First Theater in America.

The Dunlap Society founded in New YorkFirst Theater in America.WHEN WAS THE DRAMA FIRST INTRODUCED IN AMERICA?

The Dunlap Society founded in New York

Dunlap, the historian of the American Stage, informs us that the drama was introduced in this country by William Hallam, the successor of Garrick in Goodman’s Field Theatre, who formed a joint stock company and sent them to America under the management of his brother Lewis Hallam in the year 1752, and that the first play ever acted in America was the “Merchant of Venice,” represented by this company on September 5, 1752, at Williamsburg, then the capital of Virginia, in an old store-house which they converted into a theater within two months after their arrival at Yorktown. Dunlap’s familiarity with the subject, the fact that he derived his information from Lewis Hallam, Jr., who came out a boy twelve years of age with this early company, and the circumstance that Burke, in his “History of Virginia,” has the same statement, have been deemed sufficiently satisfactory, and William Hallam, whom Dunlap calls“the Father of the American stage,” has been accepted as the person who first introduced the drama in America.[1]

FOOTNOTES:[1]This is a mistake. Dunlap gives a quotation from Burke’s “History of Virginia” as follows: “Under the presidency of Thomas Lee, the New York Company of Comedians obtained permission to erect a theatre in Williamsburg,i. e., in the year 1750, when no New York company existed, or any other on the continent.” The last sentence, “when no New York company existed, or any other on the continent,” is not by Burke, but by Dunlap, which led me to suppose that Burke agreed with Dunlap that the drama was first introduced in America by Hallam. Burke refers to Kean & Murray’s company, who played in New York from the 6th of March to the 30th of April, 1750, and in the subsequent part of the year may have gone to Williamsburg, Virginia, and obtained permission to erect a theater there as stated by Burke.[2]Dunlap afterward acknowledged his error in a manuscript note to his copy of his history, now in the possession of Thomas J. McKee, Esq., of the city of New York.[2]Burke’s “History of Virginia,” Vols. i and ii. Harpers, 1832.

[1]This is a mistake. Dunlap gives a quotation from Burke’s “History of Virginia” as follows: “Under the presidency of Thomas Lee, the New York Company of Comedians obtained permission to erect a theatre in Williamsburg,i. e., in the year 1750, when no New York company existed, or any other on the continent.” The last sentence, “when no New York company existed, or any other on the continent,” is not by Burke, but by Dunlap, which led me to suppose that Burke agreed with Dunlap that the drama was first introduced in America by Hallam. Burke refers to Kean & Murray’s company, who played in New York from the 6th of March to the 30th of April, 1750, and in the subsequent part of the year may have gone to Williamsburg, Virginia, and obtained permission to erect a theater there as stated by Burke.[2]Dunlap afterward acknowledged his error in a manuscript note to his copy of his history, now in the possession of Thomas J. McKee, Esq., of the city of New York.

[2]Burke’s “History of Virginia,” Vols. i and ii. Harpers, 1832.

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