Dionysius Lardner "Dion" Boucicault was an Irish actor and playwright famed for his melodramas. By the later part of the 19th century, Boucicault had become known on both sides of the Atlantic as one of the most successful actor-playwright-managers then in the English-speaking theatre. The New York Times hailed him in his obituary as "the most conspicuous English dramatist of the 19th century,"; he and his second wife, Agnes Robertson Boucicault, applied for and received American citizenship in 1873.
The history of Irish theatre begins in the Middle Ages and was for a long time confined to the courts of the Gaelic and "Old English" – descendants of 12th-century Norman invaders – inhabitants of Ireland. The first theatre building in Ireland was the Werburgh Street Theatre, founded in 1637, followed by the Smock Alley Theatre in 1662.
John Lawrence Toole was an English comic actor, actor-manager and theatrical producer. He was famous for his roles in farce and in serio-comic melodramas, in a career that spanned more than four decades, and the first actor to have a West End theatre named after him.
The Octoroon is a play by Dion Boucicault that opened in 1859 at The Winter Garden Theatre, New York City. Extremely popular, the play was kept running continuously for years by seven road companies. Among antebellum melodramas, it was considered second in popularity only to Uncle Tom's Cabin (1852). Both were anti-slavery works.
Dion Boucicault Jr. was an actor and stage director. A son of the well-known playwright Dion Boucicault and actress Agnes Robertson, he followed his father into the theatrical profession and made a career as a character actor and a director. In addition to extensive work in the West End of London, he spent considerable time in Australia, where he went into management in the 1880s.
Dracula is a stage play written by the Irish actor and playwright Hamilton Deane in 1924, then revised by the American writer John L. Balderston in 1927. It was the first authorized adaptation of Bram Stoker's 1897 novel Dracula. After touring in England, the original version of the play appeared at London's Little Theatre in July 1927, where it was seen by the American producer Horace Liveright. Liveright asked Balderston to revise the play for a Broadway production that opened at the Fulton Theatre in October 1927. This production starred Bela Lugosi in his first major English-speaking role.
Events from the year 1860 in Ireland.
Booth's Theatre was a theatre in New York built by actor Edwin Booth. Located on the southeast corner of 23rd Street and Sixth Avenue, Booth's Theatre opened on February 3, 1869.
The first theatre in New York City to bear the name The Winter Garden Theatre had a brief but important seventeen-year history as one of New York's premier showcases for a wide range of theatrical fare, from variety shows to extravagant productions of the works of Shakespeare. Initially known as Tripler's Hall or Metropolitan Hall, it burned down in 1854 and was rebuilt as The New York Theatre. It rose from the ashes under different managers, bearing various names, to become known as one of the most important theatres in New York history. It nearly burned again in November 1864, in plot hatched by Confederate sympathsizers, and burned to the ground a second time in 1867.
London Assurance is a five-act comedy co-authored by Dion Boucicault and John Brougham. While the play was collaboratively written by both playwrights, after the play's initial premiere Broughman, who originated the role of Dazzle, relinquished his authorship rights to the work in a lawsuit settlement and left the production. It was the second play that Boucicault wrote but his first to be produced. Its first production was by Charles Matthews and Madame Vestris's company and ran from 4 March 1841 at the Theatre Royal, Covent Garden. It was Boucicault's first major success.
Ada Cavendish was an English actress known for her Shakespearean roles and for popularising the plays of Wilkie Collins in America.
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.
Edmund O'Flaherty, also known as William Stuart, was an Irish MP who hurriedly emigrated to the United States in 1854. In New York City, he was the business partner of the actor-managers Dion Boucicault and Edwin Booth. He leased and managed the Winter Garden Theatre with them. He also managed the New Park Theatre on Broadway from 1874 to 1876.
Ranulph Neville, 1st Baron Neville of Raby Castle, County Durham, was an English nobleman and head of the powerful Neville family.
Alan la Zouche (1205–1270) was an Anglo-Norman nobleman and soldier of Breton descent. He built the Zouches Manor in Cambridgeshire. He was High Sheriff of Northamptonshire from 1261 to 1266.
Jeanie Deans is a play written by Dion Boucicault based on Sir Walter Scott's 1818 novel, The Heart of Midlothian. It is named after the heroine of the novel, Jeanie Deans.
The Poor of New York, also known as The Streets of New York, is a melodrama in five acts written by Dion Boucicault, adapted from the French play, Les Pauvres de Paris which was written by Edouard-Louis-Alexandre Brisbarre and Eugene Nus. It premiered at Wallack's Lyceum Theatre, of which Boucicault was the General Director, on December 8, 1857.
The Corsican Brothers; or, the Fatal Duel is a play by Dion Boucicault, first seen in 1852. It is a melodrama based on a French dramatization of the 1844 novella by Alexandre Dumas.
Olympic Theatre was the name of five former 19th and early 20th-century theatres on Broadway in Manhattan and in Brooklyn, New York.
Lady Huntworth's Experiment is a three-act comedy by R. C. Carton, first presented in London in 1900. It depicts an aristocrat working under an assumed name as a cook, and finding happiness with a retired military man. After its West End run, it was played by touring companies around Britain, and was staged on Broadway and in Australia and New Zealand.
