Shakespeare's Victorian Stage: Performing History in the Theatre of Charles Kean

Book Description

This is the first book to explore the revivals of Shakespeare's history plays, Henry V, Henry VIII, King John, Macbeth, and Richard II, as staged by the actor-manager Charles Kean in mid-Victorian London. These celebrated productions, renowned for their attention to antiquarian detail, provided an opportunity for audiences to participate in the Victorian obsession with history. Many illustrations are previously unpublished and the book will be of interest to scholars and students of theater history, Shakespeare studies and Victorian culture.

As She Likes It: Shakespeare's Unruly Women (Gender and Performance)

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As She Likes It: Shakespeare's Unruly Women (Gender and Performance)
Penny Gay
Manufacturer: Routledge
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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Shakespeare and the Nature of Women: Third Edition
Shakespeare and Women (Oxford Shakespeare Topics)

ASIN: 0415096960

Book Description

Looks at the way five of the comedies have been staged over the last 50 years, asking how gender politics affects the production of the comedies, and how gender is represented, both in the text and on stage.

Average customer rating:

Well done, but. . .
An emphasis on fact
The best survey of its kind
A learned and accessible background guide

The Shakespearean Stage, 15741642
Andrew Gurr
Manufacturer: Cambridge University Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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Similar Items:

Playgoing in Shakespeare's London
The Elizabethan World Picture
William Shakespeare: A Compact Documentary Life (Oxford Paperbacks)
Invisible Actor
The Actor and the Text (Applause Acting Series)

ASIN: 052142240X

Book Description

The Shakespearean Stage is the only authoritative book that describes all the main features of the original staging of Shakespearean drama in one volume: the acting companies and their acting styles, the playhouses, the staging and the audiences. For twenty years it has been hailed as not only the most reliable but the liveliest and most entertaining overview of Shakespearean theater available to students. For this third edition Professor Gurr has substantially revised the book, bringing it right up to date and incorporating many new discoveries, including those of the archaeologists at the sites of the Rose and Globe theaters. The invaluable appendix, which lists all the plays performed at a particular playhouse, the playing company and date of performance, has also been revised and rearranged.

Customer Reviews:

Well done, but. . ........2006-04-14

This is a thoroughly researched piece of work by Gurr, but it's not for the casual or general reader, methinks. It is detailed, readable, and. . . pedantic. Only the specialist would be interested in every bit of this book, but if one has selected interests, he will get probably the best information here. My interests were in the staging of the plays, the architecture of the amphitheaters and halls, and the chronological evolution of the playhouses and methods of staging. I'm not so interested in which players and playwrights performed and wrote for which companies. This part of the book I found fairly tedious.

The illustrations are mostly familiar ones (if you've done much reading on the subject), with some truly interesting photos and building footprint sketches of the latest "digs" in London. There is a note in this edition (the third) that the list of plays, playhouses, authors, and dates for the period (in the appendix) have been revised from the format of the previous edition and placed in alphabetical order of the play titles. This must suit the needs of some readers, but it frustrated me because I most wanted a chronological listing. Ah, well.

The author makes very clear at the beginning what period he means by "Shakespearean": latter half of Elizabeth's reign (1570s to 1603); whole of the reign of James I (1603-1625) and the rule of Charles I (1625 up until he lost control of things in 1642). He gives cogent reasons for this particular nomenclature.

An emphasis on fact.......2003-09-04

This is simply a definitive book. Rich in scholarship it is free from much of the dogma, masquerading as fact, that attaches itself to theatrical "scholarship"of this period. Gurr has an astonsihing array of knowledge that encompases all the major authors, players, companies and audiences of this fascinating era. Quite simply he makes it come alive. He also answers so many of the questions that puzzle the reader about this time. Of particular interest is his attempt to investigate the acting "style" in the playhouse and the growing schism between the "personative" school of acting and the "rhetoriticians". Please buy, it will reward your purchase many times over!

