Frederick Brown and Montreal's Doomed Theatre Royal, 1825-26

Type of resource
Author/collaborator
Title
Frederick Brown and Montreal's Doomed Theatre Royal, 1825-26
Abstract
The financially inept British actor Frederick Brown (d. 1838) was the first manager of Montreal's Theatre Royal, located at the corner of Saint Paul and Victor Streets. John Molson was a major shareholder in the theatre, Montreal's first. The author argues that the small size of the city's population, the linguistic division of the city into English and French sections, the opposition of the Roman Catholic Church to the theatre, the shareholders' preference for a legitimate theatre in English over the more popular combination of circus and light drama, and the political strife engendered by the bitter English-French conflict in Quebec in the 1820s are cited as some of the factors that doomed the theatre in Montreal. Focusing on the demographic, linguistic, and religious features of Montreal in 1825–26, the author examines the difficulties of operating an English-language theatre in a colony without a common culture and stresses economic mismanagement as a factor in the failure of the Theatre Royal.
Publication
Theatre Survey
Volume
Vol. 24
Pages
65-75
Date
May-November 1983
Language
en
Citation
Bains, Yashdip Singh. “Frederick Brown and Montreal’s Doomed Theatre Royal, 1825-26.” Theatre Survey Vol. 24 (November 1983): 65–75.
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