
The Bear and the Cub were prosecuted in Accomac County, Virginia, on charges of public wickedness. The charges were dismissed, but nothing more is known of the play or its actors. However, the incident demonstrates the fanatically moralistic opposition that would plague the arts all through American history. In 1703 or 1704, Anthony Aston, an adventurer turned player, gave performances along the East Coast from Florida to New York. Again, sadly, what roles he played and where are uncertain. The real beginnings of the American stage date to 1752, when Lewis Hallam landed in Yorktown, Virginia, with a small troupe, some scenery, and costumes. On 15 September, having obtained the governor's permission, he staged Shakespeare's
The Merchant of Venice and Edward Ravenscroft's farce
The Anatomist. No mid‐eighteenth‐century American city was large enough to sustain a season‐long theatrical program, so Hallam and his band moved on to
New York City,
Philadelphia, and Charleston, offering a broad repertory of works by Shakespeare as well as Restoration and contemporary dramatists. Welcomed by playgoers but denounced by some religious extremists, Hallam and his company left for Jamaica in late 1754 or early 1755. He soon died there, but his son, Lewis, Junior, returned in 1758 with a new company organized with his mother and stepfather, David Douglass. The group became known as the American Company, and, later in its forty‐year existence, as the Old American Company. This troupe opened several important early playhouses, such as the John Street Theater in New York, and staged the first professionally mounted American play, Thomas Godfrey's
The Prince of Parthia, in 1767 in Philadelphia. British theatricals continued to dominate American stages for decades, however. Hallam and his successors were eventually bought out by William Dunlap (1766–1839) a playwright, manager, and first towering figure in American theatrical history. When Dunlap went bankrupt, control of New York's Park Theater, which he had helped build, was assumed by Thomas Abthorpe Cooper (1776–1849), considered by many America's first great tragedian.
Through most of this time, major American cities—all still confined to the East Coast—could each support only a single auditorium, and presentations were offered for only a limited number of performances in repertory. Distances and poor transportation between cities encouraged the development of local stock companies, occasionally joined by a visiting foreign luminary such as George Frederick Cooke. Away from larger eastern cities, smaller troupes circulated or attempted lesser stock companies. As the nation pushed westward, intrepid actors and managers, among them Samuel Drake and Noah Ludlow, cruised the great rivers bringing floating theaters to local audiences. Ludlow afterward combined with Sol Smith to establish permanent playhouses in towns along the
Mississippi River and even inland.
By the early nineteenth century urban growth in the East allowed a second and sometimes a third playhouse to compete. Beginning in 1825, playhouses converted from candlelight to gas. The growth in population also encouraged the notion of “long runs.” The three‐week stand of Dion Boucicault's
London Assurance at the Park Theater in 1841 inaugurated the practice in America. The same production also introduced American playgoers to the three‐walled box set, although it did not completely replace the meticulously painted wing‐and‐drop sets for many decades. Pre–
Civil War audiences also applauded a growing roster of immigrant and native‐born players such as Junius Brutus Booth (1796–1852), Edwin Forrest (1806–72), and Charlotte Cushman (1816–76).
The Civil War ended the prosperous and often independent theater that had flourished in the antebellum
South, especially in Charleston and Savannah, which had even had their own respected playwrights. Only
New Orleans partially recovered. On the other hand, Civil War–born prosperity helped the North, promoting longer runs, more venues, and more productions. With the wartime growth of
railroads, stars no longer had to endure rough trips between towns to act briefly with an often barely competent stock troupe. Instead, trains allowed a complete and carefully chosen cast, along with excellent scenery and costumes, to move from city to city, giving smaller centers the same polished mountings big cities saw. This competition forced surviving stock companies to raise standards and led to such admired ensembles as Wallack's and Daly's in New York, Mrs. Drew's Arch Street Theater in Philadelphia, and the Boston Museum, whose company was led by two beloved players, William Warren and Mrs. Vincent. By the later nineteenth century, thousands of American cities had some sort of auditorium, enabling players to tour for decades in one play or at least in a limited repertory. Joseph Jefferson (1829–1905) as Rip Van Winkle, Lotta Crabtree (1847–1924) in her little‐girl roles, and Edwin Booth (1833–1893) in his mostly Shakespearean repertory exemplified the practice. By the late 1880s, as major theaters began to be electrified, brighter lighting ended the practice of older actors impersonating young lovers, and forced many other changes in acting styles.
In the mid–1890s, a group of New York businessmen formed what became known as the Syndicate to control theaters and productions around the country. They were beaten at their own game, however, by the brothers Lee, Samuel and Jacob Shubert, Lithuanian Jewish immigrants from Syracuse, New York, who leased New York's Herald Square Theater, in 1900. By the mid–1920s, the Shuberts owned nearly one hundred theaters in major cities in the United States, Canada, and Great Britain, and leased many more in smaller cities. Three‐quarters of all theater tickets sold, it was said, were to productions in Shubert theaters.
Meanwhile, the rise of silent
films eroded live theater. After about 1906, the touring companies with their one‐night stands declined precipitously. Theater in New York and other major cities flourished through the 1920s, however. In 1927–1928 Broadway (New York's theater district) had more than 70 theaters and a record 264 productions. Philadelphia supported 10 playhouses. But the simultaneous introduction of sound movies and the onset of the Great Depression plunged the stage into a radical decline. The change in urban demographics after
World War II further hurt live theater, as did an alteration in ticket pricing, making the cheapest balcony seats almost as costly as the best orchestra seats. As
television seduced many into remaining at home for their entertainment, miking and amplification, especially of musicals, destroyed the flesh‐and‐blood reality and intimacy of performances. By the late 1990s only a few dozen plays were produced on Broadway and almost nothing toured. Small off‐Broadway houses and regional theaters were more productive, though many tended to be consciously arty and attracted only a limited number of loyalists.
See also
Drama;
Minstrelsy;
Musical Theater;
Vaudeville.
Bibliography
Burns Mantle et al, eds., The Best Plays, annual publication, 1920–present.
Jack Poggi , Theater in America: The Impact of Economic Forces. 1870–1967, 1968.
Gerald Bordman , A Chronicle of Comedy and Drama, 3 vols., 1994–1996.
Mary C. Henderson , Theater in America: 250 Years of Plays, Players, and Productions, 1996. Theater histories, of varying quality, exist for nearly all major American cities.
Gerald Bordman
