Jeanne-Marie Marsan

Jeanne-Marie Marsan, née Chapiseau, (Paris, France 1746-New Orleans, Louisiana 25 February 1807), was a French actress and singer, active in France and Germany in Europe and the French Westindies. She was the leading actress in Saint Domingue in Pre-revolutionary Haiti and then in the first theatre in New Orleans in Louisiana.

Biography

Born in faubourg Saint-Germain in Paris, she married the actor Pierre Legendre Marsan, who was forced to flee from France to Martinique in 1765. Jeanne-Marie stayed in France and made herself famous on the stages of Paris, the French country side and in Germany the following ten years before she joined him in Martinique with her children in 1775, where she made a success upon her debute on the theatre in Saint-Pierre, Martinique.

In 1780, Marsan and her family mowed to Haiti, where she was hired at the Cap-Francais Theatre and became the leading actress of the colony. She was recomended for her versatility and performed in tragedy as well as comedy, drama as well as opera. The date of her departure from Haiti is not known, but in the 1795-1796 season, she was the leading actress and singer of the Theatre de la Rue Saint Pierre in New Orleans. She is believed to have sang the female main part in Silvain 22 March 1796, which is called the first Opera performed in New Orleans; she was famous for this role alredy in Haiti. When the order of the theatre was established in the contract of 1797, she was among the actors granted benefit performances and, together with Clerville and Delaure, the highest payed actor with a salary of §70.

When the theatre was closed in 1800, she retired from the stage adn lived on the income from a property bought for her by the actor Jean Baptiste Le Sueur Fontaine, director of the New Orleans theatre and previoulsy director of the Cap Francais theatre, where she was earlier employed.

References

• The New Orleans Theatre 1792-1803 Southern Quarterly, Spring 2007 by Gardeur, René J Le Jr