William Dunlap

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This is the 18th century theatre designer. For other people see Bill Dunlap.

William Dunlap

William Dunlap (1 February 1766-28 September 1839) was a pioneer of the American theater. He was a producer, playwright, and actor, as well as a historian. He managed two of New York's earliest and most prominent theaters, the John Street Theatre (from 1796-98) and the Park Theatre (from 1798-1805). He was also an artist, despite losing an eye in childhood.

He was born in Perth Amboy New Jersey, the son of an army officer wounded at Quebec. In 1783, he produced a portrait of George Washington, now owned by the United States Senate, and later studied art under Benjamin West in London. ^[1] After returning to America in 1787, he worked exclusively in the theater for 18 years, resuming painting out of economic necessity in 1805. By 1817, he was a full-time painter. ^[2]

In his lifetime he produced more than sixty plays, most of which were adaptations or translations from French or German works. A few were original: these were based on American themes and had American characters.

Among his works were the following:

The Father (1789)
Andre (1798)
The Stranger (1798)
False Shame (1799)
The Virgin of the Sun (1800)
Memoirs of George Frederick Cooke (1813)
History of the American Theater, 2 vols. (1832)

[edit] References

Wilmeth, Don B. and Christopher Bigsby, eds. The Cambridge History of American Theatre, Volume I: Beginnings to 1870. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998.