The best survey of its kind.......2001-04-07

It is very easy, and very pleasant, to write in praise of this book, for it is hard to envisage that the task accomplished by Gurr - an absolute expert in the area under discussion - could have been carried out yet better. For several years now, this guide has very justifiably been accepted as the best of its kind, and it is an essential possession for all of us who want, within one handy volume, a comprehensive account of what the theatres of Shakespeare's time were like, and what is likely to have happened within them. The author's detailed, well-informed and specific work is based not only on his own formidable research into the matters at issue, but also on close acquaintance with what others have done. Everything is presented with impeccable, sensible and perceptive judgement. The book can certainly be read through with benefit and enjoyment, but repays frequent visiting whenever one wants to consult a particular chapter or to find out more about a specific issue or fact (there is a very good index to help one in this). All in all, therefore, this book is not only very informative to read, but surpasses a great many books on Shakespeare and his time by being also an excellent reference tool for frequent use. Unhesitatingly recommended. - Joost Daalder, Professor of English, Flinders University, South Australia

A learned and accessible background guide.......2000-05-21

This book gives an engaging breakdown of how Shakespearean plays were performed in early modern London. Gurr gives an idea of the range of players' companies, playhouses, and different playing practices, as well as a sense of how the companies and their plays changed throughout the period. I refer to this book all the time and plan to order it for my students to read as a companion to Shakespeare's plays.

Shakespeare's Globe: An Interactive Pop-up Theatre

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Wow!
Pop Up Shakespeare's Globe
globe trotting
Buy it for your teachers!

Shakespeare's Globe: An Interactive Pop-up Theatre
Toby Forward
Manufacturer: Candlewick
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 0763626945
Release Date: 2005-05-10

Book Description

Come actors, playwrights, and groundlings to Shakespeare's Globe to brush up on history and perform some famous scenes from the Bard's greatest plays. Break a leg!

Welcome to the Globe, the greatest theater in the world! The year is 1612, and leading Shakespearean actor Richard Burbage is conducting a backstage tour of everything from the pit below the stage to the grand ceiling painted to resemble the heavens. Take a peek inside this marvelous miniature theater to find:

— A 3-D pop-up model of the Globe Theatre

— A book of fascinating inside facts on the theater's history, design, and legendary performances

— 10 sheets containing a total of 20 press-out, standup characters

— Two booklets — one for you and one for a friend — featuring popular scenes from 12 Shakespearean plays, including A MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM, ROMEO AND JULIET, TWELFTH NIGHT, AS YOU LIKE IT, and more

In SHAKESPEARE'S GLOBE — approved by the Globe Theatre itself — you'll find everything you need to stage your own performances of the most memorable scenes in theater history.

Customer Reviews:

Wow!.......2007-07-08

This is a beautiful book and wonderful to share with kids. I teach special education and the kids really love these 3-D books. Well worth the money.

Pop Up Shakespeare's Globe.......2006-03-03

This is a clever and delightful book! Shakespeare's plays are so connected with the playhouse space, and this lovingly detailed book helps to re-create the reality of the world of Shakespeare. Fun and accurate, will be enjoyed by kids and all Shakespeare fans!

globe trotting.......2006-01-15

a treasure

Buy it for your teachers!.......2005-08-03

This is a lovely book with paper "players" and "cue cards" containing play lines -- highlights from several plays.

Women as Hamlet: Performance and Interpretation in Theatre, Film and Fiction

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Women as Hamlet: Performance and Interpretation in Theatre, Film and Fiction
Tony Howard
Manufacturer: Cambridge University Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 0521864666

Book Description

The first Hamlet on film was Sarah Bernhardt. Probably the first Hamlet on radio was Eve Donne. Ever since the late eighteenth century, leading actresses have demanded the right to play the role - Western dramaâ€™s greatest symbol of active consciousness and conscience. Their iconoclasm, and Hamletâ€™s alleged â€~femininityâ€™, have fascinated playwrights, painters, novelists and film-makers from EugÃ¨ne Delacroix and the Victorian novelist Mary Braddon to Angela Carter and Robert Lepage. Crossing national and media boundaries, this book addresses the history and the shifting iconic status of the female Hamlet in writing and performance. Many of the performers were also involved in radical politics: from Stalinist Russia to Poland under martial law, actresses made Hamlet a symbol of transformation or crisis in the body politic. On stage and film, women reinvented Hamlet from Weimar Germany to the end of the Cold War. This book aims to put their half-forgotten achievements centre-stage.

