J.H. le Roy

J.H. le Roy (18**-18**) was a professional English actor, play adaptor and manager.

Also known as J.H. Leroy

Biography
Virtually no information seems to be available on his early years, but Le Roy clearly spent a great deal of his theatrical life playing the empire, appearing regularly in Australia and South Africa in the years between 1861 and 1871.

According to the Australian website AusStage he (first?) worked in Australia in 1863, doing David Copperfield at the Princess Theatre, Melbourne (6 February 1863).

He is on record again in as an actor manager in Newcastle, New South Wales, Australia in 1870, when he put on 32 performances of 24 plays plays between 16 July  to  16 September, many of to be part of his South African repertoire, including Jack Sheppard (Buckstone) and The French Spy, or The Wild Arab of the Desert).

His name appears for the final time with a production of Winning a Husband (Buckstone), in the Theatre Royal, Newcastle 22 July 1871.

Like (and possibly with) Marie Duret, he must have then moved to the USA, for at some point after 1873 he is reported to have done a stage adaptation of The Gilded Age by Mark Twain and Charles Dudley Warner, which was produced  in Portland, Oregon.

Contribution to SA theatre, film, media and/or performance
He apparently first arrived in Port Elizabeth in 1861, moving from there to Cape Town, where he worked periodically between 1861 and 1871 as one half of the Leroy and Duret or Le Roy and Duret Company, which he founded with his wife, Madame Duret (also a professional actress from London) in 1861. They rented the Theatre Royal in Harrington Street and were particularly active in the work presented by the British garrison in Cape Town, doing 4 seasons in all.

For performances by the company and Leroy, see Le Roy and Duret Company

[JH]

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