Blog Posts: Commentary and Images for Every Episode
Above is the Ida B Siddons Female Mastodons and Burlesque Company poster that I 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. Appare…
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…
The Elephant King at the Cosmopolitan - more material about Episode 25, "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…
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…
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:…
The Pageant that Shook Walnut Grove - Notes and Illustrations for Special Episode on "The Mischianza"
Above, Below, a drawing made my Major John Andre himself, 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 pict…
As I promised in Episode #24, "The Everlasting Minstrel Show", here is the complete item about the from the New York Clipper on June 13th, 1863 about the "Ira Aldridge Troupe". It was part of a longer article entitled "The Theatrical Record", and ha…
"Where Our Mothers and Fathers Laughed their Troubles Away" - Blog Post and Bibliography for Episode 24
Above is Philadelphia artist Frank Taylor's rendering of Dumont's Minstrel's (also known as the Eleventh Street Opera House). By the time Taylor made this drawing in the 1920s, the theater had been demolished, and the current version of Dumont's for…
Above, copy of the bust of Charlotte Cushman by Emma Stebbins, which was a longtime feature of the collection of the Cushman Club in Philadelphia. It was given to the club in 1957 by Stuart Louchheim, then the president of the Academy of Music. It n…
Well, yes he did! Faithful followers of the podcast will remember that we speculated on this topic in Episode #2, but there is proof! In the famous diary of the London resident and Royal Navy administrator Samuel Pepys (1633-1703), we find the foll…
