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 a puzz…
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…
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 demolishe…
A copy of the bust of Charlotte Cushman by Emma Stebbins, which was in 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, and was on display in the cl…
Above: The cover of Christian DuComb's book Haunted City. Below: Christian Ducomb has himself been a Mummer. He performed as a slice of pizza with the Vaudevillians Comic Club in the 2010 Mummers Parade. (Photo from an 2017 article in the Philadelp…
Print of the Academy of Music, 1857. In a very early article about the Academy of Music from the late 1850s, a writer remarked that there was a general effort in Philadelphia to call it "The Broad Street Opera House." This would have followed the lo…
Above: A cartoon depiction of actor and manager John Philip Kemble being harangued by the O.P. protestors at of the Grand National Theatre, Covent Garden. The mob are blowing trumpets and carrying signs calling for the end of private boxes. The poin…
An illustration by white artist Charles Bird King of a War Dance, performed by a delegation of Native American Tribes to Washington DC.The illustration is the frontispiece of Volume One of McKenney's History of the Indian Tribes of North America. Th…
Above: An 1863 engraved advertising card for the Arch Street Theatre, with an illustration of the theater's new facade. Collection of the Library Company of Philadelphia Below, an 1868 photograph of the Arch Street Theatre, taken from the upper f…
Here are some photos from the FIRST EVER Adventures in Theater History Walking Tour.I led a walking tour along the streets of Philadelphia on Saturday, October 23rd, 2021. We began at the corner of South and Front Streets in Old City Philadelphia, a…
Print of a young Louisa Lane, portraying multiple characters in the play Twelve Absolutely, 1828. (Collection of the Harry Ransom Center, University of Texas, Austin)Below, an image of the silver medal that Edwin Forrest presented to little Louisa a…
Fanny Kemble reads Shakespeare aloud at the St. James Theatre in London - from the Illustrated London News, August 10th, 1850. As we detail in the podcast episode, becoming a public 'reader' of Shakespeare's plays gave Fanny both an independent inco…
Above, the three portraits of Fanny Kemble by painter Thomas Sully at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts. Sully was eventually to paint Kemble eleven different times, and also painted a portrait of her father Charles Kemble. The artist was kn…
The residents of the Edwin Forrest Home for Actors, sitting in the front entrance hall on Parkway Avenue in West Philadelphia, 1960. The photo was taken by historian Richard Moody, for his book Edwin Forrest, First Star of the American Stage. The st…
A montage of photographs of Edwin Forrest. First as himself, and then as the title characters in Spartacus, Metamora, and Jack Cade.Below: Three paintings of Forrest as Metamora, from different stages of his career. The first (artist unknown) is fro…
Above Left: Edwin Forrest as Rolla in Pizzaro, in a black-and-white photo of the portrait by John B. Neagle (1796-1865). Above Right: Engraving of the Neagle portrait by A.R. Durand, commissioned by F. Wemyss. Pizzaro was a play adapted from the d…
A poster advertising the production Ranch 10, a Western drama by Harry Meredith playing at the Arch Street Theatre in Philadelphia during November of 1883. The vividness of the print makes the onstage fire the selling point of the production. It's …
Above, a hand-colored etching from 1811 by Denis Dighton. It depicts "Mrs. H. Johnson" (Nanette Johnson, née Parker) as 'Zorilda' in the melodrama of Timour the Tartar (Collection of the National Portrait Gallery, London). Alongside it is some shee…
"George Frederick Cooke as Richard III", by Thomas Sully (1811). Collection of the Philadelphia Academy of the Fine Arts. Visiting this painting again, it strikes me more than ever how the viewer is actually placed as if they were in the action of t…
William B. Wood in action on the stage in the role of Charles De Moor in Schiller's The Robbers, which was first played on the New Theatre stage in February of 1811. Painting by Thomas Sully.Below: As promised, below is a map of the City of Philadel…
Above, Congress Hall (now Independence Hall) and the New Theatre, c. 1800. From Birch's Views of Philadelphia, c. 1800.You can see how close the politicians in the House and Senate (as well as the Justices of the Supreme Court) were to the New Theat…
"Nightlife in Philadelphia—an Oyster Barrow in front of the Chestnut Street Theater", by John Lewis Krimmel; Metropolitan Museum of Art Collections.Image below: "Exhibition of Indian Tribal Ceremonies at the Olympic Theater, Philadelphia, 1811–ca. 1…
Above, the portrait of J.B. Ricketts by Gilbert Stuart, in the collection of the National Gallery. Inscription, lower left: "Portrait of Mr Rickarts Horse Equestraine [sic] Friend of the artist Gilbert Stuart; Inscription, lower right: "Portrait of…
(Both the above and below images are shared by courtesy of the Library Company of Philadelphia.)In the image above, the Pennsylvania State House is on the left, the Art Pantheon in the middle, and Oeller's Hotel to the right. This image would have b…
