On Tuesday, March 25, they played the comedy called “The Spanish Fryar; or, The Double Discovery,” and on Thursday of the same week the play was repeated “for the benefit of Monimia.” Who was Monimia?
This benefit seems to have closed the season, but the people must have been pleased, for on May 3 the following advertisement appears:
Any gentlemen that are disposed to encourage the exhibition of plays next Winter, may have the sight of the proposals for a subscription at Mr. Shepheard’s in Broad Street. And any persons that are desirous of having a share in the performance thereof, upon application to Mr. Shepheard shall receive a satisfactory answer. N. B.—The subscription will be closed the last day of this month.
There is not another word in “The Gazette” concerning theatrical affairs until January 24, 1735-36, when the proposals appear to have borne fruit, for it is announced that—
On Thursday, the 12th of February, will be opened the new theatre in Dock Street, in which will be performed the comedy called “The Recruiting Officer.”
Tickets for the pitt and boxes will be delivered at Mr. Charles Shepheard’s, on Thursday, the 5th of February. Boxes, 30s; pitt, 20s; and tickets for the gallery, 15s, which will be delivered at the theatre the day of playing.
N. B.—The doors will be opened all the afternoon. The subscribers are desired to send to the stage door in the forenoon to bespeak places, otherwise it will be too late.
Dunlap evidently had never heard of the “new theatre in Dock Street,” for he says that “in 1773 the first theater was built in Charleston, S. C., David Douglass having gained permission from the magistrates, and being invited by the inhabitants. In September he went thither and the company followed him. They played fifty-one nights in that city, closing the campaign in June, 1774. On October 24, 1774, the first Congress agreed to discountenance gaming, cock fighting, exhibition of shows, plays, and other expensive diversions and entertainments.”
The Charles Town “Gazette” does not notice so important an event as the opening of the first theater in the South, and probably on this continent, in its news columns, but the advertisements announce that on February 23 Otway’s “Orphan” was played, and the next “Gazette” announces:
By desire of the officers of the Troop and Foot Companies, at the new theatre, Queen street, will be acted on Tuesday next, a comedy called the “Recruiting Officer,” with several entertainments as will be expressed in the great bills.