Lewis Hallam
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Lewis Hallam (circa 1714–1756) was a British born actor and theatre director in the colonial United States.
Career
Hallam is thought to have been born in about 1714 and possibly in Dublin. His father Thomas Hallam was also an actor who was killed by actor Charles Macklin in 1736 at the Drury Lane Theatre, allegedly over a wig. Many of his siblings were actors and one brother was a Royal Naval admiral.[1] Hallam fathered a child Isabella who was baptised in London in 1746. He and his brother, William had only moderate success in Britain and they decided to ply their trade in North America.[2]
Hallam arrived in North America in 1752 with his theatrical company, assembled by his brother William, who was also a founder of the Theatre company .Template:Sfn Lewis had been an actor in William's company within England, but it had failed, prompting the North American venture. The new company landed at Yorktown, Virginia.[3]
The Theatrical company began their performances in Williamsburg, the then capital of the Virginia Colony.Template:Sfn Here they employed a large wooden structure, which was altered to suit it's purposes. Allegedly it was so close to the woods that the players were able to shoot wild fowl from the windows of the building. Their opening performance was George Granville's The Jew of Venice, which Hallam billed as Shakespeare's The Merchant of Venice, on September 15, 1752.[4]Template:Sfn Music was performed by a soloist harpsicordist harpsichord. From Williamsburg, the troupe traveled to Annapolis and Philadelphia.[3]
In 1753, Hallam took over the first theatre in Manhattan, the Theatre on Nassau Street,[5] from September 17, 1753, to March 18, 1754.Template:Sfn They moved to Philadelphia and opened The Fair Penitent and Miss in Her Teens on April 15, 1754.Template:Sfn The group then performed in Charleston, South Carolina.Template:Sfn
Hallam died in Jamaica, where the company had gone to perform.[3]Template:Sfn His widow, the actor Sarah Hallam Douglass (d. Philadelphia, 1773), married David Douglass,[3] with whom she formed the American Company in 1758.[5]Template:Sfn Her son by Lewis, Lewis Hallam Jr., became an actor in his mother and step-father's company.[3]Template:Sfn
References
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- ↑ Script error: No such module "citation/CS1".
- ↑ Jared Brown, ‘Hallam, Lewis (1714?–1756?)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004 accessed 7 Feb 2015
- ↑ a b c d e Script error: No such module "template wrapper".
- ↑ Jared Brown, ‘Hallam, Lewis (1714?–1756?)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004 [1]
- ↑ a b Script error: No such module "citation/CS1".
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Sources
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External links
- Lewis Hallam; North American Theatre Online(AlexanderStreet)
- Pages with script errors
- Wikipedia articles incorporating text from Appleton's Cyclopedia
- 1710s births
- 1756 deaths
- 18th-century American male actors
- 18th-century English male actors
- Male actors from New York (state)
- American male stage actors
- American theatre directors
- English male stage actors
- British emigrants to the Thirteen Colonies
- People from colonial New York
- People from colonial Virginia
- 18th-century British theatre managers
- 18th-century American theatre managers