John Street Theatre

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John Street Theatre, New York, on John Street, west of Broadway. The first permanent playhouse in New York and the third to be built by David Douglass, this opened in 1767 with Farquhar's The Beaux' Stratagem; it was described by Dunlap, whose first play The Father; or, American Shandyism was produced there in 1789, as ‘principally of wood, an unsightly object, painted red’. There is also a reference to it in Royall Tyler's The Contrast, a landmark in American theatre history produced at John Street two years earlier, where Jonathan, the country bumpkin, describes his first visit to a theatre. Until the War of Independence the American Company gave regular seasons there, mounting the first productions in New York of such plays as The Merchant of Venice, Macbeth, King John, Jonson's Every Man in His Humour, and Dryden's All for Love, as well as a large repertory of contemporary plays and after-pieces. During the war the playhouse was rechristened Theatre Royal and used for productions by the officers of the English garrison, among them Major John André—later the subject of a play by Dunlap—whose scene-painting was much admired. Just before the British evacuated New York a professional company came from Baltimore and stayed for a time at the John Street Theatre, but without much success.

Two years after the British evacuation, in 1785, the American Company, now under the control of the younger Hallam and John Henry, took possession of the theatre again, the company being reinforced shortly afterwards by Thomas Wignell. During the next few years regular seasons were given, with productions for the first time in New York of The School for Scandal and The Critic by Sheridan, Much Ado about Nothing, As You Like It, and Garrick's version of Hamlet. George Washington visited John Street three times in 1789, the year of his inauguration.

Soon after this Wignell and Mrs Morris left John Street to found their own Chestnut Street Theatre in Philadelphia and John Hodgkinson, newly arrived from England, joined the John Street company, soon becoming so popular, and so grasping, that he ousted both Hallam and John Henry from management and from the affections of the public. Henry and his wife withdrew from the company in 1794, Hallam in 1797, leaving Hodgkinson in command with Dunlap. He had been added to the management the previous year, which had also seen the first appearance in New York, with the John Street Company, of the first Joseph Jefferson. The John Street Theatre was used for the last time in 1798 and was later sold by Hallam for £115, the company moving into their new Park Theatre.