Olympic Theatre (New York City)

Converted in 1800 from a former circus building, it was named the Olympic Theatre in July 1812 under the management of actor-manager William Twaits along with Alexander Placide and Jean Baptiste Casmiere Breschard.

It was designed by the architect Calvin Pollard, who modeled it on the Olympic Theatre in London, which concentrated on Victorian burlesque, a form of theatrical parody, often of opera or classic plays.

[11] Under Keene's management, the theatre saw a number of notable premieres including Our American Cousin in 1858 by English playwright Tom Taylor when the title character was played by Jefferson with Edward Askew Sothern as Lord Dundreary.

Keene was acting in the play at Ford's Theatre in Washington, D.C., on 14 April 1865 when United States President Abraham Lincoln, in the audience, was assassinated by actor and Confederate sympathizer John Wilkes Booth.

Other works to receive their premieres here included the melodrama The Colleen Bawn by Dion Boucicault (1860) and the long-running musical The Seven Sisters (1860–1861).

Built in 1868 for the Tammany Society, the building had an auditorium big enough to hold public meetings, and a smaller one that became the Olympic Theatre.

After Bryant's Minstrels left, the theatre was leased to a German company: Tammany Hall merged politics and entertainment, already stylistically similar, in its new headquarters.

The Tammany Society kept only one room for itself, renting the rest to entertainment impresarios: Don Bryant's Minstrels, a German theater company, classical concerts and opera.

The basement – in the French mode – offered the Café Ausant, where one could see tableaux vivant, gymnastic exhibitions, pantomimes, and Punch and Judy shows.

[16] After Pastor left in 1908 the theatre was renamed the Olympic and became a burlesque house until Tammany Hall was sold in 1928 and demolished in the same year.