This essay explores how the early American stage functioned as an incubator for ideas about
national identity, artistic expression, and masculinity. Reading four plays from the early years of
the Republic – Royall Tyler’s The Contrast, William Dunlap’s Andre´, John Augustus Stone’s Metamora,
and Robert Montgomery Bird’s The Gladiator, I demonstrate how early American drama
addressed changing concepts of ideal masculinity, republican democracy, and the colonial past.