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