Sarah Hallam Douglass (d. Philadelphia, 1773) was an English-born American stage actress and theatre director. She was known as Mrs Lewis Hallam and Sarah Hallam.

Life

The details of her birth including her last name are unknown. She was an actor married to

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 wa ...

, with whom she travelled to America to perform in his company in May 1752 on board the ''Charming Sally''. They left a daughter behind and she became the leading British actress

Isabella Mattocks Isabella Mattocks (1746 – June 25, 1826) was a British actress and singer. Early life Hallam (later Mattocks) was baptised in Whitechapel in 1746 by Lewis and Sarah Hallam. Her father and her uncle William were also actors. Her grandfather T ...

. They arrived in Yorkton on 2 June and by 16 June they were advertising in Williamsburg. This was the first permanent theater company in North America. Sarah Hallam, along with the other female members of the troupe, was thus among the first professional leading lady in North America. She performed principal female roles until she gradually left them to Margaret Cheer and Nancy Hallam in the mid-1760s. Her spouse died in

Jamaica Jamaica is an island country in the Caribbean Sea and the West Indies. At , it is the third-largest island—after Cuba and Hispaniola—of the Greater Antilles and the Caribbean. Jamaica lies about south of Cuba, west of Hispaniola (the is ...

, where the company had gone to perform. After the death of Lewis Hallam she married David Douglass, with whom she formed the

American Company The Old American Company was an American theatre company. It was the first fully professional theatre company to perform in North America. It also played a vital role in the theatre history of Jamaica. It was founded in 1752 and disbanded in 1805. ...

in 1758. Her son by Lewis, Lewis Hallam Jr. became an actor in his mother and step father's company.

References

Sources

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Hallam Douglass, Sarah 1773 deaths 18th-century American actresses 18th-century British theatre managers British women theatre managers and producers 18th-century American businesswomen English stage actresses American stage actresses 18th-century English actresses 18th-century American theatre managers American women theatre managers and producers