 There, Thomas Wignell established the Chestnut Street Theatre and gathered a group of actors and playwrights that included William Warren, Susanna Rowson, and Thomas Abthorpe Cooper, who later was considered the leading actor in North America.In its infancy after the American Revolution, many Americans lamented the lack of a 'native drama', even while playwrights such as Royall Tyler, William Dunlap, James Nelson Barker, John Howard Payne, and Samuel Woodworth laid the foundations for an American drama separate from Britain.Part of the reason for the dearth of original plays in this period may be that playwrights were rarely paid for their work and it was much cheaper for managers to adapt or translate foreign work.