J. H. Ryley

A New York critic later claimed that their "Dancing Quakers" routine was parodied by Margaret and Despard in Gilbert and Sullivan's 1887 opera Ruddigore.

[4] In 1875, Ryley played Fernando in the comic opera Cattarina by Robert Reece and Frederic Clay at the Charing Cross Theatre and later on tour.

[3] Ryley joined Richard D'Oyly Carte's Comedy-Opera Company Ltd. in 1878, appearing as John Wellington Wells in the first provincial production of The Sorcerer, and the Learned Judge in Trial by Jury on the same bill.

[3] In October the company added Congenial Souls, a one-act farce written by Ryley using music by Jacques Offenbach, to the program as a curtain raiser.

[5][6] In 1879, Ryley was chosen to play Sir Joseph in the first authentic American production of Pinafore at New York City's Fifth Avenue Theatre, which opened on 1 December 1879.

He was Captain Felix Flapper in Billee Taylor (1881), Reginald Bunthorne in Patience (1881–82), Blood Red Bill in Edward Solomon's Claude Duval (1882), Philip of Aragon and Don Jose de Mantilla Les Manteaux Noirs (1882), Peter van Dunk in Rip Van Winkle (1882, with Selina Dolaro), and the Lord Chancellor in Iolanthe and Mr. Cox in Cox and Box (1882–83).

[9] He also appeared with Russell in a tour that included Iolanthe (as Lord Chancellor, 1887), and was Jack Point in The Yeomen of the Guard in Boston, Massachusetts in February 1889.