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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.

Name: 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.
Author: Daly, Charles P. (Charles Patrick)

Daly, Charles P. (Charles Patrick)

Theater -- United States -- History

It will not be necessary in a brief review like this to refer to what
many eminent men have said in favor of the stage, as my purpose has
been to consider the objections made against it, and it is the less
necessary as it has already been admirably done by John W. Calcraft,
manager of the Theater Royal of Dublin, in a volume entitled “A Defence
of the Stage,” published in that city in 1839. Calcraft was not only
a manager of a theater, but a man with a large amount of information
respecting the history of the drama, and a good classical scholar, who
was able to consult the authorities when requisite in the original.
He prefixes at the beginning of the book a list of those he cites or
quotes in it in favor of the stage, which, independent of literary
men and other writers, contains four cardinals, nine archbishops,
fourteen bishops, and forty-six divines, and among them are some of
the most eminent names in the church, as St. Thomas Aquinas, called
the Angelic Doctor, Albertus Magnus, St. Antoninus, Archbishop of
Florence, Melanchthon, and Martin Luther, the latter of whom writes:
“of all amusements the theater is the most profitable”; and it further
appears, on the authority of Baker’s Biographia Dramatica, that more
than one hundred clergymen in England have written plays. Calcraft also
gives a remarkable illustration of an attempt to carry out what writers
against the stage have earnestly advocated, the entire suppression
of the theater, as if all mankind were made like themselves, or were
capable of being made so. Charles Borromeo, Archbishop of Milan, in his
zeal for the security of the public morals, “shut up the play-house
and expelled the players, strollers, and minstrels as debauchers and
corrupters of mankind, but soon had reason to alter his opinion, for
he found that the people ran into all manner of excesses, and that,
wanting something to amuse them, they committed the most horrid crimes
by way of pastime. On this account he repented of his edict, recalled
the banished players, and granted them a free use and liberty of the
stage.”

Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.

Opening the text

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

It will not be necessary in a brief review like this to refer to what
many eminent men have said in favor of the stage, as my purpose has
been to consider the objections made against it, and it is the less
necessary as it has already been admirably done by John W. Calcraft,
manager of the Theater Royal of Dublin, in a volume entitled “A Defence
of the Stage,” published in that city in 1839. Calcraft was not only
a manager of a theater, but a man with a large amount of information
respecting the history of the drama, and a good classical scholar, who
was able to consult the authorities when requisite in the original.
He prefixes at the beginning of the book a list of those he cites or
quotes in it in favor of the stage, which, independent of literary
men and other writers, contains four cardinals, nine archbishops,
fourteen bishops, and forty-six divines, and among them are some of
the most eminent names in the church, as St. Thomas Aquinas, called
the Angelic Doctor, Albertus Magnus, St. Antoninus, Archbishop of
Florence, Melanchthon, and Martin Luther, the latter of whom writes:
“of all amusements the theater is the most profitable”; and it further
appears, on the authority of Baker’s Biographia Dramatica, that more
than one hundred clergymen in England have written plays. Calcraft also
gives a remarkable illustration of an attempt to carry out what writers
against the stage have earnestly advocated, the entire suppression
of the theater, as if all mankind were made like themselves, or were
capable of being made so. Charles Borromeo, Archbishop of Milan, in his
zeal for the security of the public morals, “shut up the play-house
and expelled the players, strollers, and minstrels as debauchers and
corrupters of mankind, but soon had reason to alter his opinion, for
he found that the people ran into all manner of excesses, and that,
wanting something to amuse them, they committed the most horrid crimes
by way of pastime. On this account he repented of his edict, recalled
the banished players, and granted them a free use and liberty of the
stage.”

Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.

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.

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.

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