Joseph W. Herbert Family, Real Name, Spouse, Profession, Eye Color, body stats, Feet Size, Wiki

Joseph W. Herbert Family, Real Name, Spouse, Profession, Eye Color, body stats, Feet Size, Wiki

Joseph William Herbert (27 November 1863â€"18 February 1923) was a

British-born American director, silent-film actor, singer and

dramatist notable for being the first person to play Ko-Ko in America

in a pirate production of Gilbert and Sullivan's The Mikado (1885)

before joining D'Oyly Carte Opera Company touring companies across

America (1885-1890).Herbert was born in Liverpool in 1863 to Irish

parents and emigrated to America in 1876 aged 13, living in Chicago

where, during his college days, he joined the local Church Choir

Company as an amateur chorister. He deputised for a professional

comedian who failed to show to play the Lord Chancellor in the

company’s production of Iolanthe and when C. D. Hess reformed the

company as the Acme Opera Company and sent it on the road (1884) as a

professional musical stock company, Herbert went with it. He

subsequently played the Lord Chancellor in Iolanthe, Gobo in Les

cloches de Corneville, appeared in Fatinitza, The Pirates of Penzance

and Patience, played Népomuc in La Grande-Duchesse de Gérolstein and

Sir Joseph Porter in H.M.S. Pinafore, etc, through the tour and,

following the Acme troupe’s collapse, played with a stuck-together

season of a stuck-together company in New Orleans.Herbert was the

first actor to play Ko-Ko in the United States, appearing in Sydney

Rosenfeld's pirate production of The Mikado in Chicago in July 1885

before appearing in one performance (breaking a temporary injunction)

in the same role at the Union Square Theatre in New York in July 1885,

nearly a month before the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company arrived in

America with the official production of The Mikado. Herbert appeared

as Ko-Ko for two weeks at the Union Square Theatre, opening on 17

August 1885 just two days before the D'Oyly Carte opened with their

official production; Herbert and the rest of the cast then transferred

to the Grand Opera House in Manhattan.Such was Herbert's success as

Ko-Ko that he was engaged by Richard D'Oyly Carte and John Stetson to

play the role in New York and New England with the D'Oyly Carte Opera

Company's Third American Mikado Company, touring from November 1885 to

May 1886. Again for Stetson Herbert played King Gama in Princess Ida

from November to December 1886 and he appeared as Reginald Bunthorne

in Patience during January 1887 in a D'Oyly Carte approved production

in New York. He toured across North-East America for Stetson during

the first half of 1887 in other D'Oyly Carte approved productions,

again as King Gama in Princess Ida and later as Robin Oakapple in

Ruddigore - this time in D'Oyly Carte's Second American Company. In

April 1887 he transferred to D'Oyly Carte's Third American Ruddigore

Company, playing Sir Despard Murgatroyd; for a short period in early

May 1887 he again played Robin Oakapple in New York.
Joseph W. Herbert Family, Real Name, Spouse, Profession, Eye Color, body stats, Feet Size, Wiki


Share this

Share/Bookmark

SUBSCRIBE OUR NEWSLETTER

Join us for free and get valuable content delivered right through your inbox.



Related Post

Newer Post Older Post Home