The Father; or, American Shandyism is a 1789 play by William Dunlap, his first published play, and according to Dunlap's later report, the second American comedy ever produced.
Dunlap's second play (the first was lost and never produced), it was first performed at the John Street Theatre in New York on September 7, 1789. It played four times before being produced in Philadelphia and Baltimore (once in each). It was published in the Massachusetts Magazine in the October and November 1789 issues. [1] It was also performed in Philadelphia during the 1790–91 season. [2]
As the play's alternate title suggests, Dunlap borrowed from the popular novel Tristram Shandy in creating the work. [3]
A second edition of the play titled Father of an Only Child was published in 1807. [1] [3]
William Hooker Gillette was an American actor-manager, playwright, and stage-manager in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. He is best remembered for portraying Sherlock Holmes on stage and in a 1916 silent film thought to be lost until it was rediscovered in 2014.
The Happiest Millionaire is a 1967 American musical film starring Fred MacMurray, based upon the true story of Philadelphia millionaire Anthony Drexel Biddle. The film, featuring music by the Sherman Brothers, was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Costume Design by Bill Thomas. The screenplay by A. J. Carothers was adapted from the play, based on the book My Philadelphia Father by Cordelia Drexel Biddle. Walt Disney acquired the rights to the play in the early 1960s. The film was the last live-action musical Disney produced before his death.
Anthony Joseph Drexel Biddle Sr. (1874–1948) was a millionaire whose fortune allowed him to pursue theatricals, self-published writing, athletics, and Christianity on a full-time basis.
Elizabeth "Eliza" Arnold Hopkins Poe was an English actress and the mother of the American author Edgar Allan Poe.
Christ Church Burial Ground in Philadelphia is an important early-American cemetery. It is the final resting place of Benjamin Franklin and his wife, Deborah. Four other signers of the Declaration of Independence are buried here, Benjamin Rush, Francis Hopkinson, Joseph Hewes and George Ross. Two more signers are buried at Christ Church just a few blocks away.
The Biddle family of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania is a prominent Old Philadelphian family descended from English immigrants William Biddle (1630–1712) and Sarah Kempe (1634–1709), who arrived in the Province of New Jersey in 1681. Quakers, they had emigrated from England in part to escape religious persecution. Having acquired extensive rights to more than 43,000 acres (170 km2) of lands in West Jersey, they settled first at Burlington, a city which developed along the east side of the Delaware River.
Helene Wallace Stoepel, known professionally as Bijou Heron, was an American stage actress, who became famous as a child actor in the 1870s.
The Old American Company was an American theatre company. It was the first fully professional theatre company to perform in North America. It also played a vital role in the theatre history of Jamaica. It was founded in 1752 and disbanded in 1805. It was known as the Hallam Company (1752–1758), the American Company (1758–1785) and the Old American Company (1785–1805). With a few temporary exceptions, the Company enjoyed a de facto monopoly of professional theatre in the United States until 1790.
The Royal Cornwall Polytechnic Society is an educational, cultural and scientific charity, as well as a local arts and cinema venue, based in Falmouth, Cornwall, England, United Kingdom. The Society exists to promote innovation in the arts and sciences.
John Bell (1745–1831) was an English publisher. Originally a bookseller and printer, he also innovated in typography, being responsible for an influential font that omitted the long s. He was also noted for drawing the reading public to "the best literature" by commissioning attractive art work to accompany the printed work.
The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby is an 8½ hour-long adaptation of Charles Dickens’ 1839 novel, performed in two parts. Part 1 was 4 hours in length with one interval of 15 minutes. Part 2 was 4½ hours in length with two intervals of 12 minutes. It was originally presented onstage over two evenings, or in its entirety from early afternoon with a dinner break. Later it was presented on television over four evenings.
The Colonel is a farce in three acts by F. C. Burnand based on Jean François Bayard's Le mari à la campagne, first produced in 1844 and produced in London in 1849 by Morris Barnett, adapted as The Serious Family. The story concerns the efforts of two aesthetic impostors to gain control of a family fortune by converting a man's wife and mother-in-law to follow aestheticism. He is so unhappy that he seeks the company of a widow in town. His friend, an American colonel, intervenes to persuade the wife to return to conventional behavior and obey her husband to restore domestic harmony, and the colonel marries the widow himself.
Thomas Wignell was an English-born actor and theatre manager in the colonial United States.
The Lyceum Theatre was a theatre in New York City located on Fourth Avenue between 23rd and 24th Streets in Manhattan. It was built in 1885 and operated until 1902, when it was torn down to make way for the Metropolitan Life Insurance Company Tower. It was replaced by a new Lyceum Theatre on 45th Street. For most of its existence, the theatre was home to Daniel Frohman's Lyceum Theatre Stock Company, which presented many important plays and actors of the day.
John Street Theatre, situated at 15–21 John Street, sometimes called "The Birthplace of American Theatre", was the first permanent theatre in the Financial District of Manhattan, New York. It opened on December 7, 1767, and was operated for several decades by the American Company. It closed on January 13, 1798.
Thomas Hull (1728–1808) was an English actor and dramatist.
The Italian Father: A Comedy, in Five Acts (1799) is an American comedic play by William Dunlap, though substantially adapted from Part II of The Honest Whore by Thomas Dekker.
Elizabeth Walker Morris, was an English-born American stage actress. She was engaged in the Old American Company.
Charlotte Wattell was an English actress of the late 18th and early 19th-centuries and the first wife of the churchman Thomas James Twisleton.
William Twaits was a British singer, dancer and actor-manager whose career was mostly in the United States in the early 19th-century.