First Theater in America: When was the drama first introduced in America? An inquiry, including a consideration of the objections that have been made to the stage.Daly, Charles P. (Charles Patrick)
History
First Theater in America: When was the drama first introduced in America? An inquiry, including a consideration of the objections that have been made to the stage.
Daly, Charles P. (Charles Patrick)
Theater -- United States -- History
Forty shillings would seem to be a high price at that time to pay for
a ticket to a dramatic entertainment. But what the value of a shilling
was then in South Carolina compared to the value of a pound sterling,
I do not know. The price of a box ticket at Kean & Murray’s theater
in Nassau street fifteen years afterwards was five shillings New York
currency, which was about the value of two dollars at the present
day, and if the value of the South Carolina currency at that day was
anything near that of New York, this high price for admission would
imply either that the Court House where the performance of Otway’s
Orphan took place did not afford room for many spectators or that the
number of persons who were expected to patronize the entertainment was
small, so that a high price of admission was necessary to meet the
expenses and afford some remuneration to the players, who, I infer,
were a regular theatrical company, as a charge was made for admission,
and the performances were continued once a week, from the 24th of
January to March 23, 1735-36, during which tragedies, comedies,
farces, and other entertainments were given.
The writer in the “Times” says that the play announced in the
advertisement, Otway’s “Orphan,” was performed, though the next
“Gazette” took no notice of it, the “local” being of the briefest
character; but the number of the “Gazette” of February, 1736, published
the Prologue spoken on the opening night, which has at least the merit
of easy versification and of being appropriate to such an occasion: He
gives it as follows:
PROLOGUE.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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