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EXTRA! EXTRA!

THEATRE ALLEY: THE START

OF NEW YORK THEATERMostly commercial real estate today, The-atre Alley hardly portrays its artistic past, one that actually surpasses Broadway in American theater history. A narrow passage running from Beekman to Ann streets, its theaters in-cluded the John Street Theatre, Park Theatre and Chatham Garden Theatre. Hamlet had its American premiere here in 1761, and Richard III and the fi rst musical, John Gay’s Beggar’s Opera, were produced in New York City’s fi rst playhouse, Nassau Street Theatre, in 1750.

John Street Theatre, erected in 1767, was the leading playhouse in Manhattan for 31 years. Shakespearean plays and Restoration-era comedies were popular, drawing crowds with the likes of George Washington. The year that John Street Theatre closed for good, Park Theatre (21-25 Park Row) was erected and quickly became New York’s most prominent playhouse. Famous actors such as Lester Wal-lack, Junius Brutus Booth (father of John Wil-kes Booth), Edmund Kean and Edwin Forrest all performed at Park Theatre.

In his Broadway Journal review, Edgar Al-lan Poe described the Park Theatre audience as “spellbound by what is going on.” Hope-fully he wasn’t referring to the prostitution in the upper tier, which was common back then. When Park Theatre burnt down in 1848, it was owned by John Jacob Astor and John Beek-man, who didn’t rebuild it since fashionable so-ciety had moved to Washington Square Park.

—BETTINA WEINER

Weiner is a freelance writer.

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