Background
Hoyt was born in Concord, New Hampshire, on July 26, 1860. He was the son of George W. Hoyt.
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Charles Hale Hoyt
Edit ProfileCareer
At the age of eighteen he began newspaper work at St. Albans, Vt. , and shortly afterward joined the staff of the Boston Post. Here he acted as dramatic and music critic, as well as sports editor, and became one of the first "columnists" in the country. Through his association with the theatre he was led to write plays, and he carefully studied the productions in Boston, especially the Negro minstrels of Rich and Harris at the Howard Athenaeum.
His first plays were conventional romantic comedies, like Cezalia, put on at the Globe Theatre in Boston in 1882, but without success. He then turned to the writing of farces, with strongly marked caricatures, and, beginning with A Bunch of Keys (1882), he scored a series of successes which netted him a substantial fortune. The best of the earlier plays were A Parlor Match (1884), a satire on Spiritualism; A Tin Soldier (1886), dealing with the plumbing industry; and A Hole in the Ground (1887), a picture of a railroad station where various types are waiting for a delayed train.
With A Midnight Bell (1889), Hoyt made more attempt at plot, and reached his highest point of popular approval in A Texas Steer (1890), a satire on politics, and A Trip to Chinatown, laid in San Francisco, which, beginning at Hoyt's Madison Square Theatre November 9, 1891, ran 650 times until August 17, 1893, the longest consecutive run at that time of any American play. It held this record until 1918. Then followed A Temperance Town (1893), an attack on prohibition; and A Milk White Flag (1893), one of his most amusing satires, this time on military organizations.
In 1893 Hoyt was elected to the New Hampshire legislature and seems to have been a useful member, being reëlected in 1895. Of his later plays, the most important were A Contented Woman (1897), in which husband and wife run against each other for the mayoralty of Denver; A Stranger in New York (1897), picturing life in hotels and at a French ball; and A Day and a Night in New York (1898), in which an actress pretends she is not one, in order to protect her mother, who has concealed her daughter's profession.
During the progress of this play at the Garrick Theatre, his second wife, Caroline Miskel, who had played the leading female part in several of his plays, died. Hoyt's mind seems to have been affected by his grief. He was committed to a sanitarium in July 1900 but was released on petition of his friends and placed under medical care until his death, which occurred in Charlestown, N. H.
According to Julian Mitchell, long associated with him, Hoyt did not usually direct his plays but was constantly watching his audiences and advising his directors. He also constantly revised his plays, The Texas Steer, for example, being the rewriting of an earlier failure, A Case of Wine.
Achievements
Politics
He was twice a member of the New Hampshire Legislature and was Democratic candidate for Speaker.
Connections
His first wife, Flora Walsh, whom he had married in 1887, died in 1892. His second wife, actress Caroline Miskel, died after only a few years of marriage.
