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:''For the other theatre of this name, see Chatham Theatre.'' The Chatham Garden Theatre or Chatham Theatre was a playhouse in the Chatham Gardens of New York City. It was located on the north side of Chatham Street on Park Row between Pearl and Duane streets in lower Manhattan. The grounds ran through to Augustus Street. The Chatham Garden Theatre was the first major competition to the high-class Park Theatre, though in its later years it sank to the bottom of New York's stratified theatrical order, below even the Bowery Theatre. The Chatham Garden was converted to the Free Presbyterian Chatham Street Chapel in 1832. ==Creation and early seasons== The theatre began quite humbly. In 1823 Hippolite Barrière, the manager of the Chatham Gardens in New York City, erected a white, canvas tent in his public pleasure grounds. He dubbed it the Pavilion Theatre and began staging drama there with a ticket price of 25¢.〔Brown 85.〕 The tent, which was used for other concerts and plays, also housed a saloon. The makeshift playhouse operated through the summer, perhaps the first such summer theatre in the United States.〔Wilmeth and Tice 90.〕 Stephen Price, manager of New York's Park Theatre, tried to put a stop to Barrière's enterprise by reporting the tent to the authorities as a fire hazard. Barrière responded by erecting a brick-and-mortar structure on the site.〔Henderson 54.〕 The new building, named the Chatham Garden Theatre, opened on 17 May 1824 and played through the normal season. The theater was an ornate structure designed by architect George Conklin. It had no gallery, and it did not admit African Americans.〔Wilmeth and Bigsby 143.〕 The balcony was on the same level as the lobby and fronted the garden. The walls had slits and the doorways only blinds to facilitate airflow. Karl Bernhard, a visitor to New York in 1825-26, left this description: However, the theatre's location was difficult to find. It was only accessible by passing through private buildings on the west side of Chatham Street.〔Brown 84.〕 The ''New-York Mirror'' resorted to printing a map to show how to reach the place and offered these instructions: The Chatham Garden Theatre offered popular actors at reasonable prices, and it did well. The playhouse provided the first real competition for the upper-class Park Theatre in its second season, which began on 9 May 1825.〔 It remained a classy establishment for the next three seasons. During this time, it produced the first two American operas, ''The Sawmill'' in 1824 and ''The Forest Rose'' in 1825.〔Wilmeth and Bigsby 453.〕 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Chatham Garden Theatre」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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