Publisher's Synopsis
Excerpt from History of the Providence Stage, 1762-1891
In 1749 a theatrical company was playing in Philadelphia, and on the police records of that city, bearing date January 8, 1749, it is written that the Recorder acquainted the Board with some facts concerning certain persons who had lately taken upon themselves to act play acts, etc. In 175othis same company went to New York, and played in a wooden building in Nassau street which they had hastily converted into a theatre capable of seating about three hundred per sons. They then went to Williamsburg, Va., and, under the Presidency of Thomas Lee the Philadelphia and New York Company of Comedians, as they were called, obtained permission to erect a theatre in Williamsburg, which was be gun and finished in the year 1750. This company consisted of amateur performers, assisted by one or two actors, who had straggled from the British West India Islands,2 probably from Moody's company.
Theatrical performances of some kind had taken place in New York as early as 1733, but there is no information touching the names, number, or quality of the performers, the only evidence of their existence being an advertisement in Bradford's Gazette of that year, by which a tradesman calls public attention to his place of business next door to the play-house.3 It is not probable that this place was the scene of any professional acting.
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