Playbill for Ira Aldridge at the Theatre Royal
One of the most celebrated Shakespearean actors of the 19th century, American-born Ira Aldridge achieved fame on the stages of Europe, where he found professional opportunities that did not exist for black actors in the United States. This 1857 playbill advertises an engagement by Aldridge at the Theatre Royal in Newcastle, England, in which he performed three roles from his extensive repertoire: Othello, Shylock in The Merchant of Venice, and Gambia in The Slave.
In the early 1820s, Aldridge performed in New York with William Brown’s African Theatre, the first African American theater company. He then journeyed to England, where in 1833 he became the first black actor to portray Othello on the London stage. Aldridge spent the rest of his life touring Great Britain, Europe, and Russia, and became a British citizen in 1863. He used his position on the stage to speak out against slavery and advocate for racial equality, declaring that “True feeling and just expression are not confined to any clime or colour.”
The playbill displayed above is now in the collection of theSmithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture. Visitors to the museum can view this object in the “Taking the Stage” exhibition.
Credits and Sources:
2011.57.44 - Playbill for Ira Aldridge in Othello and The Slave at the Theatre Royal, 1857. Published by: Theatre Royal. Collection of the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture.
NPG.72.73 – Portrait of Ira Frederick Aldridge, ca. 1830. Artist: Henry Perronet Briggs. Collection of the Smithsonian Institution National Portrait Gallery.
“Aldridge, Ira (1807-1867).” BlackPast.org http://www.blackpast.org/aah/aldridge-ira-1807-1867
"Ira Aldridge." John B. Cade Library. Accessed January 9, 2016. http://www.lib.subr.edu/BLACK_HISTORY/Aldridge,_Ira_Frederick_3.pdf.
Memoir and Theatrical Career of Ira Aldridge, the African Roscius. London: Onwhyn, 1849.
Bernth Lindfors, Ira Aldridge: The Vagabond Years, 1833-1852. Vol. 49. Boydell & Brewer, 2011.
“Ira Aldridge: Bernth Lindfors.” Interview with Aldridge scholar, http://boydellandbrewer.com/content/docs/Bernth_Lindfors_Interview.pdf
“Annotated Bibliography of Books on Ira Aldridge.” 19th Century Acts Project, University of Michigan. http://19thcenturyacts.com/resources/Aldridge%20Annotated%20Bib.pdf