John A. Arneaux (born 1855) was a Shakespearean actor and journalist in New York City and in Paris, France. From 1884 to 1886 he was editor and owner of the New York Enterprise which had the largest circulation of any African American newspaper in the country at that time. As a journalist and a civil rights activist, he was widely respected. He was also an actor and leader of an African American theatre troupe, the Astor Place Tragedy company. Together with his friend Benjamin J. Ford, he was the leading black Shakespearean actor of his period.
Early life
According to the 1887 book Men of Mark by William J. Simmons, John or Jean A. Arneaux was born in Savannah, Georgia in 1855. The chapter on Arneaux further states that his father was from Paris, France and his that his mother, who died when he was twelve years old, was an African American. However, there is no independent verification of these facts. Simmons seems to have drawn most of the biographical details about Arneaux's past from his subject's own account, and recent scholarship has called into question Arneaux's veracity when speaking of his personal history. (https://www.aithpodcast.com/the-black-booth-part-one/) The following facts are also often cited when discussing Arneaux's education (though many of them are nonsensical, as they refer to institutions that do not exist, or are misnamed): He attended school starting in 1865, and then attended "the Beach Institute" [sic] in Savannah for four years. Arneaux then moved to New York where he studied German and Latin, followed by a time in Providence, Rhode Island where he learned French at the Berlitz School of Languages (There is no record of Arneaux actually speaking French.) He then supposedly visited Paris and took two courses, one at the Académie Royal Des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres. (However, the Académie was not then and never has been an institution of instruction, rather, it is an association of distinguished authors and scholars.) Simmons also wrote that Arneaux entered and graduated from "The New York Grand Conservatory of Music and Elocution." This institution did once exist, but it seems that Arneaux only publicly stated that he intended to attend this Conservatory, but never actually did so.
Acting career
Arneaux started in vaudeville. His first appearance on a major stage was in 1876, when he played Tom Walcott, a Southern Planter, in John S. Ladue's "Under the Yoke, or Bond and Free" at the Third Avenue theatre in New York. He did not immediately pursue a career in acting, but worked for a time as a waiter and also as a barber. In 1883, he published a song, "Jumbo, the Elephant King!". In 1884, at the urge of a theatre manager, he took the role of Iago in Othello at the Brooklyn Athenaeum, for which he received strong praise. This production was organized by Benjamin J. Ford, who had success at the New York City Lyric Theatre in 1878 as the lead of an all-black cast production of Richard III. Ford played the role of Othello, Alice Brooks played Desdemona, Marie Lavere as Emilia, B. C. Devreaux as Michael Cassio, and R. R. Cranvell as Brabantio. The group then formed what was perhaps the first Shakespearean troupe of black actors which became known as the Astor Place Tragedy company. The company was managed by Arneaux and presented plays throughout New York City; its most prominent stage was in November 1884 at the Academy of Music where it presented John Banim's Damon and Pythias, with Arneaux as Damon and Ford as Pythias. John Ladue, Henrietta Vinton Davis, and Belle Martin were also in the production.