THE PRINCE OF PARTHIA
The Prince of Parthia is the first play written by an American to be performed in America by a professional company of actors. It was written by Thomas Godfrey, born December 4, 1736, in Philadelphia, the son of Thomas Godfrey, the inventor of the sea-quadrant. According to his biographer he was educated at "an English School" in that city. He was also a pupil of William Smith, Provost of the College of Philadelphia, and had as companions, Benjamin West, and Francis Hopkinson, the first original poet-composer in the colonies. Having been released from his indentures to a watch maker, he became in 1758 a lieutenant in the Pennsylvania militia for the expedition against Fort Duquesne. The next year he accepted a position as a factor in North Carolina where he stayed for three years and where he brought to completion The Prince of Parthia. Godfrey had probably seen the American Company act in Philadelphia in 1754 when, owing to the opposition to the theatre, the actors had been forced to play in a warehouse belonging to William Plumsted, one of the Trustees of the College, on Water Street. Being a pupil of William Smith, Godfrey had almost certainly attended the benefit which the American Company gave for the Charity School of the College, June 19, 1754. He may have offered the play to David Douglass, the Manager of the reorganized American Company, as early as 1759, but it was not acted until after Godfrey's death. He died August 3, 1763, in North Carolina, and The Prince of Parthia, together with his other poems, was published in 1765 by his friend, Nathaniel Evans, with an account of Godfrey. The play was produced on April 24, 1767, according to the following advertisement which appeared in No. 1272 of The Pennsylvania Journal and the Weekly Advertiser, Thursday, April 23, 1767.
BY AUTHORITY,
Never Performed Before.
By the American Company,
At the New Theatre, in Southwark,
on Friday, the Twenty-fourth of April, will be
presented. A Tragedy written by the late ingenious
Mr. Thomas Godfrey, of this city, called the
PRINCE of PARTHIA
The Principal Characters by Mr. Hallam,
Mr. Douglass, Mr. Wall, Mr. Morris,
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