D'Arcy Read Theatrical Company
The D'Arcy Read Theatrical Company was a touring company set up by D'Arcy Read and his wife (billed as Mrs D'Arcy Read) in the 1860s and 1870s.
Also found as the D'Arcy Read Company and D'Arcy-Read Company.
The two principals originally came to South Africa in 1868 with the Le Roy and Duret Company, having been recruited in England by J.H. le Roy, performing in the Theatre Royal in Cape Town.
When the theatre burnt down in 1868, they lost most of their wardrobe and the Le Roy and Duret Company ceased its performances shorlty after. The Reads then joined forces with James Leffler and his wife, to tour the principal towns of the Cape Colony as the Read-Leffler Company, going as far as Colesberg by ox-wagon. There the reads and Lefflers parted company, Leffler returning to Cape Town in 1869.
Sources
D.C. Boonzaier, 1980. "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. 201-2, 230-254, 292-299, 319.
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