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The Octoroon or Life in Louisiana: A Play in Five acts by Dion Boucicault. The Octoroon is a play by Dion Boucicault that opened in 1859 at The Winter Garden Theatre, New York City. Extremely popular, the play was kept running continuously for years by seven road companies. Among antebellum melodramas, it was considered second in popularity only to Uncle Tom's Cabin (1852). Boucicault adapted the play from the novel The Quadroon by Thomas Mayne Reid (1856). It concerns the residents of a Louisiana plantation called Terrebonne, and sparked debates about the abolition of slavery and the role of theatre in politics. It contains elements of Romanticism and melodrama. Dionysius Lardner Boursiquot (26 December 1820 (or 1822) - 18 September 1890), commonly known as Dion Boucicault (Dee-on Boo-se-koh), was an Irish actor and playwright famed for his melodramas.