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

Yet in 1767, Jacob Durang and wife arrived in a city that had experienced remarkable growth, with a rich brew of social classes, ethnicities, and cultural institutions, and a wide range of trades and industries. The early Quaker dominance, shaped by pacifism and tolerance, had allowed such an influx of varied religious and ethnic groups that these eventually outnumbered the Quakers, although the latter still held sway in government, society, and the economy. The rich surrounding farmland, together with the fine port and the city’s central location in the colonies, fed its vitality. Although British influence was dominant, there was strong input from the Germans and Scots-Irish, as well as Africans, French, and other Europeans.

In this dynamic city, class structures evolved and shifted, with an aristocratic core of established families and wealthy merchants, a rising middle “mechanic” class, and a rowdy working class, always in short supply in this upwardly spiraling economy. As Quaker control of social life diminished, Philadelphia saw a shift from Quaker austerity toward a more cosmopolitan gentility marked by the introduction, often against strong objection, of such social graces and diversions as dancing and theater. In the year the Durangs arrived, the almost inconceivable occurred in this once-dour Quaker city: a local cleric, probably the Anglican Reverend William Smith, published True pleasure, chearfulness and happiness…with some remarks on the theatre, addressed to a young lady in Philadelphia,”casting his blessing on theater as an element of genteel education.¹⁷

Education played a key role in the city’s social dynamism, allowing establishment of a broadly shared culture. Private schools offered practical subjects (reading, writing, languages, business, arithmetic) and genteel graces (singing, dancing, fencing, needlework). Philadelphia was home to Pennsylvania’s only school of higher education—the College of Philadelphia. Libraries, museums, and philosophical societies fed the city’s self-improving population. Not surprisingly, theater managers advertised the educational benefits of their entertaining versions of history, the classics, and literature.

The recent building of the Southwark Theatre, improvements in the American Company’s personnel, and enthusiastic audiences foreshadowed