Annie Lewis Rebels (Also Writes Plays)

Annie Lewis was a playwright and actress of the late 19th century. She seems to have specialized in Western dramas.

In the New York Clipper ad at left, from 1884, she is trying to sell her newest opus, entitled "Pereta"- the sequel to another of her plays, called "Plasar, Queen of the Miners" - which debuted at Tony Pastor's Theater in New York in 1888, starring Sarah McVicker in the title role. It was, said the New York Mirror, "a sensational drama with prologue and five acts."

In November 1887, Lewis' play "On the Frontier," based on the Custer massacre, opened at the National Theater in Philadelphia. She was credited as Annie Lewis or Annie Lewis Johnston(e), and the play was also performed in New York in 1888 and London in 1891.

In 1893, when she was starring in "A Nutmeg Match" at the Fourteenth Street theater in New York, she threatened to quit the play if a comedian in it was given "specialties" (presumably, extra gags or routines) to do.

Photograph of Annie Lewis (in what is possibly an attempt at Dutch or Swiss costume) from Picture History.

SOURCES

"Annie Lewis Rebels," New York Times, Mar. 2, 1893, p. 8.

Fisk, Harrison Grey. The New York Mirror Annual and Directory of the Theatrical Profession for 1888 (New York Mirror, 1888), p. 51, 90.

Hall, Roger A. Performing the American Frontier, 1870-1906. (Cambridge UP, 2001), pp 154-5.

TOMORROW: The Gouraud Divorce Case, Part 2.