Alice Oates was an actress, theatre manager and pioneer of American musical theatre who took opéra bouffe in English to all corners of America. She produced the first performance of a work by Gilbert and Sullivan in America with her unauthorised Trial by Jury in 1875, the first American production of The Sultan of Mocha (1878) and an early performance of H.M.S. Pinafore (1878).
Alice Oates in 1875
Alice Oates in 1878 at the time of her management of the Bush Street Theatre
in Le petit duc (c1878)
Poster advertising Alice Oates and her theatrical company (c1879)
Trial by Jury is a comic opera in one act, with music by Arthur Sullivan and libretto by W. S. Gilbert. It was first produced on 25 March 1875, at London's Royalty Theatre, where it initially ran for 131 performances and was considered a hit, receiving critical praise and outrunning its popular companion piece, Jacques Offenbach's La Périchole. The story concerns a "breach of promise of marriage" lawsuit in which the judge and legal system are the objects of lighthearted satire. Gilbert based the libretto of Trial by Jury on an operetta parody that he had written in 1868.
Gilbert's original sketch of Trial by Jury, published in Fun in 1868
April 1875 programme for La Périchole and Trial by Jury. Sullivan and Gilbert are the cherubs.
The Usher advises the jury. Drawing by W. S. Gilbert
Third page of the 1875 programme
