America’s only established theater troupe, The Great American Company, had been forced to flee to Jamaica. However, thanks to the manager’s persistence, it returned in 1784 following the end of the American Revolutionary War. One of the cities that had encouraged theater prewar, Charleston, South Carolina, embraced it with open arms.
Ironically, what we consider the hub of live theater today, Boston, New York, and Philadelphia, rejected efforts to bring live theater into their communities. These, and other cities, enacted bans, going as far as to arrest anyone involved in theater. Including the patrons themselves.
By the end of the 18th Century, economic and cultural reforms began to take hold of the nation. New men were in power, and many believed live theater could promote nationalism and patriotism. Beautiful new playhouses with red velvet curtains and crystal chandeliers popped up in communities where powerful people could connect. Not only plays were performed there, but the elite enjoyed other social activities, as well.
At least, that was the hope.
It soon became evident that British influence was still unwelcome, and its plays were no exception. Dissenting political views disrupted the elegance that the theater managers wished to promote.
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| William Dunlap https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:William_Dunlap_Engraving.jpg |
Before explaining what happened, it’s important to note this about playwright, actor, and producer William Dunlap. Although he was born in Perth Amboy, New Jersey in 1766, that city was located in one of the colonies owned by the British Empire at the time. His father was Northern Irish and was wounded at the Battle of Quebec in 1759. In other words, he was an American born under British influence.
The play, André, is about the real person, Major John André, a British spy hanged for his role in the treason of Benedict Arnold.
So now, we have a playhouse full of American patriots of two different factions in post-war New York, watching a play about a British officer who had been executed by George Washington, written by an American with British ties. What could go wrong?
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| Tricorn hat with cockade |
The riot sparked when an American character in the play, named Bland, is furious with Washington and rips off the black cockade from his three-cornered hat (a Federalist symbol) and throws it away. How dare he dishonor America! As a result of this theater revolt, Dunlap was forced to revise the ending.
So, how did William Dunlap come to be known as the Father of American Drama? He became devoted to the shaping of American theater, writing more than fifty original scripts, translations, and adaptations. Besides his management of New York’s John Street and Park Theatres at the turn of the century, he also wrote A History of the American Theatre in 1832. He turned out to be an advocate of shunning the old European system and encouraged the practice of allowing artists freedom of expression and thought.
Dunlap was one of the first to believe that theater could transform the new nation, teaching lessons of “patriotism, virtue, morality, and religion.”
Eventually, thanks to William Dunlap and others, by the early half of the 19th century, America, along with the American theater, was well on the journey of establishing its own identity.
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