Shakespeare and the Elizabethan Age (Treasure Chests)

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A Treasure Chest of Shakespearean Discovery!!!
Shakespeare and the Elizabethan Age

Shakespeare and the Elizabethan Age (Treasure Chests)
Andrew Langley
Manufacturer: Running Press Kids
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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Leonardo Da Vinci and the Renaissance Treasure Chest (Treasure Chests(tm))
Knights Treasure Chest: The Age of Adventure, to Unlock and Discover/Includes Book, Board Game, Ring, Key, Catapult (Treasure Chests(tm))
The Vikings: 350 Years of Adventure to Unlock and Discover (Treasure Chests)
Ancient China: 2,000 Years of Mystery and Adventure to Unlock and Discover (Treasure Chest)
Castles of the World Coloring Book

ASIN: 0762407476

Book Description

An exciting new direction for our well-received Treasure Chests series, this highly innovative kit takes children aged 8 to 13 on a vivid, interactive journey back to the Elizabethan era. The world of Shakespeare has never been more accessible, or more engrossing! A full-color, fact-filled book and a series of intriguing components are the vehicles for this fun and education time travel, designed to inspire kids to present their own Shakespearean dramas. A secret drawer opens to reveal games, maps, and the plots of the Bard's most familiar plays, endlessly fascinating in their presentation of intrigue, humor, tragedy, and adventure. Kids can build a wonderfully detailed replica of the Globe Theater, and then use the authentic letter press, complete with printing frame, moveable type, and ink roller, to print up their own posters and handbills in authentic period typefaces.

Customer Reviews:

A Treasure Chest of Shakespearean Discovery!!!.......2003-05-14

This is not a true book, but a delightful book-shaped treasure chest filled with wonderful things to explore the age of Shakespeare. New and complete, "Shakespeare and the Elizabethan Age" contains a model of the Globe Theater to make; a Shakespearean timeline poster; Map of London from Shakespeare's time; Guide to the plays of Shakespeare; 32-page book about the immortal Bard; and a replica 16th-century printing set to make a personalized print poster (includes movable type and ink!!). This is a great gift for yourself and your favorite Shakespeare freak, young or old.

Shakespeare and the Elizabethan Age.......2001-02-10

This is an excellent way to engage older children in exploring literature. There are activities as well as information on the life, times, and works of Shakespeare. It would be difficult for a child younger than nine or ten to complete the projects, but it would be excellent for an older child, especially as an introduction to one of Shakespeare's works. It allows a child to explore the time period as well as the theatre. It is well packaged in a very neat "book" with a drawer and compartments for the various parts; it is easy to store without losing the smaller parts. It even comes with a lock and key!

Romeo and Juliet (Shakespeare in Production)

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Romeo & Juliet on stage, not just on page

Romeo and Juliet (Shakespeare in Production)
William Shakespeare
Manufacturer: Cambridge University Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0521667690

Book Description

Romeo and Juliet has always been one of Shakespeare's most popular plays on stage and film. This edition provides the full text of the play as well as a thorough account of its production history, equally useful for the scholar, actor and director. The introduction examines major changes over four centuries of theatrical production. The commentary provides detailed examples of how different performers, from Henry Irving and Ellen Terry to Leonardo DiCaprio and Claire Danes, have brought life and death to Shakespeare's star-crossed lovers.

Customer Reviews:

