Alice Johnson (born 1860, died New York City, November 25, 1914) was a Broadway actress and singer,[1] active at the beginning of the 20th century.[2] She began her career in the chorus in light opera.[3] She later became a member of the Murray Hill Theatre Stock Company. In a single season she was seen in "no less than thirty roles running the entire gamut of the modern stage."[1] The company was founded by Henry V. Donnelly (1862–1910).[4] The company gave two performances daily and changed the play each week. Alice played everything from Lady Macbeth to Peggy in A Tin Soldier by Temple Bailey.[3]
She was also the leading actress in the Frawley Company, a stock company founded by T. Daniel Frawley in San Francisco, when it was at the zenith of its popularity.[5] She was married to Benjamin Franklin "Frank" Butler, the son of Colonel George Harris Butler and actress Rose Eytinge, until his untimely death in 1904 at the age of thirty-three.[1]
She is buried in the Oak Hill Cemetery in Washington, D.C.[6]
Selected plays
edit- The Pearl of Pekin (1888) an adaptation of the operetta Fleur-de-Thé by Charles Lecocq
- The Poet and the Puppets (1893) a burlesque adaptation of Lady Windermere's Fan[Note 1]
- The Sorrows of Satan (1897) adapted from the novel by Marie Corelli[7]
- The Swell Miss Fitzwell (1897) by Henry A. Du Souchet
- The Little Host (1898–99)
- A Divorce Colony (1900) a farce by Sydney Rosenfield, Grand Opera House, San Francisco[8]
- A Friend of the Family (1903) California Theatre, San Francisco
- Mistakes Will Happen (1906)
- The Dear Unfair Sex (1906)
- The Man from Home (1908–09)
- Widow by Proxy (1913)
Notes
edit- ^ The show included a Hamlet in hoop skirts, the song "Daddy Wouldn't Buy Me a Bow Wow" and a three-legged dance. The audience hissed and booed its disapproval. (Reference: Thomas Allston Brown (1903) A History of the New York Stage, Dodd, Mead and Company, New York)
References
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- ^ a b c Robert Grau (1909) Forty Years Observation of Music and the Drama, Broadway Publishing Company, New York
- ^ Alice Johnson at the Internet Broadway Database
- ^ a b Robert Grau (1910) The Business Man in the Amusement World, Broadway Pub. Co.,, New York
- ^ "Henry V. Donnelly Dead" (February 16, 1910) New York Times
- ^ Sunset Magazine Vol.9 No.5 (September, 1903) Southern Pacific Company, San Francisco
- ^ "Oak Hill Cemetery, Georgetown, D.C. (North Hill) - Lot 183" (PDF). oakhillcemeterydc.org. Archived (PDF) from the original on 2022-03-02. Retrieved 2022-08-14.
- ^ William Archer (1898) The Theatrical World: 1893-1897, Walter Scott Ltd., London
- ^ The Argonaut Vol.47 No.1234 (November 5, 1900) San Francisco
External links
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Media related to Alice Johnson at Wikimedia Commons
