Joseph Hutton (playwright)

Hutton was born in Philadelphia, and was employed as a schoolmaster while becoming a playwright. He also wrote prose and poems.Kettell, Samuel. [https://books.google.com/books?id=_kfRvLZu5hIC&pg=PA181 Specimens of American Poetry], pp. 181-85 (1829) His first comedy appears to have been The School for Prodigals, which debuted at the Chestnut Street Theatre in Philadelphia in 1808. He only moved into acting as well some years later.

After leaving the theater world, what he did is said in some sources to be unclear, but he appears to have moved to New Bern, North Carolina in 1823, where he taught, and also contributed to the local newspaper.Bordman, Gerald Martin. [https://books.google.com/books?id=DiI1wIyatvUC&pg=PA325 The Concise Oxford Companion to American Theatre], p. 325 (1987) He died there in 1828, despite at least one source incorrectly saying he died out west.Moses, Montrose J. [https://books.google.com/books?id=wlgIAQAAIAAJ&pg=PA11 Representative Plays by American Dramatists, Volume 2], p. 11-16 (1925)Wegelin, Oscar. [https://archive.org/details/earlyamericanpla0000wege/page/50/mode/2up?q=%22joseph+hutton%22 Early American Plays 1814-1830], p. 50-51 (1905)

Though never lauded for his work, Hutton was considered to be among the notable American playwrights of the early 19th century. For example, an article in The London Magazine in 1826 on American dramatists, while cautioning that no American play "of commanding merit" had yet to appear, did include a paragraph on Hutton.(December 1826). [https://books.google.com/books?id=rgqDPVbIbzMC&pg=PA468 American Dramatists: A Letter from Philadelphia], The London Magazine, pp. 466-70 And in 1829, critic Samuel Kettell wrote that Hutton's "writings seldom rise above mediocrity, but many of his productions are agreeable. His talents were rather imitative than creative." In 1918, Perley Isaac Reed listed Hutton as one of a group of five he called the best American playwrights of 1805–15, albeit during an era when homegrown plays were disfavored in America as compared to English works.Reed, Perley Isaac. [https://books.google.com/books?id=GMhQAQAAIAAJ The Realistic Presentation of American Characters in Native American Plays Prior to Eighteen Seventy], p. 72 (1918) In 1925, Volume 2 of Representative Plays by American Dramatists by Montrose Jonas Moses, covering the years 1815–1858, was published. The collection of ten plays leads off with Hutton's Fashionable Follies (1815).

• The School for Prodigals (1808) (comedy)
• The Orphan of Prague (1808)
• The Wounded Hussar; or The Rightful Heir (1809) (musical piece)
• Fashionable Follies (~1810, revised 1815)
• Modern Honor, or How to Shun a Bullet (1822) ("Dodge" in some sources instead of "Shun") (about a duel between George McDuffie and William Cumming)

• Don Guiscardo (story)
• Ardennis (story)
• The Castle of Altenheim (story)
• Leisure Hours (1812) (poems)
• Field of Orleans (poem)

The Battle on the Wabash, or the Demon of the Cave (1813) (melodramatic pantomime)

{{reflist}}

• [https://books.google.com/books?id=HNFZAAAAcAAJ The Wounded Hussar, or Rightful Heir] (1809)
• [https://books.google.com/books?id=vs1OAQAAMAAJ The School for Prodigals] (1809)
• [https://books.google.com/books?id=HtFZAAAAcAAJ&pg=PA1 Orphan of Prague] (1810)
• [https://books.google.com/books?id=zlxNAQAAMAAJ Fashionable Follies: A Comedy in Five Acts] (1815)

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Category:American male stage actors

Category:1787 births

Category:1828 deaths

Category:Writers from Philadelphia

Category:19th-century American dramatists and playwrights

Category:19th-century American male actors