From Androboros to the First Amendment The Writing of America's First Play

Androboros, A Bographical [sic] Farce in Three Acts (1715), is acknowledged as the first play both written and printed in America. Its significance stems not simply from its publication but from its eventual impact. The play inadvertently laid the foundation for one of the defining rights of the nation that would eventually emerge some seventy-five years later—the First Amendment of the Constitution, guaranteeing a free press and freedom of expression.

About the author

Peter A. Davis is an associate professor of theatre at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, where he chairs the Theatre Studies program and is director of graduate studies. He specializes in the economic and cultural history of theatre in early America and eighteenth-century England. His articles and reviews have appeared in most of the major theatre history journals. He was also a contributor to the "Cambridge History of the American Theatre," winner of the 1999 Barnard Hewitt Award from the American Society for Theatre Research. He is a professional actor and director, and is an ensemble member with the award-winning Remy Bumppo Theatre Company of Chicago. He lives in Chicago, Illinois.

Product details

• Authors: Peter A. Davis
• Publisher: University Of Iowa Press
• Content: Book
• Product form: Paperback / Softback
• Publication date: 15.05.2015
• Subject: Humanities, art, music > Art > Theatre, ballet
• EAN: 9781609383114
• ISBN: 978-1-60938-311-4
• Pages: 254
• Series: Studies in Theatre History and Culture; Studies Theatre Hist & Culture; Studies Theatre Hist & Culture; Studies in Theatre History and Culture