Romeo & Juliet on stage, not just on page.......2006-08-28

Whereas standard editions of Romeo and Juliet focus primarily on thematic issues, textual variants, patterns of imagery, literary sources, biographical issues, etc., this volume (like the others in this series) examines its history in performance. Its amazingly thorough, 85-page, nicely illustrated introduction traces the play's long, fascinating, often bizarre stage history with details that are little-known and hard to find elsewhere: the fact that most actors playing the lead roles were well over the appropriate age of the lead characters (one of the oldest, an American, was still playing it at 65, to a Juliet who was 57); that no cast list of the original production survives, so no one knows who first played Romeo (speculation centers on Richard Burbage as Romeo, perhaps with Shakespeare as Friar Lawrence); that the Victorians often cast women as Romeo, with at least one playing opposite her sister as Juliet; that a notable 18th century actor, aged 41, played Romeo opposite his own young daughter (much to audience disdain); and so on. There is also a history of musical adaptations of it, film versions of it, renditions of it in languages other than English, as well as versions that altered Shakespeare's ending so that the young lovers could at least see each other (and sometimes sing a duet) in the tomb before dying. The text of the play is also presented with copious annotations, though they again emphasize stage presentation rather than theme, allusion, or literary explication. Thus, although this would not be the best choice for those who are reading the play for the first time (and is not priced for that market), it is indispensable for those interested in performance history--whether directors, actors, scholars of stage history, or just curious readers seeking a new and fascinating perspective on a play that, for many, has come to seem entirely too familiar. This is an example of scholarship at its absolute finest--lucidly written, dazzling in its thoroughness, amazing in its discoveries, astonishing in its implications, and even extremely much fun to read.

A Tempest: Based on Shakespeare's the Tempest : Adaptation for a Black Theatre (Tcg Translations)

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Important, period
Mediocre at best
Probably better on stage
a fabulous reinvention of The Tempest
Searching

A Tempest: Based on Shakespeare's the Tempest : Adaptation for a Black Theatre (Tcg Translations)
Aime Cesaire , and William Shakespeare
Manufacturer: Tcg Translations
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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The Tempest (Signet Classics)
The Tempest (Norton Critical Editions)
Translations: A Play (Faber Paperbacks)
Crossing the Mangrove
Discourse on Colonialism

ASIN: 1559362103

Book Description

A troupe of black actors perform their own Tempest. Cesaire's rich and insightful adaptation draws on contemporary Caribbean society, the African-American experience and African mythology to raise questions about colonialism, racism and their lasting effects.

Aime Cesaire, who was born in Martinique in 1913, is one of this century's major writers. In his poetry, plays and political activities he has waged a lifelong struggle to restore dignity to colonized people. His best known work is Return to My Native Land first published in 1949 and his Collected Poems are published by the University of California Press.

Customer Reviews:

Important, period.......2001-12-27

Cesaire's A TEMPEST wears its politics on its sleeve, and that can be grating even when its political message is agreeable with your own leanings. This is not a particularly subtle work, but it is of supreme importance to understanding a number of socio-political movements, especillly as they relate to the Carribean (though it reaches far beyond that limited geographic range in its implications). Order this in conjunction with Shakepeare's original, Dryden's rewrite, Rodo's ARIEL, Retamar's CALIBAN and perhaps PROSPERO'S BOOKS starring John Gielgud. Then go to town...or perhaps away from it.

Mediocre at best.......2001-11-06

Cesaire's reinvention of Shakespeare's play is an unimpressive piece of work by almost any standard. It moves with the subtlety of a train wreck, shoving its political agenda down the reader's or viewer's throat. The entire affair is so ham-fisted and simplistic in flaunting its politics that it comes across as infantile bellyaching instead of the brilliant re-imagining that Cesaire is so obviously hoping for (and certainly could have achieved). Parts of this play are painful to experience, and read next to Shakespeare's original, it's simply embarrassing.

Postcolonial theorists and critics will often hasten to engage in apologetics for this mediocrity. They will explain that Cesaire is "subverting a western form" or that he is intentionally evoking discomfort and anger in his audience. The former is a typical excuse for colonial works that are simply bad; the latter is probably true but is unable to justify or even to explain the abysmal quality of this play.

As in his Discourse on Colonialism, Cesaire is guilty of ruining a potentially great work by oversimplification and vacuous rhetoric.

