Lewis Hallam

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. 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.

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 . 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.

The Theatrical company began their performances in Williamsburg, the then capital of the Virginia Colony. 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.Jared Brown, ‘Hallam, Lewis (1714?–1756?)’, ''Oxford Dictionary of National Biography'', Oxford University Press, 200

/ref> Music was performed by a soloist harpsicordist harpsichord. From Williamsburg, the troupe traveled to Annapolis and Philadelphia.

In 1753, Hallam took over the first theatre in Manhattan, the Theatre on Nassau Street, from September 17, 1753, to March 18, 1754. They moved to Philadelphia and opened '' The Fair Penitent'' and '' Miss in Her Teens'' on April 15, 1754. The group then performed in Charleston, South Carolina.

Hallam died in Jamaica, where the company had gone to perform. His widow, the actor Sarah Hallam Douglass (d. Philadelphia, 1773), married David Douglass, with whom she formed the American Company in 1758. Her son by Lewis, Lewis Hallam Jr., became an actor in his mother and step-father's company.

References

Sources

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External links

Lewis Hallam; ''North American Theatre Online''
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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
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