Ira Aldridge was an African American-born British actor, playwright, and theatre manager, known for his portrayal of Shakespearean characters. Ira Frederick Aldridge was born in New York City, New York on July 24, 1807 to free Blacks and went on to become one of the best talents of his time. At the age of 13, Aldridge went to the African Free School in New York City, established by the New-York Manumission Society for the children of free Black people and slaves. The school offered instruction in traditional subjects such as reading, writing, and arithmetic while also emphasizing performance arts, including drama, likely kindling Aldridge’s initial interest in acting. Aldridge was given a classical education, with the study of English grammar, writing, mathematics, and geography.
His classmates at the school included James McCune Smith, Alexander Crummell, Charles L. Reason, George T. Downing, and Henry Highland Garnet. While there he became impressed with acting and by age 15 was associating with professional Black actors in the city. They encouraged Aldridge to join the prestigious African Grove Theatre, an all-Black theatre troupe founded and managed by William Henry Brown and James Hewlett. Though Aldridge was gainfully employed as an actor in the 1820s, he felt that the United States was not a hospitable place for theatrical performers. Many Whites resented the claim to cultural equality that they saw in Black performances of Shakespeare and other White-authored texts.
Realizing this, Aldridge emigrated to Europe in 1824 as the valet for British-American actor James William Wallack. During this time the Industrial Revolution had begun, bringing about radical economic change that helped expand the development of theatres. The British parliament had already outlawed the slave trade and was moving toward abolishing slavery in the British Empire, which increased the prospect of Black actors from abroad looking to perform. In May 1825, at the age of 17, Aldridge first appeared on the London stage in a low profile production of Othello, a role he would remain associated with until his death.
On October 10, 1825, Aldridge made a much more high-profile debut at London's Royal Coburg Theatre. He became the first African-American actor to establish himself professionally in a foreign country. He played the lead role of Oroonoko in The Revolt of Surinam, "A Slave’s Revenge". During Aldridge’s seven-week engagement at the Royal Coburg, he starred in five plays. He earned admiration from his audiences while most critics emphasized Aldridge’s lack of stage training and experience. Aldridge performed scenes from Othello that impressed reviewers. He also played major roles in plays such as The Castle Spectre and The Padlock.
In search of new and suitable material, Aldridge also appeared occasionally as white European characters, for which he would be made up with greasepaint and wig. At the time, a common theatre tradition was for actors to take the name or surname of other, more popular actors. By 1831 Aldridge had taken the name of Keene, a homonym for the then very popular British actor, Edmund Kean. Aldridge's career through the 1820s progressed well. Aldridge observed a common theatrical practice of assuming an identical or similar name to that of a celebrity in order to garner attention. He soon was receiving top billing in plays, including the title role of Othello.
Aldridge maintained his reputation in Scotland and England through various professions and starred in other Shakespeare plays such as such as King Lear, Macbeth, and The Merchant of Venice. He also played major roles in plays such as The Castle Spectre and The Padlock. From the late 1820s and through the 1830s, Aldridge's acting career took him beyond London. In 1828, Aldridge visited Coventry while he was largely touring the English provinces. After his acting impressed the people of the city, he was made the manager at Coventry's Theatre Royal, becoming the first ever Black American to manage a British theatre.
During the months when Aldridge remained in Coventry, he made various speeches about the evils of slavery. After he left Coventry, his speeches and the impression he made, inspired the people of Coventry to go to the county hall, and petition to the Parliament, to abolish slavery. Since he was an African-American actor from the African Theatre, the critic reviews gave Aldridge the name Roscius, after the famed actor of tragedy and comedy from ancient Rome. Aldridge used this to his benefit and expanded African references in his biography that appeared in playbills. He began using the stage name “The African Roscius.” By at least 1833 he had added the anti-heroic role of Zanga in Edward Young's "The Revenge" to his repertoire.
In 1841, Aldridge toured towns across Lincolnshire, performing in Gainsborough, Grantham, Spilsby, and Horncastle. Despite the eye-catching arrival, Aldridge's performances were not well attended. In June 1844 he made appearances on stage in Exmouth (Devon, England). Aldridge returned to Lincoln in 1849 to favorable reviews. The Lincoln Standard reported on Aldridge's performance, “his talents are first rate, and his conduct gentlemanly, strongly evidencing that mankind all have an equal capacity, if they had but the opportunity of receiving instruction.” In 1852, Aldridge began a tour of Europe in Brussels, Belgium. Throughout the 1850s and 1860s, his tours brought him to France, Serbia, Switzerland, Prussia and Russia.
He received many awards and accolades, including the Prussian Gold Medal for Arts and Sciences from King Frederick, the Golden Cross of Leopold from the Czar of Russia, and the Maltese Cross from Berne, Switzerland. As his fame grew, he began accepting more challenging parts, such as those of white people, which he would portray wearing white stage makeup in sharp contrast to the “blackface” that most White actors used to portray Black characters. Now of an appropriate age, he played the title role of King Lear (in England) for the first time. In 1862, he purchased some property in England, toured Russia again (1862), and applied for British citizenship (1863).
Soon after going to England, in November 1825, Aldridge married Margaret Gill, an Englishwoman in London. They were married for nearly 40 years until her death in 1864. In 1865, Aldridge married again to Swedish Amanda von Brandt. However, this marriage was short-lived, as Aldridge died in 1867, in Łódź, Poland, having completed a 70-city tour of France. Although he had begun planning a theatrical tour to America following the end of the Civil War and the abolition of slavery in the United States, he never returned to his native country.
Aldridge enjoyed enormous fame as a tragic actor during his lifetime, but after his death, he was soon forgotten in Europe. In African-American circles, Aldridge was a legendary figure. Many Black actors viewed him as an inspirational model, so when his death was revealed, several amateur groups sought to honor his memory by adopting his name for their companies. Aldridge is the only African American to have a bronze plaque among the 33 actors honored at the Shakespeare Memorial Theatre at Stratford-upon-Avon in England. A bust of Ira Aldridge by Pietro Calvi sits in the Grand Saloon of the Theatre Royal Drury Lane in London. The Howard University Department of Theatre Arts, in Washington, DC, has a theatre named after Ira Aldridge.