John O'Keeffe (24 June 1747 – 4 February 1833) was an Irish actor and dramatist. He wrote a number of farces, amusing dramatic pieces and librettos for pasticcio operas, many of which had great success. Among these are Tony Lumpkin in Town (1778), Love in a Camp (1786), and Omai (1785), an account of the voyages of the Tahitian explorer Omai, and Wild Oats (1791). Early life O'Keeffe was born in Abbey Street, Dublin in 1747 to Roman Catholic parents and was educated by the Jesuits. His father was from King's County and his mother (née O'Connor) from County Wexford. After showing a talent for drawing he studied art at an academy in Dublin, but grew increasingly more interested in the theatre. After a two-year period in London, where he became an admirer of David Garrick, he settled on a career as an actor and playwright. O'Keeffe wrote his first play The She Gallant when he was twenty, and it was performed in Dublin at the Smock Alley Theatre. In Cork, in late September 1774, O'Keeffe married Mary Heaphy, a Protestant actress and the daughter of Tottenham Heaphy, manager of the Dublin Theatre Royal. The marriage ended badly when O'Keeffe discovered that she was having an affair with the Scottish actor George Graham. O'Keeffe left Ireland with their children, and Mary was denied access to her son and daughter, John Tottenham O'Keeffe and Adelaide O'Keeffe. Mary Heaphy, according to Adelaide O'Keeffe's memoir of her father, married Graham without first divorcing her husband. She did not consider her marriage to the Catholic John O'Keeffe to be sufficiently binding. Success In 1777, O'Keeffe moved to London. The following year he wrote Tony Lumpkin in Town, a sequel to Oliver Goldsmith's She Stoops to Conquer, and sent it to the manager of the Haymarket Theatre. The play was successfully produced, and O'Keeffe regularly wrote for the Haymarket thereafter. In 1782, O'Keeffe had his two children sent abroad to France to prevent their mother's access to them. His son did well but his daughter suffered in convent schools. Between 1782 and 1796, O'Keeffe wrote around 28 plays and librettos for comic operas. The Poor Soldier (1783), a comic opera with libretto by O'Keeffe and music by William Shield, was a farce about the lives of British soldiers returning home after the American War of Independence. O'Keeffe also wrote The Son-in-Law, Agreeable Surprise (which includes