Although a theater was built in Williamsburg, Virginia in 1716, and the original Dock Street Theatre opened in Charleston, South Carolina in 1736, the birth of professional theater in America may have begun when Lewis Hallam arrived with his theatrical company in Williamsburg in 1752. Lewis and his brother William, who arrived in 1754, were the first to organize a complete company of actors in Europe and bring them to the colonies. They brought a repertoire of plays popular in London at the time, including Hamlet, Othello, The Recruiting Officer, and Richard III. The Merchant of Venice was their first performance, shown initially on September 15, 1752. Encountering opposition from religious organizations, Hallam and his company left for Jamaica in 1754 or 1755. Soon after, Lewis Hallam, Jr., founded the American Company, opened a theater in New York, and presented the first professionally mounted American play -- The Prince of Parthia, by Thomas Godfrey -- in 1767.
when was the first theatre built in america and where was it
1716