Information concerning the theatre in America during the Revolution is available in many sources, but – with the exception of George O. Seilhamer's nineteenth-century study of the American theatre – it has not been collected in a single volume, as in the present book. Seilhamer's work, however, contains many factual errors; this book attempts to set the record straight. George C. D. Odell's multivolume history of the theatre in New York, completed more than sixty years ago, also contains a great deal of information; yet it, too, is limited, because Odell's chronicle is restricted primarily to New York City, whereas the history of the theatre during the period was far more widespread. More recent studies, such as Kenneth Silverman's A Cultural History of the American Revolution, are more accurate than Seilhamer's and more wide-ranging than Odell's; however, because they do not focus specifically on the theatre, they omit many details concerning the theatrical productions of the time. Articles in scholarly journals (nine of which have been written by the present author) offer specific details, but are often difficult to locate and, by their nature, offer only fragments of the total picture. I hope that this volume will satisfy the requirements of thoroughness and scope as well as accuracy.

I attempt in this book to describe the story of the theatre in America during the Revolution.