Ada Rehan
|
|
Ada Rehan (April 22, 1860 - January 8, 1916), was an American actress.
Her real name was Ada Crehan, and she was born in Limerick, Ireland. Her parents emigrated to the United States when she was five, and it was in Newark, New Jersey, that she made her first stage appearance in 1874, in a small part in Across the Continent. She was with Mrs John Drew's stock company in Philadelphia, John W. Albaugh's in Albany, New York and Baltimore, and with other companies for several seasons, playing every kind of minor part, until she became connected with Augustin Daly's theatrical management in 1879. Under his training she soon showed her talent for vivid, charming portrayal of character, first in modern and then in older comedies.
She was the heroine in all Daly's adaptations from the German, and added to her triumphs the parts of Peggy in William Wycherley's The Country Girl, Julia in the Hunchback, and especially Katharina in The Taming of the Shrew, besides playing Rosalind and Viola in other works of Shakespeare. Miss Rehan accompanied Daly's company to England (first in 1884), France and Germany (1886).
Her life-size portrait as Katharina, and her bust, with Ellen Terry's, were both displayed in the Shakespeare Memorial Theatre at Stratford-upon-Avon.
This entry was originally from the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica.