Actor, Playwright Dion Boucicault Provides a Handwritten Free Pass to Wallack's Theatre in New York City

Collectibles : Autographs

 

Dion Boucicault (1820-1890) was born and educated in Dublin, Ireland until he moved to London, where he studied at the University College. He spent a good deal of time on both sides of the Atlantic. Regarded as an excellent actor, Boucicault had an uncanny to play low-status roles, earning him the nickname "Little Man Dion" in theatrical circles. His plays are for the most part adaptations, but are often very ingenious in construction, and have had great popularity.

In his play The Vampire (1852), Boucicault made his début as a leading actor as the vampire 'Sir Alan Raby'. Though the play itself had mixed reviews, Boucicault's characterization was praised as "a dreadful and weird thing played with immortal genius".

By the later part of the 19th century, Boucicault had become known on both sides of the Atlantic as one of the most successful actor-playwright-managers then in the English speaking theatre, eventually heralded by The New York Times. In his obituary, the Times called Boucicault “The most conspicuous English dramatist of the 19th century.”

Boucicault was married three times. He married Anne Guiot on 9 July 1845. He claimed that she died in a Swiss mountaineering accident later in the same year. In 1853, he eloped with Agnes Kelly Robertson. He suddenly left Agnes to marry Josephine Louise Thorndyke, a young actress, on September 9, 1885. This caused a scandal on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean as his marriage to Agnes was not finally dissolved, by reason of bigamy with adultery, until 1888. The rights to many of his plays were later sold to finance alimony payments to his second wife.

Boucicault’s play “The Shaughraun,” a melodrama, was first produced at Wallack’s Theatre in New York City on November 14th, 1874.

Wallack's Theatre formally came on the scene in 1852 when James William Wallack (1891-1864), known as "the elder Wallack," took John Brougham's two year old theatre on the corner of Broome Street and Broadway, lavishly redecorated and refurbished it, and christened it Wallack's Lyceum. From that time until 1887, Wallack's Theatre was a prominent fixture in New York.

4 ¾” x 2 ¾” handwritten and signed free pass by Boucicault for two to Wallack’s, March, no year, signed boldly. Mounting residue on verso, trivial bends to right top and bottom corners, affecting nothing. Fine piece by this great writer and actor. Comes with internet print.

Item ID: 00461