The theatre seems to be the oldest institution in this country, and to be a good deal older than the nation itself. For while the great American people celebrated its centennial only seven or eight years ago in Philadelphia, and New York kept its centennial only last week, the American theatre had its centennial over thirty years ago, and held it in this city, altho’ the event has been almost utterly forgotten, like almost anythin’ else thirty years old and over, would be likely to be in New York.
This theatrical centennial was held on the evenin’ of Monday, Sept. 6, 1852. It should have been commemorated the evening before, Sept. 5, as that was precisely the centennial evenin; the first regular theatrical performance in America havin’ been given on Sept. 5, 1752, but that fallin’ on a Sunday, just as the centennial Evacuation day fell on Sunday, the performance was postponed one day.
This theatrical centennial was very appropriately held for the benefit of the American Dramatic Fund Association, and to make it as realistic as possible, the same pieces were produced at the centennial performance as had been given at the first performance, namely Shakespeare’s “Merchant of Venice” and Garrick’s piece called “Lethe.”
The performance was held at Castle Garden and was largely attended. It really was a good idea well carried out.
There was some discussion in the papers and among theatrical people at the time as to whether the date celebrated really was correct–whether the performance of “Merchant of Venice” and “Lethe,” at Williamsburg, Va., given by the English company of actors was really the first theatrical performance held in this country. The Philadelphia papers claimed that the first performance of a play ever held in America was given in their town four years before this Virginia entertainment. This may have been the case, but as there was no regular company of professionals then in existence in America, it must have been a sort of outside or amateur entertainment.
And then a claim was put in for the amateurs by an “old amateur,” who wrote to the papers a communication trying to prove that years before the Williamsburg show–and years before the Philadelphia performance, there had been a theater for amateurs in full feather here in New York on Cruger’s wharf, between old Slip and Coffee House Slip, which was then in the very centre of New York.
From all I can find it is very probable that this statement of the “old amateur” was correct. But then amateur performances cannot be counted as regular theatrical entertainments. They come under the social head rather than the dramatic. So that, taken accordin’ to the facts, I think there can be no doubt that while it is probably that the first play ever produced in America was given here in New York by amateurs, and while there were probably several early amateur performances given in Philadelphia, yet the first regular professionally theatrical performance ever given in America was given by the English company of “Virginian comedians” at Williamsburg, Va., the centennial of which as I have just stated, was held at Castle Garden over thirty years ago.
One thing is certain. The American Theatre has always been under greater obligations to the amateurs then it is likely to acknowledge. It was to a wealthy amateur, a gentleman of fortune and position here in New York, who had a great fondness and taste for amateur theatricals, that New York was indebted for its first regular theater buildin’. This gentleman’s name was Douglass, David Douglass, who finally joined the professional stage and became actor and manager on his own account.
He stepped into the shoes of the elder Hallam, the first regular “manager” in this country. He married Hallam’s widow and assumed the care of Hallam’s theatrical company, and I hold that no man can succeed another more thoroughly or step into his shoes more completely than by assumin’ both his business and his wife. Douglass got along with both wife and business pretty well, and made money.
After awhile, as New York increased in size and space, Douglass felt the importance of keeping pace with the growth of the city, so, like the rest of the managers since his time, he moved up town and opened a theatre in Beekman street, then quite a swell locality.
One of Douglass’s family, along with John Henry, the actor, opened the John Street Theatre, which was followed in time by the Greenwich Theatre. These theatres–first, the temporary rooms in Nassau Street, where the first New York performance was given; second, the theatre on Cruger’s wharf; third, the Beekman Street Theatre; fourth, the John Street Theater; fifth, the Greenwich Street Circus and Theatre–were the “early five” theatres, as they have been called, prior to the startin’ of the first great, and one of the very greatest New York theatres, the Park, from the openin’ of which many date New York theatricals altogether.
