The Frawley Company

The Frawley Company (also known as the The Daniel Frawley Company) was founded and led by Daniel Frawley. Originally known as The T.D. Frawley Stock Company, it was based in San Francisco and went on to tour widely in the USA, Asia and the British colonies (including Australia and South Africa).

In 1904 the company visited to South Africa en route to the East, touring South Africa under the auspices of the Wheeler Brothers, with a repertoire that included Arizona (Thomas), Brother Officers (Trevor), Madame Sans-Gêne (Sardou) and Secret Service (Gilette). The first appeared in Cape Town on 25 January with the first South African performance of Arizona and would return to Cape Town again in August, with Madame Sans-Gêne. The company also participated in a benefit performance for the "sufferers in a disaster (a flood) at Bloemfontein", organized by Grant Fallowes in the Opera House, Cape Town, on 28 February, when they did an act from Brother Officers, as part of the programme.

In South Africa the company was billed as The Daniel Frawley Company (or simply The Frawley Company) and included Daniel Frawley, Mary van Buren and Hugh C. Buckler among its members.

Sources

James Fisher and Felicia Hardison Londré. 2017. Historical Dictionary of American Theater: Modernism. Rowman & Littlefield:p.253[1]

D.C. Boonzaier, 1923. "My playgoing days – 30 years in the history of the Cape Town stage", in SA Review, 9 March and 24 August 1932. (Reprinted in Bosman 1980: pp. 374-439.)

F.C.L. Bosman, 1980. Drama en Toneel in Suid-Afrika, Deel II, 1856-1916. Pretoria: J.L. van Schaik: pp. 417, 418, 421

Go to ESAT Bibliography