THE D'OYLY CARTE OPERA COMPANY

John E. Nash as Archibald Grosvenor in Patience

John E. Nash (1880-81)

[Born Finsbury, Islington c.1863, died Los Angeles, California 5 Nov 1934]

John Edward Nash's career may have begun and ended with Gilbert & Sullivan. He began in America with a Norcross Company tour of H.M.S. Pinafore and Trial by Jury in 1879. This was followed by a D'Oyly Carte engagement in the First American production of The Pirates of Penzance: appearing for Furneaux Cook as Samuel at the Standard Theatre, New York, in February 1880, before taking the role as his own from late March until the end of the run in New York and on tour in June. He continued to play Samuel for two weeks in July at the gala opening of Halleck's Alhambra in Boston (a non-D'Oyly Carte but authorized production). In September 1880 Carte launched another American touring Pirates Company. It ran until February 1881 with Nash as the Samuel for its duration, with the exception of Christmas week 1880 in Louisville, when he filled in for Signor Brocolini as the Pirate King.

Nash soon made his mark as a stage manager as well as a performer, producing Patience at the Bijou Opera House, New York, in 1882 with Lillian Russell starring in the title role and Nash himself as Archibald Grosvenor. Over the next eight years or so he worked principally for the James Duff Opera Company, appearing as Tom Strutt in Dorothy (1888) and stage managing The Red Hussar in 1890-91.

He moved to California in 1897, producing weekly operas at the Tivoli, San Francisco, for a number of years. By the early 1920s he had moved to Los Angeles, expanding his show business career to include writing screenplays for the film industry there. His last stage production was H.M.S. Pinafore at the Carthay Theatre, Los Angeles, in 1932.

N Index  |  "Who Was Who" Homepage