National Theatres

National Theatres (Washington, D.C.). Shortly after a visit by Fanny Kemble, during which she complained about the shameful quality of playhouses in the nation's capital, several Washington civic leaders, led by William W. Corcoran, decided to erect a proper theatre. A site was selected on E Street, not far from the White House, and the new theatre, called the National, opened in 1835. The auditorium was converted briefly to a circus in 1844, but, after serving as the scene of President Polk's inaugural ball, burned to the ground in 1845. Since then five other theatres, all called the National, have occupied approximately the same lot. Like the first, the next three burned—in 1857, 1873, and 1885. The fifth house, designed by J. B. McElfatrick, opened in 1885 and closed in 1922, when the present theatre was erected. Virtually all the great performers of the American stage have appeared at one or another of these Nationals, and nearly all American presidents since Andrew Jackson have attended performances there. Apart from a stint as the circus in 1844 and service as a film house from 1947 to 1952, during which time Actors' Equity refused to allow its members to perform there because of the house's policy of not selling tickets to African Americans, the property and the theatres built on it have accumulated a record of theatrical continuity almost unparalleled in American history.

First proposed by Effingham Wilson (1848), the idea of a state theatre received parliamentary approval (1949) but the promised funding was not forthcoming. The National Theatre company was finally incorporated in 1963, with Laurence Olivier as director, but it was not until 1976, after financial difficulties and criticism, that the company moved into its permanent home, a three-theatre complex on the South Bank (London).