THE D'OYLY CARTE OPERA COMPANY

A. W. F. McCollin (1880, 1881)

[Born Philadelphia c. 1853, died Ridgefield, New Jersey 24 Apr 1923]

Andrew W. F. McCollin had a stage career that spanned more than half a century. He first went on stage at age thirteen or fourteen, and was for many years stage director for the Castle Square Opera Company for Henry W. Savage. At the time of his retirement in 1921 he was stage director for a show called Pollyanna.

McCollin had two engagements with the D'Oyly Carte organization early in his career. He played Major-General Stanley on tour with Carte's Fourth American Pirates of Penzance Company from February-June 1880, and then a year later, made what appears to have been his New York debut, and a big success, as Ben Barnacle in a Carte managed production of Billee Taylor at New York's Standard Theatre (February-June 1881).

McCollin would take comic baritone roles in H.M.S. Pinafore, The Pirates of Penzance, Patience, and Iolanthe in several non-D'Oyly Carte productions over the next years, appearing in New York with Edward E. Rice's Comic Opera Company in 1881, the Boston Comic Opera Company in 1882, and the Wilbur Opera Company in 1883. He returned to New York with the J. C. Duff Comic Opera Company as the Lord Chancellor in Iolanthe in 1890.

He later went into stage management and, in 1898, managed the Castle Square Opera Company's productions of H.M.S. Pinafore, The Gondoliers and several other works at the American Theatre, New York. Their 1900 productions, also at the American Theatre, included Iolanthe, The Pirates of Penzance, Patience, and The Mikado.

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