phia's Chestnut Theatre (April 21, 1795). A company at Boston and strolling companies elsewhere in New England likewise included Richard III in the repertory. Thomas A. Cooper (1776–1849) completes the list of players of this rôle at the close of the eighteenth century.
The arrival of George Frederick Cooke at New York in 1810 began a new era on the American stage. His Richard was closely imitated by the American actor, John Duff (1787–1831). Between the two visits of Edmund Kean to America (1820 and 1825), came Junius Brutus Booth, who made his first appearance in the part of Richard at the New Park Theatre on October 5, 1821. Junius Booth continued to play Richard for the thirty subsequent years of his career.
Edwin Forrest (1806–1872), the first American born actor of importance, appeared as Richard at the Bowery Theatre, New York, on January 23, 1827. Forrest played Richard as a noble prince, maintaining that a man cf Richard's intellectual power would have the skill to conceal his deformity. He published a slightly altered form of Cibber's text.
Before and after the visit of Charles Kean in 1836 and again in 1840, the tragedy underwent some strange vicissitudes upon our stage. Several "child-actors" appeared as Richard, among whom were boys and girls of eleven and less. Ellen Bateman, for example, played Richard at the age of four. More than one woman likewise essayed the character. Charlotte Crampton gave a performance of the tragedy, in which, during the last act, she exhibited a troup of trained horses, thus repeating what had already been done at the London Astley's where Richard III was once turned into a spectacular circus. Other actors were fond of using the character of Richard for displaying their powers of mimicry of legitimate players.
