John Durang: Man of the American Stage By Lynn Matluck Brooks

FIGURE 1. Old Southwark Theater, Corner South and Apollo Sts., Philadelphia. By J. Thomas Scharf, 1884.

Courtesy of the Library Company of Philadelphia.

by the child Mrs. Durang was carrying. Indeed, John Durang would become the first American-born player to make the theater his life, and the Southwark would be his first stage.

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Like the Durangs, the Southwark Theatre was a recent arrival in Philadelphia. Although people of all classes and backgrounds attended theater, Quakers and other religious leaders in Philadelphia battled the