| Chapter 1: | Mise-en-Scène |
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the later full-blown emergence of an American theater, one that John Durang and family would help to shape. Indeed, John Durang would eventually attend, perform in, and briefly manage the Southwark, and he would establish America’s first homegrown theatrical family.18
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Barely three months after their crossing to Philadelphia, the young Jacob and Joeann Durang became parents, as their son John later noted in his Memoir:
Lancastrians have long memories: the city’s Theatrical Brotherhood Association mounted a bronze plaque on its Water Street building, formerly behind the Fulton Opera House, in January 1955; the plaque was dedicated “To the memory of John Durang, first native-born American actor, born within sight of this building January 6, 1768.”19 The plaque is now housed at the Fulton, one of the oldest operating theaters in the United States. Renowned architect Edwin Forrest Durang—John Durang’s grandson, named for the United States’ first homegrown acting star—undertook the first renovation of that historic theater just over a century after his grandfather’s birth. Another plaque, a historical marker, and a puppet museum have been dedicated to John Durang at the Hole in the Wall Puppet Theatre, also in downtown Lancaster, on Water Street.
Legend has it that Durang was born in the house known as “The Bindery” on Water Street, an old section of town.20 But this house was built after Durang’s birth and no clues connect this property, or any other in town, with the Durang/Arter family. Lancaster, a thriving inland town, would later draw John Durang and his theater troupe for annual summer seasons, but at this point in his life, Lancaster was a brief stop.