Pantomime traditions, especially "Peter Pan", are performed quite often, and a few American theatre companies produce traditional British-style pantomime as well as American adaptations of the form. According to Professor Russell A. Peck of the University of Rochester, the earliest pantomime productions in the US were "Cinderella" pantomime productions in New York in March 1808, New York again in August 1808, Philadelphia in 1824, and Baltimore in 1839. A production at Olympic Theatre in New York of "Humpty Dumpty" ran for at least 943 performances between 1868 and 1873, (one source says 1,200 performances), becoming the longest-running pantomime in history. In
Pantomime and 18th centuries such as Claude-François Ménestrier (1631–1705), John Weaver (1673–1760), Jean-Georges Noverre (1727–1810) and Gasparo Angiolini (1731–1803), earned it respectability and attested to the capability of dance to render complex stories and express human emotion. In the Middle Ages, the Mummers Play was a traditional English folk play, based loosely on the Saint George and the Dragon legend, usually performed during Christmas gatherings, which contained the origin of many of the archetypal elements of the pantomime, such as stage fights, coarse humour and fantastic creatures, gender role reversal, and good defeating evil. Precursors of pantomime also included the masque,