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

Click on all images for larger view.

Early American performers did not suffer from lack of invention when it came to finding a physical space to perform their plays-all they seemed to need was a large room. Frequent use of assembly rooms, large taverns, barns and warehouses was common. Temporary stages or playbooths could also be constructed for outdoor performances. The list continues on to include "hospitals, ballrooms, and schools."⁶

Such spaces were transformed into adequate performance areas by the acting troupe that visited the town. The best situation possible, however, was to have a theatre built that was specifically designed for play production. As the capital of the colonies, Williamsburg provided one of the best locations for such a venture.

The first recorded theatre in the colonies was built by William Levingston in 1716 on a lot just east of the Place Green in Williamsburg.⁷ This first theatre has a strong connection to Fredericksburg. Years later, with Levingston facing financial hardship, he moved to Spotsylvania and leased the land which was to eventually become the town of Fredericksburg. By 1751 subscriptions were raised to build a theatre by the Company of Comedians ( The Murray/Kean Company) which was later taken over and renovated by the first fully professional theatre troupe from England, The London Company of Comedians (The Hallam Company).⁸ By 1760 the Douglass Company had built a theatre in which they and later the Verling Company performed in for over a decade.⁹

The physical shape of the theatres seems to imitate those found in an English country playhouse of the time. Some of the stages had metal spikes along the front to keep away the rowdiest of audience members. Scenery was simple-wing and drop paintings- but scenic innovations by David Garrick did eventually influence theatre here after the Revolution. The seating areas were divided into three areas - the pit, gallery and boxes - and each area had its own particular social class:

"The boxes, being the best situated and the most commodious, were the most expensive seats and were purchased by the wealthiest planters, merchants, and professionals."

"Seats in the pit were more moderately priced and were usually filled with people more of the 'middling' sort-artisans, farmers, merchants and young professionals." In essence, the colonial equivalent of the middle class.

"The cheap seats in the gallery were usually packed by servants and people of the 'lesser sort'"¹⁰

In addition to Williamsburg, other cities built theatres early on: New York, Charleston, Philadelphia and even some sites in the Caribbean. After 1758, as the plays became more complex, with larger casts, greater emphasis on scenic backgrounds, costumes and music, it made sense to build theatres throughout the colonies . By the beginning of the Revolution, theatres had been built in Annapolis, Baltimore, Petersburg, Norfolk, Newport (Rhode Island) and quite possibly Fredericksburg.

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Footnotes:
6. Johnson and Burling pg.44
7. Playbill Colonial Williamsburg
8. Johnson and Burling pg.56
9. Johnson and Burling pg.57
10. Playbill Colonial Williamsburg

See bibliography for titles.

The mechanics of a colonial stage as illustrated and reprinted courtesy of Dr. Charles Eugene Bush.