Thomas Wignell

Thomas Wignell (* 1753, † 1803 in Philadelphia ) was an American actor and Theaterimpresario.

Life

The son of actors John and Henrietta Wignell his first proven appearance at Covent Garden Theatre with his father in 1766 in Shakespeare's King John in the role of Prince Arthur. He is the last time mentioned in another Covent Garden performance as speaker of the prologue and epilogue and 1767 as a cast member of Prince Arthur.

1774 was the co-manager of the American Company, William Hallam, to London, where he won Wignell for this Company. He traveled in that or the following year to America and on the basis of the prohibition of theatrical performances during the American Revolution instantly go to Jamaica, where in 1775 a Wignell is known as a cast member of Romeo in a production of Romeo and Juliet (which is also could his brother William Wignell act ). Better performances are occupied in Princeton 1777-1785.

In the 1785-86 season, he joined with the American Company (including with Hallam, John Henry, Owen Morris and Stephen Woolls ) at the John Street Theatre in New York. After a trip to Philadelphia the troops had 1878 at the John Street Theater a big success with Royall Tyler's The Contrast, in the Wignell played the role of Yankee Jonathan. In 1789 he joined the Company with an " Entertainment" in Southwark Theatre in Philadelphia, in 1789 in Richard Cumberland's play The Fashionable Lover.

After disputes in the American Company Wignell left in 1791 and founded this with Alexander Reinagle the New Company, which was built by the Chestnut Street Theatre after designs of his brother John Inigo Richards. The house opened in February 1794 with John O'Keefe's play The Castle of Andalusia and Hannah Cowley's farce Who's the Dupe? and made Philadelphia 's most important center of the theater in the United States after New York.

Another theater built Wignell and Reinagle on Holiday Street in Baltimore, which opened in September 1794. In 1797 it took over the Greenwich Street Circus in New York and opened it to reconstruction in the same year as a theater. As another house was opened in Washington in 1800, The United States theater (or The National Theatre). Due to his extensive activities as a manager Wignells the performances as an actor in this period became increasingly rare. On January 1, 1803, he married actress Anne Merry, widow of the late 1798 author Robert Merry. Seven weeks later, he died of an infection he had contracted during a blood-letting.

Swell

  • Philip H. Highfill, Kalman A. Burnim, Edward A. Langhans: "A biographical dictionary of actors, actresses, musicians, dancers, managers & other stage personnel in London, 1660-1800 ", Volume 16, SIU Press, 1993, ISBN 978 -0-8093-1803-2, pp. 61-64
  • Theater actors
  • Americans
  • English
  • Born in 1753
  • Died in 1803
  • Man
Richard Cumberland (dramatist)
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