Ira Frederick Aldridge (July 24, 1807 – August 7, 1867) was an American-born British actor, playwright, and theatre manager, known for his portrayal of Shakespearean characters.

[2] Aldridge's first professional acting experience was in the early 1820s with the African Company, a group founded and managed by William Henry Brown and James Hewlett.

[6] Having limited onstage experience and lacking popular recognition, Aldridge concocted a story of his African lineage, claiming to have descended from the Fulani princely line.

Aldridge observed a common theatrical practice of assuming an identical or similar name to that of a celebrity in order to garner attention.

[4] On October 10, 1825, Aldridge made a much more high-profile debut at London's Royal Coburg Theatre, and became the first African-American actor to establish himself professionally in a foreign country.

[4] Bernth Lindfors stated: [W]hen Aldridge starts appearing on the stage at the Royalty Theatre, he's just called a gentleman of color.

For The Times he was "baker-kneed and narrow-chested with lips so shaped that it is utterly impossible for him to pronounce English"; The Globe found his conception of Oroonoko to be very judicious and his enunciation distinct and sonorous; and The Drama described him as "tall and tolerably well proportioned with a weak voice that gabbles apace.

[10] Meanwhile, The Athenaeum magazine was scandalized by a black man with white actresses, and the paper Figaro in London sought to "drive him from the stage" because of his color.

[12] In 1831 Aldridge successfully played in Dublin; at several locations in southern Ireland, where he created a sensation in the small towns; as well as in Bath, England and Edinburgh, Scotland.

Aldridge used this to his benefit and expanded African references in his biography that appeared in playbills,[6] also identifying his birthplace as "Africa" in his entry in the 1851 census.

[14][15] The Revenge (1721) race-flips the plot of Othello by showing how Zanga, a captured Moorish prince who has become the servant and confidant of the noble Don Alonzo, vengefully tricks him into believing his wife is unfaithful.

Alonzo finally kills himself and Zanga exults: "Let Europe and her pallid sons go weep; / Let Afric and her hundred thrones rejoice: / Oh, my dear countrymen, look down and see / How I bestride your prostrate conqueror!

"[16] An illustrated review of this performance[17] at the Surrey Theatre[18] shows Aldridge triumphing over Alonzo, dressed in flowing Moorish robes, which, according to the critic, "reminds one of the portraits of Abd-el Kader".

[23] In 1842, Aldridge performed in Lincoln; local newspapers reported that his arrival in a travelling coach was a remarkable sight and caused a stir with inhabitants of the city.

An 1858 tour took him to Serbia and to the Russian Empire, where he became acquainted with Count Fyodor Tolstoy, Mikhail Shchepkin and Ukrainian poet and artist Taras Shevchenko, who did his portrait in pastel.

[4] In its obituary of Aldridge, The New York Times stated he had been booked to appear in the city's Academy of Music in September, but "Death has prevented the fulfilment of his intention".

[34] His funeral in Łódź, where he died unexpectedly, was accompanied by an elaborate procession, with the Art Society carrying his medals and awards through the streets, and his large tomb in the city cemetery was covered in flowers.

[35] He recorded in his Memoir that she was "the natural daughter of a member of Parliament, and a man of high standing in the county of Berks", but her father was in reality a stocking-weaver from Northallerton, Yorkshire.

Lindfors suggests that Aldridge "may have invented this fiction to give her an air of respectability in polite society", raising her social status to protect her from criticism for marrying a black man.

[39][40] Aldridge bought 5 Hamlet Road, in the prosperous suburbs of Upper Norwood, London, in 1861–62 shortly before becoming a naturalised British citizen in 1863.

[33] A year after Margaret's death, on April 20, 1865, Aldridge married his mistress, the self-styled Swedish countess Amanda von Brandt (1834–1915).

At a hearing on January 14 in London before Mr. Justice Erle the jury found for the plaintiff Stothard, but in view of mitigating circumstances awarded him only £2 in damages.

[47] Aldridge was away on tour in Ireland when the trial took place[47] but he was heading the bill at a London theatre by the following year,[48] indicating the scandal caused his career no lasting damage.

The news of Ira Aldridge's death in Poland and the record of his achievement as an actor reached the American black community slowly.

Many black actors viewed him as an inspirational model, so when his death was revealed, several amateur groups sought to honor his memory by adopting his name for their companies.

In the late nineteenth century Aldridge-titled troupes were established in Washington, DC, in Philadelphia, and in New Haven, their respective productions at the time being an adaptation of Kotzebue's Die Spanier in Peru by Sheridan as Pizarro in 1883, School by Thomas William Robertson in 1885, and George Melville Baker's Comrades in 1889.

The Ira Aldridge Troupe is unique in annals of minstrelsy; it was named for a Black actor who had left his homeland some 35 years before and achieved fame in Europe.

The Clipper reporter referred to the performance as a "truly laughable affair, the 'Irish nagur' mixing up a rich Irish brogue promiscuously with the sweet nigger accent".

Although the play depicts racial and family conflict, and ends with Fabian's death, Aldridge was said to portray his title character with dignity.