Nate Salsbury’s Black America
The 1895 show purported to show a genuine Southern Black community and demonstrate Black cultural progress in America, from enslavement to citizenship.
Assassination of A Playwright, Birth of A Nationalism
The 1819 assassination of playwright August von Kotzebue by theology student Karl Sand is considered one of foundational moments in German nationalism.
A Teen Celebrity in 1804
When thirteen-year-old actor William Henry West Betty arrived in London from Ireland, crowds mobbed theaters and camped outside his home.
America’s First Ventriloquist
Richard Potter, the first American-born ventriloquist and stage magician, learned his trade after being kidnapped and abandoned as a child in Great Britain.
Martha Graham’s Night Journey
Reinterpreting the Greek tragedy, Graham built a choreography of dramatic, angular movements to embody the female experience, past and present.
Riot! At the Theater
One audience demanded more censorship, another less. Both challenged the reach of anti-obscenity laws in the early twentieth century.
Pieces and Bits
What does it take to stage Cresphontes, a lost Euripides tragedy, when all that remains of it are a few fragments of papyrus?
Her Bounty Is Boundless
From the first actor—a man—to play Juliet to the “girl boss” version on Broadway, Shakespeare’s young lover offers something new in every iteration.
Topsy-Turvy: Children in Adult Roles
The number of children acting like adults on stage reflects how conflicted nineteenth-century Anglo-Americans were about the definition of childhood.
Diorama, qu’est-ce que c’est?
Before his daguerreotype, the French inventor Louis Daguerre unveiled a new kind of “virtual reality” on a British stage.