e have been treated
with much politeness. The actors came and informed us that a box was
prepared for us.... The house is equal to most of the theatres we meet
with out of France.... The actors did their best; the 'School for
Scandal' was the play. I missed the divine Farran, but upon the whole it
was very well performed."

The first theatrical performance given in New York is said to have been
acted in a barn by English officers and shocked beyond all measure the
honest Dutch citizens whose lives hitherto had gone along so peacefully
without such ungodly spectacles. As Humphreys writes in her _Catherine
Schuyler_, "Great was the scandal in the church and among the burghers.
Their indictment was searching.... Moreover, they painted their faces
which was against God and nature.... They had degraded manhood by
assuming female habits."[226]

But in most sections of the Middle Colonies, as well as in Virginia and
South Carolina, the colonists took very readily to the theatre, and in
both Pennsylvania and Virginia, where the curtain generally rose at six
o'clock, such crowds attended that the fashionable folk commonly sent
their negroes ahead to hold the seats against all comers. Williamsburg,
Virginia, had a good play house as early as 1716; Charleston just a
little later, and Annapolis had regular performances in 1752. Baltimore
first opened the theatre in 1782, and did the thing "in the fine style,"
by presenting Shakespeare's _King Richard_. Society doubtless tingled
with excitement when that first theatrical notice appeared in the
Baltimore papers.

"THE NEW THEATRE IN BALTIMORE
Will Open, This Evening, being the 15th of January ...
With an HISTORICAL TRAGEDY, CALLED
KING RICHARD III

* * * * *

AN OCCASIONAL PROLOGUE by MR. WALL
to which will be added a FARCE,
MISS IN HER TEENS

* * * * *

"Boxes: One Dollar: Pit Five Shillings: Galleries 9d. Doors to be
open at Half-past Four, and will begin at Six o'clock.

"No persons can be admitted without Tickets, which may be had at
the coffee House in Baltimore, and at Lindlay's Coffee House on
Fells-Point.

"No Persons will on any pretence be admitted behind the Scenes."

This last sentence was indeed a necessary one; for during the earlier
days of the American theatre many in the audience frequently invaded the
stage, either to co