John Augustin Daly was an American

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 theatrical manager and playwright

Playwright

A playwright, also called a dramatist, is a person who writes plays.The term is not a variant spelling of "playwrite", but something quite distinct: the word wright is an archaic English term for a craftsman or builder...

 active in both the US and UK.

Biography

Daly was born in Plymouth, North Carolina

Plymouth, North Carolina

Plymouth is the largest town in Washington County, North Carolina, United States. The population was 4,107 at the 2000 census. It is the county seat of Washington County...

 and educated at Norfolk, Va.

Norfolk, Virginia

Norfolk is an independent city in the Commonwealth of Virginia in the United States. With a population of 242,803 as of the 2010 Census, it is Virginia's second-largest city behind neighboring Virginia Beach....

 and in the public schools of New York City

New York City

New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...

.

He was dramatic critic for several New York

New York

New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...

 papers from 1859, and he adapted or wrote a number of plays, Under the Gaslight (1867) being his first success. In 1869 he was the manager of the Fifth Avenue Theatre

Fifth Avenue Theatre

Fifth Avenue Theatre was a Broadway theatre in New York City in the United States located at 31 West 28th Street and Broadway. It was demolished in 1939....

, and in 1879 he built and opened Daly's Theatre in New York

New York

New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...

, and, in 1893, Daly's Theatre

Daly's Theatre

Daly's Theatre was a theatre in the City of Westminster. It was located at 2 Cranbourn Street, just off Leicester Square. It opened on 27 June 1893, and was demolished in 1937.-Early years:...

 in London

London

London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...

.

At the former he gathered a company of players, headed by Ada Rehan

Ada Rehan

Ada Rehan was an American actress.-Biography:She was born as Ada Crehan in County Limerick, Ireland, and brought to the United States at about the age of six years....

, which made for it a high reputation, and for them he adapted plays from foreign sources, and revived Shakespearean

William Shakespeare

William Shakespeare was an English poet and playwright, widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's national poet and the "Bard of Avon"...

 comedies in a manner before unknown in America. He took his entire company on tour, visiting England, Germany and France, and some of the best actors on the American stage have owed their training and first successes to him. Among these were Clara Morris

Clara Morris

Clara Morris was an American actress.-Biography:Born in Toronto, Canada, her real name was Morrison. She was reared in Cleveland, Ohio, where at the Academy of Music she became a member of the ballet and afterward leading actress.She went to New York in 1870 as a member of Daly's company...

, Sarah Orne Jewett

Sarah Orne Jewett

Sarah Orne Jewett was an American novelist and short story writer, best known for her local color works set in or near South Berwick, Maine, on the border of New Hampshire, which in her day was a declining New England seaport.-Biography:Jewett's family had been residents of New England for many...

, John Drew, Jr., Maurice Barrymore

Maurice Barrymore

Herbert Arthur Chamberlayne Blythe —stage name Maurice Barrymore — was the patriarch of the Barrymore acting family and great-grandfather of actress Drew Barrymore.-Early life:...

, Fanny Davenport

Fanny Davenport

Fanny Lily Gipsy Davenport was an English-American stage actress. The daughter of Edward Loomis Davenport and Fanny Vining, she was born in London, England, but was brought to America when a child and educated in the Boston public schools...

, Agnes Ethel

Agnes Ethel

Agnes Ethel was a Broadway actress of the late 19th century. She performed in New York City from 1868 - 1871.Her married name was Agnes Ethel Tracy...

, Maude Adams

Maude Adams

Maude Ewing Kiskadden , known professionally as Maude Adams, was an American stage actress who achieved her greatest success as Peter Pan. Adams's personality appealed to a large audience and helped her become the most successful and highest-paid performer of her day, with a yearly income of more...

, Mrs. Gilbert

Ann Gilbert

Ann Gilbert billed as Mrs. G. H. Gilbert was a British – American actress.She was born Anne Jane Hartley at Rochdale, Lancashire, England. At fifteen she was a pupil at the ballet school connected with Her Majesty's Theatre, in the Haymarket, conducted by Paul Taglioni, and became a dancer...

