Tyler, Royall (1757–1826)

American dramatist and lawyer. Born in Boston, he studied at Yale and Harvard, and after fighting in the American Revolution practised law in Maine, Massachusetts, and Vermont. He is best remembered for the comedy The Contrast, which, performed in 1787 in New York, was the first professionally produced play by an American. Contrasting the dandyish affectations of the English with down-to-earth honesty of Americans, the play is notable for having caught the new mood of Revolutionary America.

The Contrast was inspired by the comedy The School for Scandal by the Irish dramatist Richard Brinsley Sheridan, a play Tyler saw in New York just a few months before his own play was performed. Following the success of The Contrast, Tyler wrote a comic opera, May Day in Town, which was also produced in New York in the same year. He later wrote several other plays; some satirical verse; a picaresque novel, Algrine Captive 1797; and a collection of letters supposedly written by an American living in London, Yankey in London 1809. He continued to practice law, becoming the chief justice of Vermont in 1807.