Probably better on stage.......2001-05-07

Yes, this is a re-working of The Tempest from a Caribbean perspective. Cesaire basically extrapolates Shakespeare's anti-colonial criticism and backfits the story into that scheme. Of course, the play is modernized and packed with civil rights movement references. Caliban has a stronger role, but very hackneyed. This play reads like a political pamphlet; everything is spelled out for you. I think it has social importance, but from a literary standpoint it was forgettable.

a fabulous reinvention of The Tempest.......2000-06-14

Aime Cesaire wrote this variation of The Tempest from an Afrocentric, Carribean perspective. It is a magnificent achievement. Caliban becomes the hero as Cesaire advances a variety of different ideas. By changing the perspective, A Tempest explores a lot of issues like rascism and colonialism. Prospero becomes the Oppressor and Caliban is the Native wrongly robbed of his ancestral right to rule his own land. Ariel is reduced to something of an Uncle Tom. To his credit, Cesaire never allows any character in the play become completely unsympathetic. That is a grand feat. It is consistent with Shakespeare who also grants humanity even to Caliban. I found this adaptation to be brilliant. Cesaire follows the theme of The Tempest all the while making it his own work. I was even compelled to reread The Tempest just for comparative purposes. The reread of The Tempest served only to heighten my appreciation for A Tempest. This is work that should be read by anyone interested in the theatre.

Searching.......1999-04-06

I loved Aime Cesaire's Return to the Native Land which read from a library, the verses roll like thunder, and I wonder if it is in print anymore. Please email indianguy99@yahoo.com.

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A wonderfully clear portrait of the greatest of English writers
An excellent biography
The Life and Times of Mr. William Shakespeare
Fascinating !____A Keeper
A remarkable and lucid book

Shakespeare: A Life
Park Honan
Manufacturer: Oxford University Press, USA
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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Shakespeare

ASIN: 0198117922

Book Description

In the most complete, accurate, and up-to-date narrative of Shakespeare's life ever written, Park Honan uses a wealth of fresh information to dramatically alter our perceptions of the actor, poet, and playwright. The young poet's relationships, his early courtship of Anne Hathaway, their marriage, his attitudes to women such as Jennet Davenant, Marie Mountjoy, and his own daughters, are seen in a new light, illuminating Shakespeare's needs, habits, passions and concerns. Park Honan examines the world of the playing companies -- the power of patronage, theatrical conditions, and personal rivalries -- to reveal the relationship between the man and the writing, and using previously unpublished material explores the causes of Shakespeare's success; Stratford childhood, his parents' capabilities, and his preparations for a London career. Shakespeare: A Life casts new light on the complexity and fascination of Shakespeare's life and his extraordinary development as an artist.

Customer Reviews:

A wonderfully clear portrait of the greatest of English writers.......2006-03-06

I enjoyed this biography of Shakespeare very much. My wife and I were in London at the just opened Borders on Oxford St. when I saw a signed copy of this book for sale and decided to purchase it. It was a great read and quite convincing in its approach to the playwright and poet. There is not enough direct evidence of the man's life to flesh everything out, but Park Honan uses the plays forensically. What does a close reading of the plays tell us about the man who wrote them? And then look into how that matches with what we know directly of him. It matches quite well and becomes a wonderfully fleshed out portrait. That being said, there is much more direct evidence about Shakespeare and his plays than many of the conspiracy theorists would have you believe.

We follow him from his youth in Stratford along his journey to London and what work in the theater of those days was like. We learn about the sheer volume of lines an actor of those times would have had ready for use in their mind at any given time; it was thousands and thousands of lines. It is drawing upon that resource, just as a Handel or a Teleman or a Bach called upon the hundreds of works they had in their minds, that allowed him to compose with such rapidity. It was his genius to improve upon his sources just as Bach and Handel always made more of their borrowings. Genius never requires a noble source. In fact, it is usually sprung from seemingly poor soil. Yet it comes.

The author is very specific about what we know directly from the record versus what is a normative behavior for the time and a possibility for Shakespeare. Honan never allows speculation and possibility to become fact. Nor does he follow other modern anachronisms of wondering about the psychology of Shakespeare or whether he was "Gay" since even the term homosexual would be out of place in Elizabethan times, though homoerotic attachments were not.

I believe the author makes such a powerful case the William Shakespeare of Stratford wrote the plays that the Oxfordians will simply attack the book because of their faith, however unfounded in anything beyond desire and assertion.

I recommend this book highly.

