Primers to the Past: Colonial Fredericksburg and Theatrical Entertainment

Project Coordinator: Tom Clark, Stafford High School

Introduction

The Acting Companies

The Performance Spaces

The Audience and Plays

Theatre in Fredericksburg

Bibliography

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Virginia has the historical importance of not just being the Mother of Presidents but of also being the cradle of theatre in America. It was in Accomack County, on the eastern shore of Virginia on August 27, 1665 that the first known (at least recorded) play acted in the English colonies was performed, The Bare and the Cubb at Cowle's Tavern in Pungoteague.¹

While religious objections and legal obstacles thwarted the spread of theatre in New England, Massachusetts, New York and Pennsylvania,

Virginia and Maryland were unique in that they "never enacted legislation prohibiting the theatre, and it was in Virginia that theatre was able to gain its first foothold in America."²

As America's first theatre was being built in Williamsburg in 1716, amateur performances of plays abounded. It would prove only a matter of time before the professional acting companies, infused with the new world sense of enterprise and adventure, would branch out to other hospitable colonial towns and villages with the aim of entertainment and profit. Fredericksburg was ideally suited for this new era. With its proximity to Williamsburg, Fredericksburg was part of a traveling theatre circuit that included Dumfries, Alexandria and Norfolk.³

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Footnotes:
1. Rankin.pg.11
2. Rankin. pg.7
3. Johnson and Burling. Pg.10

See bibliography for titles.