Our American Cousin is a three-act play by English playwright
Tom Taylor. The play is a farce whose plot is based on the introduction of an awkward, boorish, but honest American, Asa Trenchard, to his aristocratic English relatives when he goes to England to claim the family estate. The play first premiered at
Laura Keene's Theatre in
New York City on October 15, 1858, and the title character was first played by
Joseph Jefferson. Although the play achieved great renown during its first few years and remained very popular throughout the second half of the 19th century, it is best remembered as the play
U.S. President Abraham Lincoln was attending in
Ford's Theatre when he was
assassinated by actor and
Confederate sympathizer
John Wilkes Booth on April 14, 1865.