Susan Webb Cushman
Encyclopedia
Charlotte Saunders Cushman
Charlotte Saunders Cushman was an American stage actress.-Early life:She was a descendant in the eighth generation from Pilgrim Robert Cushman.Robert Cushman brought the family name to the United States on the Mayflower as a leader and great advocate for emigration to America...
, first débuted in Epes Sargent
Epes Sargent (poet)
Epes Sargent was an American editor, poet and playwright.-Early life:Epes Sargent was the son of Epes Sargent and Hannah Dane Coffin , and was born in Gloucester, Massachusetts, on September 27, 1813, where his father was a ship master. In 1818 the family moved to Roxbury, Massachusetts...
's play, The Genoese in 1836, a year following a trip with her mother to see Charlotte, an up and coming actress, in New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
and Albany, New York
Albany, New York
Albany is the capital city of the U.S. state of New York, the seat of Albany County, and the central city of New York's Capital District. Roughly north of New York City, Albany sits on the west bank of the Hudson River, about south of its confluence with the Mohawk River...
.
Following a failed marriage that same year to Nelson Meriman, in which he left her destitute with a child, she followed Charlotte's advice to pursue a semi-interlinked acting career with Charlotte. Together they acted in New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
and Philadelphia, circa 1841-1842, as Grace Harkaway and Lady Gay Spanker (Susan acting the former part). She received acclaim in the play Satan in Paris and played as Desdemona
Desdemona (Othello)
Desdemona is a character in William Shakespeare's play Othello . Shakespeare's Desdemona is a Venetian beauty who enrages and disappoints her father, a Venetian senator, when she elopes with Othello, a man several years her senior. When her husband is deployed to Cyprus in the service of the...
to George Vandenhoff's Othello
Othello
The Tragedy of Othello, the Moor of Venice is a tragedy by William Shakespeare, believed to have been written in approximately 1603, and based on the Italian short story "Un Capitano Moro" by Cinthio, a disciple of Boccaccio, first published in 1565...
.
In 1842 Susan was a member and Charlotte a stage manager of the Walnut Street Theatre
Walnut Street Theatre
The Walnut Street Theatre , located in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania at 825 Walnut Street, is the oldest continuously operating theatre in the English-speaking world and the oldest in the United States...
in Philadelphia, where Vanderhoff performed for six nights for $180. Vandenhoff later acknowledged both Charlotte's and Susan's cool-headedness in his autobiographical book entitled Leaves from an Actor's Notebook. In it he wrote that Susan was "a pretty creature, but had not a spark of Charlotte's genius..." and that "she pleased 'the fellows', howerever, and was the best walking-lady on the American stage".
Susan followed Charlotte to England in 1845, Charlotte wanting more acclaim both there and back home. On December 30, 1845, at the The Haymarket
Haymarket Theatre
The Theatre Royal Haymarket is a West End theatre in the Haymarket in the City of Westminster which dates back to 1720, making it the third-oldest London playhouse still in use...
in London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
, Charlotte and Susan were so successful in playing as Romeo and Juliet
Romeo and Juliet
Romeo and Juliet is a tragedy written early in the career of playwright William Shakespeare about two young star-crossed lovers whose deaths ultimately unite their feuding families. It was among Shakespeare's most popular archetypal stories of young, teenage lovers.Romeo and Juliet belongs to a...
, respectively, (using the original version as opposed to theatre prompt) before an audience which labeled them as "American Indians", that they continued there for eighty nights before being taken on a tour of England. Though Charlotte, who enjoyed playing masculine roles, was a good showman and received much acclaim by critics, they also praised Susan for the "grace and delicacy of her acting". Sheridan Knowles commended Charlotte primarily, but, in regards to Susan, lauded the first act as being "admirably personated by her beautiful sister". The sisters also played together in Twelfth Night.
In 1848 Susan enraged a theatre manager during the rehearsal presentations for the play The Lady of Lyons in which she was to play the part of "Helen" to Mrs. Anna Cora Mowatt
Anna Cora Mowatt
Anna Cora Mowatt Ritchie was an author, playwright, public reader, and actress.- Childhood :Anna Cora Ogden was born in Bordeaux, France, March 5, 1819. She was the tenth of fourteen children. Her father was Samuel Gouveneur Ogden , an American merchant...
's undisclosed part.
When Susan walked in late for her part at the manager's beginning audition of another actress to replace her, an angry scene developed which, by Mrs. Mowatt's account, was "such as I never before, and I rejoice to say never after, witnessed in a theatre". Susan was forced to leave the theatre.
Later that year, Susan married James Sheridan Muspratt
James Sheridan Muspratt
James Sheridan Muspratt was a research chemist and teacher. His most influential publication was his two-volume book Chemistry, Theoretical, Practical and Analytical as applied and relating to the Arts and Manufactures .James Sheridan Muspratt was born in Dublin and moved to Liverpool with his...
, and retired from the stage, residing in Liverpool.