William Dunlap

William Dunlap , 1766-1839, American dramatist and theatrical manager, b. Perth Amboy, N.J. Inspired by the success of The Contrast by Royall Tyler, he began to write plays for the American Company (see Hallam, Lewis ). His second comedy, The Father; or, American Shandyism, produced in 1789, was his first success. Later plays of his are excellent examples of the Gothic romance school. André (1798), a tragedy based on an actual occurrence in the Revolution, was the first native play on American material. He was a partner in the American Company (1796-97) and he later was manager of the Park Theatre, New York City (1798-1805). Dunlap was a founder and secretary of the National Academy of Design. His History of the American Theatre (1832) and History of the Rise and Progress of the Arts of Design in the United States (1834) are invaluable source books and contain important autobiographical material. Dunlap's diary was edited by D. C. Barck in 1930.

Bibliography: See biographies by O. S. Coad (1917, repr. 1962) and R. H. Canary (1970).

Dunlap, William (1766–1839), manager and playwright. The earliest enduring figure of the American theatre, he was born in Perth Amboy, New Jersey, and although he apparently had little formal education, he read Shakespeare as a youth. His attraction to the theatre was consolidated during the Revolutionary War when he watched British soldiers perform in New York, where the family had moved. Although he sailed for England in 1784 to study painting with Benjamin West, the London theatres proved an irresistible lure. Watching the latest plays and classics performed by Mrs. Siddons, Charles Kemble, and the other leading performers of the day established standards which he strove to maintain throughout his career. Dunlap returned to America in 1787, where, inspired by Royall Tyler's The Contrast, he wrote The Modest Soldier; or, Love in New York for the American Company. The play was rejected, but his comedy The Father; or, American Shandyism (1789) was successfully produced. He continued to write for the company and in 1796 was made one of its partners, along with John Hodgkinson and Lewis Hallam. When Hallam withdrew from the partnership in 1797, Dunlap and Hodgkinson continued and together opened the Park Theatre in 1798. Two of his most successful plays appeared in 1798: the Revolutionary War drama André and The Stranger, based on a von Kotzebue work. Dunlap's translation initiated Kotzebue's American vogue, and he translated at least ten more of his plays. In addition to running the Park alone (after Hodgkinson's retirement), he also leased the Haymarket in Boston and worked closely with the Chestnut Street Theatre in Philadelphia.

Under his aegis the Park presented a repertory of modern and traditional works and offered English performers opportunities of appearing in America. He was forced to relinquish his management in 1805, when he declared bankruptcy, but a year later he returned to serve as assistant to the new manager, Thomas Abthorpe Cooper. Even after he retired, Dunlap continued to write plays (some sixty or seventy in all, mostly adaptations from the French or German) and in 1832 published his monumental History of the American Theatre. He also attempted to publish his plays, but only one volume was issued before his death. During his theatrical career, Dunlap endeavored, with only limited success, to overcome the snobbish preference for things British. Although he welcomed the best artists and works from overseas, he actively encouraged American actors and playwrights. He was also aware of the conflict in the theatre between commercialism and art and tried, without success, to get the government to subsidize playhouses. A highly puritanical man, he frequently eliminated what he deemed offensive passages in works he translated, and he fought futilely against the accepted practice of allowing a special section in theatres set aside for ladies of questionable virtue. Arthur Hobson Quinn concluded a long chapter devoted to Dunlap by noting, “[he] had the soul of an artist and the intrepidity of the pioneer, and his place in our dramatic literature will remain secure.” Autobiography: Diary of William Dunlap, 1930.

Dunlap, William (1766–1839), American dramatist and theatre manager, the dominating force of the American stage from 1790 to 1810. He went to England in 1784 to study art, but neglected his work for the theatre. On his return to the USA in 1787 he wrote a comedy for the American Company which was accepted but never acted. A second comedy, The Father; or, American Shandyism, was produced at the John Street Theatre in 1789. In 1796 he became one of the American Company's managers in partnership with the younger Hallam and Hodgkinson, strengthening the company by the inclusion of the first Joseph Jefferson. In 1797 Hallam withdrew from active management, and Hodgkinson and Dunlap opened the first Park Theatre in 1798 with As You Like It. One of the first plays staged there was André, a tragedy which Dunlap based on an incident in the War of Independence—the first native tragedy on American material. Hodgkinson played André, and the part of his friend Bland was taken by Thomas Abthorpe Cooper, who was to succeed Dunlap as lessee and manager of the theatre.

In 1798 Hodgkinson left the Park and Dunlap continued on his own, producing adaptations of French and German plays, mainly those of Kotzebue of which the most successful were The Stranger, Lovers' Vows, The Wild Goose Chase, The Virgin of the Sun and its sequel Pizarro, as well as some of his own plays, among them Leicester and The Italian Father. Many of them were performed also in Boston, where Dunlap had leased the Haymarket Theatre, and in Philadelphia under Warren and Wood at the Chestnut Street Theatre. Meanwhile Dunlap struggled on at the Park, hampered by temperamental actors and recurrent epidemics of yellow fever, until in 1805 he went bankrupt. A year later he became assistant stage manager at the Park under Cooper. In 1812 he accompanied George Frederick Cooke on his American tour, and then retired from the theatre to devote himself to literature and painting.