An excellent biography.......2004-04-04

Honan's biography of Shakespeare is superb. The writing style is good, the research reliable, and the play reviews are appropriate. The reader ends up with a detailed knowledge of the life of the bard. That is the purpose of a biography. Highly recommended.

The Life and Times of Mr. William Shakespeare.......2002-06-24

A great deal of Shakespeare's life appears never to have made it into the official record, and Park Honan, for all his skill as a writer, cannot change that.

What Mr. Honan does do, however, is construct in detail the setting for what facts we do know about Shakespeare's life. Even if we lack many of the basic facts of Shakespeare's boyhood, for instance, we know what Stratford was like, and we know what kind of lives boys in Stratford led. Mr. Honan lays out this setting, gives us the known facts about young Will, contents himself with making the occasional relatively safe guess, and leaves it at that.

Despite the fact that Mr. Honan's book is mostly setting, with a fairly scarce plot, it's a good read, flowing well and entertaining. Your study of Shakespeare should start here.

Fascinating !____A Keeper.......2001-04-08

We will perhaps never be able to come across a "definitive" (in the modern sense) life of Shakespeare because of the obviously sketchy nature of the extant documents relating to his life .Realising this,Mr.Honan has done the next best thing : to fill in the bare bones of the Bard's life with information from the Elizabethan period & done it in an exquisite fashion.What we get is not what Shakespeare DID at any given point in his life but a sense of what he was MOST LIKELY DOING given the socio-cultural milieu,Elizabethan mores,surviving public documents ,comments by his contemporaries and autobiographical fragments from his plays and sonnets.Mr.Honan's view is by its very nature "oblique" but given the paucity of "hard data" ,it is the wisest approach .Moreover he doesn't gloss over the gaps in our knowledge of Shakespeare's life but freely acknowledges them .Each chapter is thoroughly referenced and annotated .The picture that emerges from this account is of a remarkably sensitive genius endowed with a superlative gift for expressing the universal & the ineffable pertaining to the human condition____ in timeless prose .Interestingly ,Honan manages to do this without deifying Shakespeare ,which is wise given that Shakespeare is too fascinating a man to be 'deified away' !In the final analysis genius is always inexplicable in that it breaks the existing molds and "liberates" us to see,hear and experience the world in a novel and yet distinctly human way .This is an exquisite and enjoyable book .

A remarkable and lucid book.......2001-01-24

A wonderfully written book that cuts through the myths and speculations concerning Bill's life. A view of Shakespeare's life as he lived it. As a boy, a writer, a business man. Easily the best book on the Bard.

The Bard in the Bluegrass: Two Centuries of Shakespearean Performance in Lexington, Kentucky

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The Bard in the Bluegrass: Two Centuries of Shakespearean Performance in Lexington, Kentucky
Kevin Lane Dearinger
Manufacturer: McFarland & Company
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0786428953

Product Description

Lexington, Kentucky, has been called the cradle of the legitimate theatre west of the Appalachians since the opening of its first theatre in 1808. Not long after that opening, a fledgling resident acting company presented Macbeth, the town s first professional production of a Shakespearean play. Since then, the local and traveling stars committed to drama drove Lexington s live theatrical glamour to thrive impressively into the twentieth century.

Many of the actors who performed in Lexington in the plays of Shakespeare have been forgotten, but their vivid personalities and devotion to their art were once an integral part of American popular culture. The history of their careers and their lives is an important part of theatre history, of Kentucky history, and of American history. This study presents detailed accounts of individual actors in the order of their first appearances in Lexington.

Early chapters explore the range of exposure to Shakespeare's plays and players experienced by the town of Lexington and investigate the cultural climate that affected and was affected by that experience. Because Lexington s theatrical history provides a template for what so many mid-American towns experienced in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, a section of the book explores how hundreds of American cities connected by the early turnpikes and railroads constituted a community of theatre towns that cherished Shakespeare as a keystone of American culture. Remaining chapters are devoted to the lives and careers of the inspiring performers who brought Shakespeare's words to life over the centuries. Reviews published in Lexington, supplemented with details from newspapers of New York and other cities, have provided source material.

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