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Blog Posts: Commentary and Images for Every Episode

June 3, 2022

"Jericho", "One Third of a Nation" and "Prelude to Swing"

To accompany our conversation with Jonathan Shandell and Jerrell Henderson, here are some of the images from Federal Theatre Project archives relating to the shows that we discuss in the episode:Jericho  (including rare production photographs o…

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May 6, 2022

Photos of Mary Robinson and the Drama Guild

Above: Mary B. Robinson in 1994.Below: Jack Stehlin (Oberon), embraces Titania (Gloria Biegler) as the Fairies look on.  A Midsummer Night's Dream, directed by Mary B. Robinson, was staged by the Philadelphia Drama Guild at the Zellerbach Th…

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April 18, 2022

Posters of "A Great Theatre-Going City"

Above is the Ida B Siddons Female Mastodons and Burlesque Company poster, described in the episode. After I posted the image on Twitter last year, the scholar Dr. Susan Kattwinkel replied and gave me some more information about it. Apparently t…

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March 25, 2022

"The Happy Possessor of a Noble Ambition"

Above, John A. Arneaux, in a photo printed in the pages of his privately published edition of Shakespeare's Historical Tragedy of Richard III: Adapted for Amateurs And the Drawing Room.  It is quite similar to the Edwin Booth acting version, bu…

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March 4, 2022

The Elephant King at the Cosmopolitan - more material about "The Black Booth, Part One"

As additional information about John Arneaux, here is the sheet music for his song "Jumbo the Elephant King". It is in the collection of the Library of Congress in Washington DC. (Arneaux appears to have written at least two other songs, "You Had Be…

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March 4, 2022

Edwin Booth and "Richard III" in Philadelphia

Above, Illustration of Edwin Booth as Richard, in an engraving published in Booth's own acting edition of the play in 1872. Edwin Booth first played the Academy of Music in the role of Richard III on August 24th 1863 . The productio…

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March 4, 2022

A Man of Mark

Since I refer to it so often in the episode, and because I call the veracity of its details into question during this episode, I thought it was only fair that I reproduce the entire chapter about John A. Arneaux in William Simmons' book Men of Mark:…

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Feb. 11, 2022

The Pageant that Shook Walnut Grove - Notes and Illustrations about "The Mischianza"

Above, a drawing made by Major John Andre, depicting a knight of the Mischianza. According to one source: "André sketched this knight of the Mischianza with his squire for the souvenir book he assembled for Peggy Chew. The picture is a bit of…

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Jan. 28, 2022

The "Ira Aldridge Troupe" at Franklin Hall in Philadelphia, June 1863

As I promised in Episode #26, "The Everlasting Minstrel Show", here is the complete item from the June 13th, 1863 New York Clipper about the "Ira Aldridge Troupe". It was part of a longer article entitled "The Theatrical Record", and had the subhead…

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Jan. 28, 2022

"Where Our Mothers and Fathers Laughed their Troubles Away" - Blog Post and Bibliography for "The Everlasting Minstrel Show"

Philadelphia artist Frank Taylor's rendering of Dumont's Minstrel's  - also known as the Eleventh Street Opera House. Collection of the Library Company of Philadelphia.By the time Taylor made this drawing in the 1920s, the theater had been demo…

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