Colonial Theater, Privileged Audiences

Abstract

During the first third of this history, from about 1750 to the 1820s, America underwent major political, social, and cultural transformations that were reflected in theater audiences. In 1750, Colonial America, more than England itself, still was a monarchical society ruled by royal governors and gentry chartered and licensed by the king. The Revolution of course changed this and substituted a bourgeois democratic structure premised on the idea of government serving the people. Commoners challenged the authority of gentry and asserted their right to a voice in their own governance. By the 1820s early industrialization transformed class relations and the nascent working class gathered in urban neighborhoods. Throughout this time audiences were active and exercised sovereignty over performances. But who wielded this power and with what significance changed. Theater audiences continued to be important public gatherings, but the behavior and significance of the gatherings changed. Audience gender changed too, but its significance was as much about class as about gender. In the next three chapters we will detail these changes. Professional theater arrived in the colonies in the 1750s, just as the power of gentry had reached a high point and was about to enter a long process of dismantling. The colonies were a hierarchical society with a specific place for each person in a vertical structure. Relations were governed by a culture of deference, an expectation that each individual would defer to his “betters” and expect the same from his inferiors.