Federal Street Theatre (first) opens.

[3/3] Architect: Charles Bulfinch. Originally the Boston Theatre (first), it is built by a group that includes Charles Bulfinch, Perez Morton, and T.H. Perkins and located at today’s 1 Federal Street. The first theater built in Boston (although it is advertised as “a school of virtue”), it seats 1,000 and opens with performances of Gustavus Vasa Erickson, the Deliverer of Sweden, and Modern Antiques or the Merry Mourners. Charles Stuart Powell is the first manager. Performers include James Fennel, Edwin Forrest, Edmund Kean, and William Charles Macready. The building burns down on February 2, 1798, and is rebuilt (second) in 1798.*