William Dunlap: One Eye on the Future

It is our pleasure this morning to tell you about Early American Renaissance Man William Dunlap (1766-1839). Dunlap’s most significant contributions were in the theatre, but he was also a noteworthy painter both before and after his 18 years in playhouses. Later, he became an author as well.

Dunlap’s life as a visual artist is especially extraordinary because the man only had one eye! He’d lost one in a childhood accident, while growing up in New Jersey.

It is especially fitting that Dunlap’s birthday falls on Presidents Day this year for his most notable early painting was a portrait of George Washington made while the General was moving through New Jersey in 1783, when Dunlap was about 17.

That was the year the Revolution ended, of course. The cessation of hostilities meant that Dunlap could now travel to London to study with Benjamin West, which he did, remaining in England until 1787. (As it happens, the Pennsylvania born West painted that portrait of Benjamin Franklin that we used in a post a few days ago).

Dunlap settled in New York upon his return, reinventing himself as a playwright, theatre manager and producer. His early work The Father, or American Shandyism was produced at the John Street Theatre in 1789. The John Street, built 1767, was New York’s first dedicated playhouse. Prior to this, a small amount of theatre had been presented at ad hoc locales. Dunlap took over management of the John Street during its last two years, 1796-98. He then became the head of its successor, the brand new Park Theatre, from 1798 to 1805. This was early days. Both the John Street and the Park were located very far down in Manhattan, below the present site of City Hall. This was before the time of the Bowery even. Thus these theatres were THE places to see shows in New York in those early days — literally. George Washington attended shows at the Park during his time as President as the national capitol was located just blocks away.

One of Dunlap’s earliest plays at the Park was Andre (1798), about the executed Revolutionary War spy who turned Benedict Arnold. Amazingly, during the British occupation of New York in wartime, Andre himself had produced plays and shows at the John Street Theatre. Andre (the play) was not a success. Dunlap later adapted it into The Glory of Columbia, Her Yeomanry (1803). Dunlap wrote and presented five dozen plays during his time at the Park, though most of them were translations and adaptations of French and German stage hits of the day.

In the new century, Dunlap returned to painting, which was more lucrative. The self-portrait above was done just about two centuries ago. Dunlap authored several books. In 1813, he edited the memoirs of the just-deceased George Frederick Cooke, whose remarkable story we told here. Other works included History of the American Theater (1832) and History of the Rise and Progress of the Arts of Design in the United States (1834). Amusingly these were both multivolume works, at a time so early in American history one might assume that they would be pamphlets.

William Dunlap died at age 73, America’s grand old man of the theatre in days prior to when most people figure American theatre began. But those people are clearly wrong.