Field, Joseph M. (1810–56), actor, manager, and playwright. Born to English parents in Dublin and distantly related to the Elizabethan playwright Nathaniel Field, he was brought to America at the age of two and made his acting debut at Boston's Tremont Theatre in 1827. By 1830 he had performed in all the major American theatre centers and had written a popular afterpiece,
Down South; or, A Militia Training. Although Field excelled at comedy roles such as Jeremy Diddler in
Raising the Wind, Sir Benjamin Backbite in
The School for Scandal, and Flutter in
The Belle's Stratagem, he was not unsuccessful in essaying Sir Giles Overreach, Romeo, Othello, Jaffier, Claude Melnotte, and other tragic and melodramatic parts. In 1835 Noah
Ludlow brought him west, where he began to figure as an important playwright and performer, especially in St. Louis. Indeed, Ludlow's editor speaks of Field as “the first Western playwright who in any sense could wear that label, and a Western actor who almost made the grade into the rarefied air of stardom.” During this period he also played New York, Philadelphia, Mobile, and New Orleans, temporarily abandoning the stage in 1841 to become the
New Orleans Picayune's foreign correspondent. Field returned to America in 1842 to become William Mitchell's right‐hand man at the Olympic. While continuing to act and write in later years, he also managed a theatre in Mobile and Field's Varieties Theatre in St. Louis. Among his many plays are
Victoria; or, The Lion and the Kiss (1839),
Tourists in America (1840),
Oregon, or, The Disputed Territory (1846), and
Family Ties; or, The Will of Uncle Josh (1846).
