Richmond Theatre (Richmond, Virginia)
[4] The idea for this organization originated with the French scholar and soldier Chevalier Alexandre-Marie Quesnay de Beaurepaire who had come to the United States in March 1777 to fight in the American Revolutionary War.
[14][15] Regardless, sources agree that the repertoire of Hallam and Henry's season in Richmond included the stage works Poor Soldier, School for Scandal, and Alexander the Great ; or , the Rival Queens.
[26] The theatre was then taken over by a company led by Thomas Abthorpe Cooper whose first appearance in Richmond was in the title role of William Shakespeare's Hamlet in April 1806.
[27] Other works performed at the Richmond Theatre in 1806 included the plays Speed the Plough (1806) by Thomas Morton,[23] The Irishman in London by William Macready the Elder,[23] The Sailor's Daughter by Richard Cumberland; and the ballad opera The Devil to Pay by Charles Coffey and John Mottley.
[30] After the first act of this second play, a chandelier with lit candles was raised by one of the stage hands, and it swung and caught fire to the backdrop which was made of paper.
Accordingly, that property was purchased by the governing board of the Richmond Theatre shortly after it opened, and it was razed in order to alleviate public concerns over another fire.
[54] On July 6, 1821, the celebrated English actor Junius Brutus Booth gave his first performance in the United States at the RT in the title role of Shakespeare's Richard III.
The company could have used any one of multiple extant English language adaptations; including ones by British writers Frederick Reynolds and Anne Plumptre, or one by American playwright William Dunlap.
[55] It is possible that Dunlap's English language adaptation of Kotzebue's 1790 play Menschenhass und Reue, The Stranger; or, Misanthropy and Repentance, was used when it was staged at the theatre.
[57] In 1828 the RT staged two plays by Richmond native Stephen T. Mitchell, including The Maid of Missolonghi, which was based on a poem by Lord Byron.
[58] She was a member of the Compact Corps Dramatique stock company which was headlined by her father, the esteemed English actor Thomas Abthorpe Cooper.
[66] The work was highly political and was a tool of propaganda to bolster Southern national identity in the years leading up to Secession in the United States.
[71] John Wilkes Booth, who later achieved notoriety for the assassination of Abraham Lincoln, joined the permanent company of players at the Marshall Theatre in 1858, and remained until 1860 when he began a national tour.
[62] Hewitt and the actor Richard D'Orsey Ogden were both asleep in the theatre when the fire broke out, and while they managed to escape with their lives, they both suffered severe burns.
[91] Among the leading actors in the NRT's company were Harry Macarthy, Edmund R. Dalton, Theo Hamilton, Walter Keeble, and Charles Morton.
[92] Leading actresses of the company included Clementine Debar Booth,[93] sisters Ella and Eliza Wren, Eloise Bridges, Ida Vernon, and Lucille Weston.
[94] Ogden frequently programmed plays by Shakespeare, using versions originally crafted by David Garrick that had been further modified by John Philip Kemble.
Some of the other plays in the company's repertoire during the war years included John Maddison Morton's Box and Cox, John Webster's The Duchess of Malfi, Oliver Goldsmith's She Stoops to Conquer, Richard Brinsley Sheridan's The Rivals, and multiple plays by writers Dion Boucicault, Augustin Daly, James Planché, Charles Selby, Eugène Scribe, Charles W. Taylor, and Tom Taylor.
The Plains of Manassas, which was used to nostalgize the Antebellum South and promote Southern national identity; an ideology necessary for the Confederate States of America's success.
[97] The greatest popular success at the NRT was the war musical The Virginia Cavalier (1863)[103] which used lyrics by George W. Alexander, Commandant of the Castle Thunder Confederate prison.
[104] Other original Confederate plays that premiered at the NRT included J.J. Delchamp's Love's ambuscade ; or The sergeant's stratagem;[105] and the anonymous farce Great Expectations; or.
He presented his Personation Concerts at the New Richmond Theatre not long after it opened, and his song "The Bonnie Blue Flag", which he performed with his partner, the actress Lottie Estelle, was a tremendous hit.
The NRT increasingly moved away from serious dramatic repertoire and more towards sensational works of lesser quality; largely to meet the tastes of the general populace in order to maintain robust ticket sales.
The Magnolia wrote the following in its review: All the striking and attractive features claimed for it by the management have been fully realized in the representation; and by universal acknowledgement it is one of the most remarkable creations upon the modern stage.
[65] Ogden himself was arrested for avoiding conscription in October 1864 and was put into the Castle Thunder prison; ultimately being sentenced to three months of hard labor on December 29, 1864.
[115] The theatre maintained a busy schedule, playing to packed houses even as Richmond's situation became increasingly dire due to the military blockade.
[116] Three new plays to the NRT's repertoire were added in March 1865: Planché's Nell Gwynn, William Henry Oxberry's Norma, and Daniel Auber's opera, Fra Diavolo.
[123] Cowardin was the son of a powerful newspaper publisher in Richmond and used this lecture to lampoon the political conflict between politicians Thomas Bayne and Joseph R.
[130] In March 1869 the theatre presented a series of German language operas starring Marie Frederici, including The Magic Flute, Der Freischütz, and Martha.
[148] Among the stage plays programmed by Ogden in the fall of 1870 were Frou-Frou,[149] School for Scandal,[150] Rip Van Winkle,[151] and William T. Peterschen's pantomime The Green Monster, or, The White Knight and the Giant Warrior.
