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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 21 October 2010
The Baltimore Company of Comedians which had performed openly and successfully in Maryland since 1782 attempted to gain a foothold in the traditionally hostile state of Pennsylvania in November, 1783. The troupe's manager, Dennis Ryan, petitioned the Pennsylvania legislature to rescind its statute prohibiting plays. When his petition was denied, he produced three evenings' entertainment through the use of a clever subterfuge: The Temple of Apollo, a play and pantomime disguised as a concert, reading, and dance. Although Ryan's ruse was clever, it was not wholly successful: he and his actors had to take precipitous leave of Philadelphia when a riot swept through the house during the last of their three scheduled performances and alerted the sheriff to their activities. Nevertheless, Ryan was the first actor-manager to attempt to evade post-revolutionary legislative opposition to theatre by making plays appear non-theatrical.
1 Thomas Pollock substantiates the fact that the Assembly tabled and ignored the appeal. The Philadelphia Theatre in the Eighteenth Century (Philadelphia, 1933), p. 134.
2 No historian has pointed out that Dennis Ryan spent much time in Philadelphia in 1783, or that he opened and performed in a theatre there. Several scholars fail to mention that Ryan stopped in the Quaker city at all. Dye, William S. skips over this event. “Pennsylvania Versus the Theatre,” Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography, LV (October, 1931), 361Google Scholar. Ritchey, David, who chronicled the peregrinations of the “Maryland Company of Comedians,” Educational Theatre Journal, XXIV (1972), 359Google Scholar, believed that Ryan and his actors only travelled to “the small villages of the eastern seaboard” during their absence from Maryland from June 9 through December 2. The most unfortunate errors made about Ryan can be found in Geib, George, “Playhouse and Politics: Lewis Hallam and the Confederation Theatre,” Journal of Popular Culture, V (1971), 326–7Google Scholar. Geib makes the unsubstantiated claim that Lewis Hallam entered Philadelphia in 1783—a full year before the actor actually returned. He also assumes, inaccurately, that both Alexander Quesnay and Dennis Ryan worked for Hallam. Pollock, p. 41, is most accurate. He states that Ryan attempted “to open the theatre in Southwark,” but left when his petition was tabled. However, Ryan did not leave immediately. He remained and performed. John Durang recorded that “Wall and Ryan and Company,” which included a singer named Miss Hyde, performed in Philadelphia in 1783. Alan Downer, who edited Durang's memoirs, claimed that the troupe was in Pennsylvania in Spring, 1783. However, according to Downer himself. Miss Hyde debuted with the company on October 18, 1783 in New York, too late to have been with Ryan if he had been in Philadelphia in the spring. It is clear then, that Durang attended a production of the Baltimore troupe in Philadelphia in Fall, 1783. Durang was interested solely in singing and dancing; he made no mention of the events which surrounded the Temple of Apollo. Downer, Alan S., ed., Memoirs of John Durang (Pittsburgh, 1966), pp. 11, 12, and 114.Google Scholar
3 Dye, pp. 333–50 and Garrett, Kurt, “Religious Anti-Theatre Movement in Pennsylvania from William Penn to the ‘Paper War’ of 1788–89,” Religion and Theatre, I (May, 1977), 4–8.Google Scholar
4 Ford, Worthington C., Journals of the Continental Congress, (Washington, 1904–1908), I, 78Google Scholarand XII, 1018. Section X of “An Act for the Suppression of vice and immorality,” which the Assembly enacted in 1779, indicts anyone who shall “erect, build or cause to be erected or build any play house, theatre, stage or scaffold for acting, showing or exhibiting any tragedy, comedy or tragi-comedy, farce, interlude or other play… or that shall act, show or exhibit them… or be in any wise concerned therein.” Cited by Dye, p. 361.
5 “Impartialis,” New York Packet, 29 September 1785.Google Scholar
6 This was Ryan's first appearance on the American stage. The playbill for this production described him as being “from the West Indies,” although he may have been originally from England or Ireland. Broadside, Baltimore, 20 September 1782. New York Historical Society Collections.
7 Maryland Journal, 11 February 1783, cited by Ritchey, p. 359.Google Scholar
8 Odell, George C.D., Annals of the New York Stage (New York, 1927) I, 226–9.Google Scholar
9 A brief chronology of the Baltimore troupe follows.
Junc-Oct.,1781 Thomas Wall and family perform throughout Maryland.
1782 Wall joins with Adam Lindsay to form the Baltimore
Company of Comedians.
Sept. 20, 1782 Mr. and Mrs. Ryan, “from the theatre in Jamaica,” join the company.
Feb. 11, 1783 Dennis Ryan assumes control of the troupe.
June 19-Aug. 16 and Ryan's company performs in New York.
Oct. 11–25, 1783
Nov. 10, 1783 Ryan petitions Pennsylvania legislature.
Nov. 20, 21, 22, 1783 Temple of Apollo in Pennsylvania.
Dec. 2, 1783 Troupe returns to Baltimore.
1784–1785 Troupe performs in Baltimore, Annapolis, Richmond and Charleston.
Jan., 1786 Dennis Ryan dies.
10 Pennsylvania Journal, 12 November 1783.
11 Ibid.
12 Independent Gazetteer, 15 November 1783.
13 Ibid.
14 Ibid, 15 November 1783.
15 Schopf, Johann David, Travels in the Confederation: 1785–4 trans, and ed. Morrison, Alfred (New York, 1968), I, 382Google Scholar. Schopf was a German surgeon who had formerly served with the Hessian mercenaries in the British military forces.
16 Broadside, 20 September 1782. Playbill in the collection of the New York Historical Society.
17 Odell, p. 228.
18 No other records have come to light as yet. Even these two reports have been misinterpreted. Morrison, the editor of Schopf's Travels, believed that the surgeon was referring to Alexander Quesnay de Beaupaire's French Academy which advertised a ballet in Freeman's Journal, 24 December 1783. The other report (see footnote 20) has been ignored by historians.
19 Schopf, I, 328.
20 Miranda, Francisco de, The New Democracy in America: Travels of Francisco de Miranda in the United States, 1783–84 trans, by Wood, Judson P., ed. by Ezell, John (Norman, Oklahoma, 1963), p. 52Google Scholar. Miranda, a Spanish fugitive from justice once called the “American Casanova,” served with the French forces.
21 Schopf, I, 382.
22 Miranda, p. 52.
23 Ibid.
24 Ibid.
25 Miranda, pp. 52–3.
26 Ibid.
27 Independent Gazetteer, 29 November 1783.Google Scholar
28 Miranda, p. 52.
29 Independent Gazetteer, 29 November 1783.
30 The advantage of this popular piece was that although it appeared to be a lecture on morals and manners, it was actually a satiric and dramatic monologue interspersed with songs. As such, it was the perfect theatrical vehicle for either a solo performer or an ensemble. For a discussion of the performances of the Lecture by eighteenth-century American actors see Garrett, Kurt, “Palliative for Players: The Lecture on Heads,” Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography, CIII (April, 1979), 166–76.Google Scholar
31 Garrett, Kurt, “The ‘Paper War’ of 1788–89: Events Leading Up to the Repeal of the Anti-Theatre Law of Pennsylvania,” Michigan Speech Association Journal, 14 (June, 1979) pp. 57–64.Google Scholar
32 Independent Gazetteer, 14, 26 and 29 March and 2 April, 1788.Google Scholar
