The term "wild-goose chase" is first documented when used by Shakespeare in the early 1590s, and there are three plays in English by this name.

The Wild Goose Chase by John Fletcher (1621)

A comedy written by John Fletcher, The play was possibly first produced and published in 1621. Then

Translations and adaptations

Productions in South Africa

Sources

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Wild_Goose_Chase

Go to ESAT Bibliography

The Wild-Goose Chace or The Wild-Goose Chase by August von Kotzebue (1800)

An English version of August von Kotzebue's three act comedy, Der Wildfang, translated and adapted by William Dunlap ** as a four act comic opera. He entitled the work The Wild-Goose Chace (sic), but later critics and authors refer to it as The Wild-Goose Chase. First performed at Fords Theatre, New York on 24 January 1800. Published there in 1800 by William Dunlap.

Productions in South Africa

Sources

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/August_von_Kotzebue

http://www.worldcat.org/title/wildfang-ein-lustspiel/oclc/475018414/editions?referer=di&editionsView=true

Der Wildfang. The Wild Goose Chace; a play in four acts and in prose , with songs by Augustus Friedrich Ferdinand von Kotzebue and William Dunlap[1]

DiGaetani and Sirefman, 1994, Opera and the Golden West: The Past, Present, and Future of Opera in the U.S.A.[2]

Go to ESAT Bibliography

A Wild Goose Chase by Dion Boucicault

Also known simply as Wild Goose, it was a a revision of Lester Wallack's play Rosedale; or, The Rifle Ball, and the Boucicault version was first performed April 29 1867, in London, at the Haymarket Theatre.