page_title: Dion Boucicault
section_title: Work as theatre manager and producer
hierarchical_section_title: Dion Boucicault / Life and career / Work as theatre manager and producer
caption_attribution_description: English: Poster for the play Contempt of Court by Dion Boucicault
context_page_description: Dionysius Lardner "Dion" Boucicault was an Irish actor and playwright famed for his melodramas. 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. Although The New York Times hailed him in his obituary as "the most conspicuous English dramatist of the 19th century," he and his second wife, Agnes Robertson Boucicault, had applied for and received American citizenship in 1873.
context_section_description: From around 1855 his business manager and partner in New York was William Stuart, an expatriate Irish MP and adventurer. Together they leased Wallack's Theatre in 1855-1856, and put on a short season at the Washington Theatre in Washington D.C.
  In the summer of 1859, Boucicault and William Stuart became joint lessees of Burton's New Theatre (originally Tripler's Theatre) on Broadway just below Amity Street. After extensive remodelling, he renamed his new showplace the Winter Garden Theatre.  There on 5 December 1859, he premiered his new sensation, the anti-slavery potboiler The Octoroon, in which he also starred. This was the first play to treat seriously the Black American population.
  Boucicault fell out with Stuart over money matters, and he went back to England. On his return he produced at the Adelphi Theatre a dramatic adaptation of Gerald Griffin's novel, The Collegians, entitled The Colleen Bawn. This play, one of the most successful of the times, was performed in almost every city of the United Kingdom and the United States. Julius Benedict used it as the basis for his Opera The Lily of Killarney. Although it made its author a handsome fortune, he lost it in the management of various London theatres.
  After his return to England, Boucicault was asked by the noted American comedian Joseph Jefferson, who also starred in the production of Octoroon, to rework Jefferson's adaptation of Washington Irving's Rip van Winkle. Their play opened in London in 1865 and on Broadway in 1866.
  Boucicault's next marked success was at the Princess's Theatre, London in 1864 with Arrah-na-Pogue in which he played the part of a County Wicklow, Ireland carman. This, and his admirable creation of "Conn" in his play The Shaughraun (first produced at Wallacks Theatre, New York City, in 1874, then at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane in 1875), won him the reputation of being the best "Stage Irishman" of his time. His reputation was also mentioned by W. S. Gilbert in the libretto of his 1881 operetta Patience in the line: "The pathos of Paddy, as rendered by Boucicault".
  Again in partnership with William Stuart he built the New Park Theatre in 1873–1874. However, Boucicault withdrew just before the theatre opened, and Stuart teamed up instead with the actor, playwright and theatre manager Charles Fechter to run the house.
  In 1875 Boucicault returned to New York City, where he made his home and for a time his manager was Harry J. Sargent. He wrote the melodrama Contempt of Court (poster, left) in 1879, but he paid occasional visits to London and elsewhere (e.g. Toronto). He made his last appearance in London in his play, The Jilt, in 1885. The Streets of London and After Dark were two of his late successes as a dramatist.
  Boucicault was an excellent actor, especially in pathetic parts. His uncanny ability to play these low-status roles earned him the nickname "Little Man Dion" in theatrical circles. His plays are for the most part adaptations, but are often very ingenious in construction. They have had great popularity.
caption: Poster for a production of Boucicault's farce Contempt of Court, c. 1879. From the Library of Congress
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