Some of his best known plays:

Some of his best known plays:

London Assurance* 1841, The Poor of New York* 1857, Octoroon, or Life in Louisiana* 1859.

Plays of "authentic" Irish life and character: The Colleen Bawn* 1860, The Wicklow Wedding* 1864, The Shaughraun*

1874. Some of his best known adaptations: The Corsican Brothers* 1852, Louis XI * 1855, Dot* 1859, Rip Van Winkle*

1865. 1857 James Buchanan* (1791-1868) comes in as the 15th president of the United States. He

will be busy trying to keep the "sacred balance" between the proslavery and antislavery factions.

The French novelist, Gustave Flaubert* (1821-80), publishes his masterpiece, Madame Bovary*.

1858 Minnesota enters the union as the 32nd state. 1858 - This year that operetta* business shows up in its best guise in Orpheus in the

Underworld*, by Jacques Offenbach* (1819-80). He's one of the top composers in this genre. He will write over a hundred, but the best remembered will come in 1881.

Laura Keene*'s company (now employing excellent actors, such as Joseph Jefferson III* and

A.E. Sothern*) has a resounding success with Our American Cousin* by Tom Taylor*. This play will have a long run and help establish New York as the theatre center of the United States.

1859 This year the French engineer Ferdinand de Lesseps* (1805-94) begins building the Suez Canal* (connecting the Mediterranean Sea with the Red Sea so you don't have to sail all the way around Africa to get from Europe to the East). It will take ten years to finish the project.

Oregon becomes the 33rd state in the union. This year begins what is called the "Age of Oil". The coal-oil (kerosene, a thin oil distilled from petroleum or coal shale) lamp has been invented and the demand for oil leads to drilling near Titusville, PA. A fellow called Edwin L. Drake* strikes oil this year and the petroleum industry is off and running.

Meanwhile, another fellow, Peter Cooper* (1791-1883), has been inventing devices and processes in the iron industry and making pots of money (on that and owning more than half of the telegraph lines in the U.S).. He's really big on helping educate the working classes so this year, in addition to helping get a public school system in New York City, he founds the Cooper Union, a free institution of higher learning with an evening engineering and art school.

Darwin* comes out with his book The Origin of Species* this year and his theory of evolution will go buzzing around Europe raising all kinds of reactions. Scientific thought will never be the same. An English philosopher, Herbert Spencer* (1820-1903), will really pick up on this and put it into his ethical and social views in numerous works (between now and 1893).

Another Englishman, Thomas Henry Huxley* (1825-95), a bioligist and educator, becomes the principle exponent of Darwin*'s theory of evolution.

In Russia, Dostoyevsky* is out of prison and home in St. Petersburg from his exile in Siberia. The French composer of romantic operas, Charles Francois Gounod*, produces Faust*. 1859 - Boucicault* (still in the United States) writes Octoroon, or Life in Louisiana*, the first

play that treats the Afro-American seriously. This play, too, will be very popular. He also adapts Dickens*' The Cricket on the Hearth*, calling his play Dot*. The soon-to-be-popular American actor, Joseph Jefferson* gets his first serious part in Dot*.

1860 - The well-made play* formula is picked up and exploited by another Frenchman, Victorien Sardou* (1831-1908). This year he does one of his early successful comedies, A Scrap of Paper*. Sardou* will be busy writing for the next forty years. He does a pretty good job showing current society but lacks any character depth. We'll hear more about him as we go along.

In Paris, one of the most famous actors of the period, Constant-Benoit Coquelin*, joins the Comedie-Francaise*. He will stay with them for the next 26 years, building a reputation for technical proficiency especially in comic roles and flamboyant romantic parts. He will also write extensively on acting.

Most of the influence Italy has on the theatre in this period comes through international touring of Italian actors. The most influential one is Tommaso Salvini* (1829-1915) who begins touring this year. He is terrific in several Shakespearian roles, especially Othello*. Fiery tragic acting is his hallmark and he will influence a Russian we'll be talking about later (Stanislavsky*).