The Arch Street Theatre, popularly referred to as The Arch, was one of three Philadelphia-based theaters for plays during the 19th century; the other two were the Walnut Street Theatre (still standing in 2024), and the Chestnut Street Theatre. [1] The Arch Street Theatre opened its doors on October 1, 1828, under the management of prominent early 19th century actor William B. Wood (1779-1861). The building's architect was John Haviland (1792-1852). [2]
The building which housed the Arch Street Theatre was located at 819 Arch Street, between 6th and 7th Streets in Center City, Philadelphia Performers at the longtime venue over its 108 years of history included Fanny Lily Gipsey Davenport, Joseph Jefferson, and Charlotte Cushman, others. [3] John Wilkes Booth (1838-1865) joined the theatre's stock company in 1857 and played for a full season. He appeared occasionally at the Arch during the 1850s and early 1860s. [4]
During the 1830s, prominent Shakespearean actor Edwin Forrest (1806-1872), played many successful roles at "The Arch", and several original plays written at his request debuted there. [5]
In 1832, the Arch Street Theatre of Philadelphia had an entire resident company of American actors, which was a first for American theater companies. [6] The managers were William Forrest, William Duffy, and William Jones. [7] The company also included James E. Murdoch (1811-1893). [6]
In 1860, the stockholders of the Arch suggested that Louisa Lane Drew (1820-1897), (and wife of her third husband, actor John Drew Sr (1827-1862), should assume the Arch Street management, and in 1861 the theatre was opened under the name "Mrs. John Drew's Arch Street Theatre", at the beginning of the American Civil War (1861-1865). Louisa Lane Drew was the grandmother of ryLionel, Ethel and John Barrymore, and matriarch / ancestor of the famous Barrymore-Drew acting family, which extended across several generations from the 18th, 19th, 20th and now even to the 21st centuries. [8] During the third season under Drew's management at Arch Street, Lester Wallack (1820-1888), E. L. Davenport (1816-1877), and Edwin Booth (1833-1893), all appeared and acted at "The Arch". [9]
In the summer of 1863, the theatre was partially pulled down and rebuilt / renovated with much more luxurious furnishings such as red plush seats and crystal chandeliers from the stage to the original stone front façade; [9] the seating capacity was one thousand, nine-hundred eleven (1,911). [10]
By 1875, the theatre became the venue for the first American performance of a work by British musical composers and playwrights partnership team Gilbert and Sullivan (W.S. Gilbert (1836-1911) and Arthur Sullivan (1842-1900), when another actress and theatre manager / producer Alice Oates (1849-1887),staged an unauthorized and approximate performance of their work Trial by Jury here. [11]
After Mrs. Drew's departure from management after over three decades in 1892, the stature of Philadelphia's Arch Street Theatre unfortunately slowly declined. [2] By 1898, Moishe ("Morris") Finkel (c.1850-1904), rented the building and presented Yiddish language (German / Hebrew) theater for Jewish patrons for several months, including one week of performances by Keni Liptzin (1856-1918). The prolific Yiddish theatre composer Joseph Brody (c.1876/77-1937), recently arrived from the Russian Empire (Russia), got his American start there as well. [12] However, Finkel soon abandoned the project and the Arch returned to vaudeville and burlesque.
In 1909, Mordechai ("Mike") Thomashefsky took over the Arch and presented both vaudeville of music and comedy along with Yiddish theatre until his death a quarter-century later in 1932. [13] [14]
The Arch Street Theater was rented out in 1921 as a hall for Jewish High Holiday services. [15]
The historic Arch Street Theatre was unfortunately demolished after 108 years in 1936. [16] Prior to its demolition, it was the second-oldest theatre in the country, next to the nearby Walnut Street Theatre, still standing in 2024.. [16]
John Drew was an Irish-American stage actor and theatre manager.
John Drew Jr., commonly known as John Drew during his life, was an American stage actor noted for his roles in Shakespearean comedy, society drama, and light comedies. He was the eldest son of John Drew Sr., who had given up a blossoming career in whaling for acting, and Louisa Lane Drew, and the brother of Louisa Drew, Georgiana Drew, and Sidney Drew. As such, he was also the uncle of John, Ethel, and Lionel Barrymore, and also great-great-uncle to Drew Barrymore. He was considered to be the leading matinee idol of his day, but unlike most matinee idols Drew's acting ability was largely undisputed.
Yiddish theatre consists of plays written and performed primarily by Jews in Yiddish, the language of the Ashkenazi Jewish community. The range of Yiddish theatre is broad: operetta, musical comedy, and satiric or nostalgic revues; melodrama; naturalist drama; expressionist and modernist plays. At its height, its geographical scope was comparably broad: from the late 19th century until just before World War II, professional Yiddish theatre could be found throughout the heavily Jewish areas of Eastern and East Central Europe, but also in Berlin, London, Paris, Buenos Aires and New York City.
Jacob Pavlovich Adler was a Jewish actor and star of Yiddish theater, first in Odessa, and later in London and in New York City's Yiddish Theater District.
Boris Thomashefsky, born Boruch-Aharon Thomashefsky, was a Ukrainian-born Jewish singer and actor who became one of the biggest stars in Yiddish theater.
Theater in the United States is part of the old European theatrical tradition and has been heavily influenced by the British theater. The central hub of the American theater scene is Manhattan, with its divisions of Broadway, Off-Broadway, and Off-Off-Broadway. Many movie and television stars have gotten their big break working in New York productions. Outside New York, many cities have professional regional or resident theater companies that produce their own seasons, with some works being produced regionally with hopes of eventually moving to New York. U.S. theater also has an active community theater culture, which relies mainly on local volunteers who may not be actively pursuing a theatrical career.