, Tyrone Power, Sr.

Tyrone Power, Sr.

Frederick Tyrone Edmond Power was an English-born American stage and screen actor, who acted under the name Tyrone Power.-Early life:Power was born in London in 1869, the son of Harold Littledale Power and Ethel Lavenu...

, Ada Dyas

Ada Dyas

Ada Dyas was an Irish actress. She made her London debut in 1861 in Henry IV, and became famous in the 1871 play based on Wilkie Collins's novel The Woman in White....

, Isadora Duncan

Isadora Duncan

Isadora Duncan was a dancer, considered by many to be the creator of modern dance. Born in the United States, she lived in Western Europe and the Soviet Union from the age of 22 until her death at age 50. In the United States she was popular only in New York, and only later in her life...

 and many others. Daly's willingness to, as he put it, "stoop to the curb and bestow upon the low, untried actor a chance at greatness" earned him the nickname "Little Man Auggie" among his peers. His play Leah the Forsaken, adapted from the Deborah of Hermann Salomon Mosenthal

Hermann Salomon Mosenthal

Salomon Hermann Mosenthal was a writer, dramatist, and poet of German-Jewish descent who spent much of his life in Austria...

, was a star vehicle for Margaret Mather

Margaret Mather

Margaret Mather was a Canadian actress.She was born in poverty in Tilbury, Ontario as Margaret Finlayson, daughter of John Finlayson, a farmer and mechanic, and Ann Mather...

.

His Shakespeare productions were often severely criticized by George Bernard Shaw

George Bernard Shaw

George Bernard Shaw was an Irish playwright and a co-founder of the London School of Economics. Although his first profitable writing was music and literary criticism, in which capacity he wrote many highly articulate pieces of journalism, his main talent was for drama, and he wrote more than 60...

, who was active as a drama critic during those years. Shaw took Daly severely to task for cutting Shakespeare's plays and for presenting them in unorthodox ways, such as making Oberon, King of the Fairies, a woman in Daly's production of A Midsummer Night's Dream

A Midsummer Night's Dream

A Midsummer Night's Dream is a play that was written by William Shakespeare. It is believed to have been written between 1590 and 1596. It portrays the events surrounding the marriage of the Duke of Athens, Theseus, and the Queen of the Amazons, Hippolyta...

. (Shaw was a strong believer in presenting Shakespeare's plays uncut.) Several of Shaw's criticisms of Daly's Shakespeare productions were reprinted in the anthology Shaw on Shakespeare.

Daly was a great book-lover, and his valuable library was dispersed by auction after his death, which occurred in Paris

Paris

Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...

. Besides plays, original and adapted, he wrote Woffington

Margaret Woffington

Margaret "Peg" Woffington was a well-known Irish actress in Georgian London.- Early life :Woffington was born of humble origins in Dublin. Her father is thought to have been a bricklayer, and after his death, the family became impoverished...

: a Tribute to the Actress and the Woman (1888).

Notable works

Under the Gaslight (1867) is an example of Daly's mixture of realism and melodrama, seen in the authenticity of his depiction of real locations and in his use of social commentary. The play is famous for introducing the cliched "thrill" device of having the villain tie someone to the railroad tracks—only in this case, it was the hero who was lashed to the tracks, and the heroine who ultimately saved him.

A Flash of Lightning (1868), like Under the Gaslight, is pure melodrama, with water and fire spectacles providing action scenes and special effects for its eager audiences.

Horizon (1871) is an adaptation of a Bret Harte

Bret Harte

Francis Bret Harte was an American author and poet, best remembered for his accounts of pioneering life in California.- Life and career :...

 story about the westward expansion of the States; it is an example of the popularity of western drama, coupled with Daly's interest in realism of the local color variety, although it remains melodramatic.

Divorce (1871) and Pique (1875), both adaptations of British novels, demonstrate Daly's attempts to create social comedy, although the plays remain somewhat melodramatic.