THE DRAMA IN VIRGINIA AND MARYLAND.
The prior company, after performing in Virginia, went to Annapolis, the capital of Maryland, and erected a small theater there, which they opened on June 22, 1752, with “The Beggar’s Opera,” and the farce of “The Lying Valet.” Annapolis was at this period a place of considerable trade and commerce, with a thriving population, including many wealthy merchants, and being the capital of the province, was the residence of the leading officials, and a general place of resort for opulent planters and their families. There was among the people a great deal of refinement and cultivation. They were much more disposed to enjoy the recreation of the theater than the mixed English, French, and Dutch population of New York, and consequently the theater there was a permanent institution, and continued to be so for many years. The company represented the same plays which they had before acted in New York, with the addition of “Cato” and “The Busybody”; and after playing for a season they gave representations in other parts of Maryland. Some new names appear among the members, such as Eyrarson, Wynell, and Herbert, while many of the old members had left, a circumstance warranting the supposition that there was either another company then performing in the South, or that these actors had returned to England or to the West Indies. Among the remaining members were Murray, Scott, and Miss Osborne; and Kean, despite his formal farewell in New York, and declaration of his intention to resume his original occupation of a writing-master, was again among them, representing principal parts.
All that has been here narrated occurred before Hallam came to this country and gave his first representation at Williamsburg, Virginia, in the autumn of 1752. He afterward went to Annapolis, and in the summer of 1753 he came with his company to New York. Finding the old theater in Nassau street inadequate to his purpose, he took the building down and erected upon the same spot what the newspaper of the day, Parker’s “Gazette,” describes “as a very fine, large, and commodious new theater,” which he opened on September 17, 1753, with Steele’s comedy of “The Conscious Lovers” and the farce of “Damon and Phillida.” Dunlap says that it was erected on the spot afterward occupied by the old Dutch Church (the present post-office). In this he was also mistaken, for the church was on the place where the building now stands in 1729. The theater which Hallam built, and the one before it, were on the east side of Nassau street, between Maiden lane and John street.
