Laura Keene

[dawna]

Laura Keene(1820-1873) Actress and theatrical Producer. Born in London, her original name was believed to have been Mary Moss. She married in 1846 or about, to John Taylor, who was later banished to Australia. The stage was how she supported herself and she made her London debut in 'The Lady of Lyons' in October 1851 under the name of Laura Keene. She joined the company of Madame Vestris in 1851 and gained wife reputation in comedies and extravaganzas produced at the Royal Lyceum Theatre in London. Her American debut was in New York in 1852 at Wallack's Lyceum. She left Wallack's to appear under her own management at the Charles Street Theatre in Baltimore in 1853. She traveled to to San Francisio in 1854 at the Metropolian Theatre.

After a tour with Edwin Booth in Australia she returned to San Francisco and tried her management and production with the staging of a number of succesful productions. New York saw her return in 1855 to play the Metropolitan Theatre which she renamed the Laura Keene's Varieties Theatre. The following year she moved into a newly contructed theatre and continued her productions in the Laura Keene Theatre, for eight years, producing her own plaus. She was the first woman in the United States to achieve the status of producer. The members of her company included such eminent actors as Joseph Jefferson, Dion Boucicault, and Edwin A. Booth, One of her great successes was the production of "Our American Cousin". It premired in New York in 1858 and had a record run. She was on the stage in Ford's Theatre in her production of "Our American Cousin", the night Abraham Lincoln was assassinated, April 15th, 1865, and she recognized John Wilkes Booth as the assassin. She gave up her theatre in May 1863. In 1872 she helped to found and edit, " The Fine Arts magazine. She died in Montclair, New Jersey on November 4th, 1873.

"Tis the witching hour of night,
Orbed is the moon and bright,
And the stars they glisten, glisten,
Seeming with bright eyes to listen
For what listen they?"
Keats