Moishe Finkel was a prominent figure in the early years of Yiddish theater. He was business partner first of Abraham Goldfaden and later of Sigmund Mogulesko and, for a time, was married to prima donna Annetta Schwartz. Together, they dominated Yiddish theatre in Bucharest in the early 1880s and in New York City in the late 1880s and into the 1890s, with a repertoire based mainly in the works of Joseph Lateiner and Moses Horowitz.
Bessie Thomashefsky, born Briche Baumfeld-Kaufman, was a Russian-born Jewish American singer, actress and comedian, a star in Yiddish theater beginning in the 1890s. She was the wife and stage partner of Boris Thomashefsky, the most popular Yiddish leading man of his era. Probably her most famous role was the title role of Oscar Wilde's Salomé at the People’s Theater in 1908.
Herbert Arthur Chamberlayne Blyth, known professionally by his stage name Maurice Barrymore, was an Indian-born British stage actor. He is the patriarch and one of the major ancestors of the prominent Barrymore-Drew acting family, and the ancestor / father of subsequent famous stage, film, radio, and television actors and celebrities of Lionel, Ethel, and John Barrymore, followed by great grand-daughter current actress Drew Barrymore.
Louisa Lane Drew was an English-born famous British American actress and theatre owner. manager and an ancestor of the prominent Barrymore-Drew acting family. Professionally, she was often billed and known as Mrs. John Drew.
Ada Dyas was an Irish actress. She made her London debut in 1861 in Henry IV, and became famous in the 1871 play based on Wilkie Collins's novel The Woman in White.
Elizabeth Crocker Bowers was an American stage actress and theatrical manager. She was also known professionally as Mrs. D. P. Bowers.
Mr. & Mrs. Sidney Drew were an American comedy team on stage and screen. The team initially consisted of Sidney Drew and his first wife Gladys Rankin. After Gladys died in 1914, Sidney Drew married Lucille McVey (1890–1925), and the two performed as Mr. and Mrs. Sidney Drew.
The National Yiddish Theatre Folksbiene, commonly known as NYTF, is a professional theater company in New York City which produces both Yiddish plays and plays translated into Yiddish, in a theater equipped with simultaneous superscript translation into English. The company's leadership consists of executive director Dominick Balletta and artistic director Zalmen Mlotek. The board is co-chaired by Sandra Cahn and Carol Levin.
The Irving Place Theatre was located at the southwest corner of Irving Place and East 15th Street in the Union Square neighborhood of Manhattan, New York City. Built in 1888, it served as a German language theatre, a Yiddish theatre, a burlesque house, a union meeting hall, a legitimate theatre and a movie theatre. It was demolished in 1984.
The Yiddish Theatre District, also called the Jewish Rialto and the Yiddish Realto, was the center of New York City's Yiddish theatre scene in the early 20th century. It was located primarily on Second Avenue, though it extended to Avenue B, between Houston Street and East 14th Street in the East Village in Manhattan. The District hosted performances in Yiddish of Jewish, Shakespearean, classic, and original plays, comedies, operettas, and dramas, as well as vaudeville, burlesque, and musical shows.
Florence Weiss was a Russian-born American Yiddish theatre, Vaudeville and film actor, recording artist, and soprano who was active from the 1920s to the 1960s. She worked and performed with such artists as Moishe Oysher, Alexander Olshanetsky, Boris Thomashefsky, Fyvush Finkel, and Abe Ellstein. The height of her popularity was during the 1930s, when she often toured and performed with her then-husband, Moishe Oysher, and appeared in three Yiddish-language films with him: The Cantor's Son, The Singing Blacksmith, and Overture to Glory.
Philip Laskowsky was a Polish-born American composer, arranger, bandleader, comedian and actor of the Yiddish theatre. He collaborated with a number of well-known figures of the American Yiddish theatre such as Boris Thomashefsky, Louis Gilrod, Isidore Lillian, Jacob Jacobs, and Rubin Doctor. He is sometimes credited with having written the music for the well-known Yiddish song Oyfn veg shteyt a boym, although this is disputed.
Arthur McKee Rankin (1841–1914) was a Canadian born American stage actor and manager. He was the son of a member of the Canadian Parliament. After a dispute with his father he left home to become an actor. He made his stage debut in Rochester, New York in 1861 using the name George Henley. In 1863 he was seen at Wood's Theatre in Cincinnati in the play The Stranger as The Count. During this time he was engaged by Mrs. John Drew at her Arch Street Theatre in Philadelphia. Rankin, a Canadian, had no role or participation in the American Civil War. In 1866 he appeared at the Olympic Theatre in London run by Mrs. John Wood. Rankin increasingly became popular in the melodramas of the period and in 1867 was in a play called The Hunchback. In 1870 he appeared with Lydia Thompson in Mosquito and was a leading man from 1873 to 1875 at the famous Union Square Theatre. Having married Elizabeth Blanchard better known as Kitty they acted together in the 1870s appearing in the smash hit play The Two Orphans in 1874. He collaborated with playwright Frederick G. Maeder on several plays, among them The Runaway Wife and The Canuck.
Julius Nathanson was a prominent figure on the Yiddish stage, known for his career as both a character actor and comedian. Over the course of nearly five decades, he made significant contributions to Yiddish theater.