New Theatre ... Tuesday Evening, January 21, 1823, Will be presented, (by particular desire) Shakspeare's Comedy of Much Ado about Nothing.
Philadelphia: 1823.
Price: $400.00
About the item
Woodcut illustration of the facade of the theater. 12 1/8 x 6 7/8 inches. Small hole at bottom with loss of five letters of text, faint soiling, very good or better.
Item #311564
An attractive broadside advertisement for a production of Much Ado about Nothing at the New Theatre in Philadelphia, starring the English-born actor Henry John Wallack (1790-1870, brother of the actor James William Wallack), who had a long and successful theatrical career in America beginning in 1819. For this production Wallack played Don Pedro and Benedick, while his wife Fanny Wallack played the role of Hero. Wallack and the same cast are also advertised as appearing in The Children in the Wood, The Mountaineers, My Aunt, and Rolla. Notice is given of upcoming productions of Othello, Julius Caesar, and King John. Tickets to be had at the Book Store of Thomas Desilver, No. 253 Market Street.
The New Theatre, later renamed the Chestnut Street Theatre, was located at the corner of Chetstnut and Sixth Streets; originally opening in 1794, it was one of the finest theatrical venues in America, and the first to be lit by gaslight, in 1816. The illustration on the present broadside shows the facade of the second incarnation of the theater, which was opened in 1822 following a fire which destroyed the original building two years earlier (this second structure would burn as well, and a third iteration was built in 1862).
