Our American Cousin is a three-act play by English playwright Tom Taylor. It is a farce featuring awkward, boorish American Asa Trenchard, who is introduced to his aristocratic English relatives when he goes to England to claim the family estate. The play premiered with great success at Laura Keene's Theatre in New York City in 1858, with Keene in the cast, the title character played by Joseph Jefferson, and Edward Askew Sothern playing Lord Dundreary. The play's long-running London production in 1861 was also successful.
Edmund Kean was a celebrated British Shakespearean stage actor born in England, who performed, among other places, in London, Belfast, New York, Quebec, and Paris. He was known for his short stature, tumultuous personal life, and controversial divorce.
Edwin Forrest was a prominent nineteenth-century American Shakespearean actor. His feud with the British actor William Macready was the cause of the deadly Astor Place Riot of 1849.
Joseph Jefferson III, commonly known as Joe Jefferson, was an American actor. He was the third actor of this name in a family of actors and managers, and one of the most famous 19th century American comedians. Beginning as a young child, he continued as a performer for most of his 76 years. Jefferson was particularly well known for his adaptation and portrayal of Rip Van Winkle on the stage, reprising the role in several silent film adaptations. After 1865, he created no other major role and toured with this play for decades.
Leonard Francis Penn was an American actor and director and the father of musician Michael Penn and actors Sean Penn and Chris Penn.
Eamon Joseph O'Brien was an American actor and film director. In a career spanning nearly four decades, he won an Academy Award, two Golden Globe Awards, and two stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
The Skin of Our Teeth is a play by Thornton Wilder that won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama. It opened on October 15, 1942, at the Shubert Theatre in New Haven, Connecticut, before moving to the Plymouth Theatre on Broadway on November 18, 1942. It was produced by Michael Myerberg and directed by Elia Kazan with costumes by Mary Percy Schenck. The play is a three-part allegory about the life of mankind, centering on the Antrobus family of the fictional town of Excelsior, New Jersey. The epic comedy-drama is noted as among the most heterodox of classic American comedies — it broke nearly every established theatrical convention.
Edward Askew Sothern was an English actor known for his comic roles in Britain and America, particularly Lord Dundreary in Our American Cousin. He was also known for his many practical jokes.
Nathaniel Carl "Nat" Goodwin was an American actor and vaudevillian born in Boston.
Marilyn Miller was one of the most popular Broadway musical stars of the 1920s and early 1930s. She was an accomplished tap dancer, singer and actress, and the combination of these talents endeared her to audiences. On stage, she usually played rags-to-riches Cinderella characters who lived happily ever after. Her enormous popularity and famed image were in distinct contrast to her personal life, which was marred by disappointment, tragedy, frequent illness, and ultimately her sudden death due to complications of nasal surgery at age 37.
Charles Fisher was an Anglo-American stage actor and comedian. Born to a prolific theatrical family from Norfolk, England, Fisher went on to find success as an actor in different parts of England, and then from 1852 onwards in New York City where he worked as a highly regarded performer for almost 40 years in the companies of William E. Burton, Laura Keene, James William Walluck, and Augustin Daly.
Madge Titheradge was an Australian-born actress who became a leading actress in the West End of London and on Broadway.
Mary Ann Duff was an English tragedienne, in her time regarded as the greatest upon the American stage. She was born in London, England, and died in New York City, United States.
John Gibbs Gilbert was an American stage actor whose real name was Gibbs.
Blanche Yurka was an American stage and film actress and director. She was an opera singer with minor roles at the Metropolitan Opera and later became a stage actress, making her Broadway debut in 1906 and established herself as a character actor of the classical stage, also appearing in several films of the 1930s and 1940s.
Thomas Wignell was an English-born actor and theatre manager in the colonial United States.
Raymond Hitchcock was an American silent film actor, stage actor, and stage producer, who appeared in, or produced 30 plays on Broadway from 1898 to 1928, and who appeared in the silent films of the 1920s.
Julia Stewart was an English actress. Beginning her career as a child actress, she went on to success on the London stage in adult roles in the late 1870s. She appeared on stage in New York from 1879.
William E. Sheridan was an American stage actor and Civil War veteran, active on stage from 1858 until his death in 1887. Sheridan was a respected actor who played both lead and supporting roles, but was probably best suited when cast as the villain.
William John Hammond was a British actor-manager and singer of comic songs of the early 19th-century. He played Sam Weller in Samuel Weller, or, The Pickwickians in 1837.
