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 i…
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 t…
A British cartoon showing the O.P. riots in London in 1809. The point of view of the artist is decidedly opposed to the protests, as the cartoon shows working class roughnecks assaulting and robbing well-dressed toffs in the pit of the Grand Nationa…
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.&nb…
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 t…
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. T…
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 …
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. …
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 …
"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…
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: "Portra…
(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…
(Image of Astley's Amphitheatre, above, courtesy of the collection of the Victoria & Albert Museum in London)Phillip Astley, the only known depiction of him: Handbill for Astley's British Riding School, Westminster Bridge: Here is the Thom…
Above and below we see two posters for Ricketts' Circus, during periods when he was resident in New York City in the 1790s (from the collection of the Houghton Library, Harvard University). Note the depictions of the Flying Mercury trick, as well as…
As promised, here is an image of the Old Theatre, or the Southwark Theatre, which stood for many years on Cedar Street (now South Street) in Philadelphia. It caught fire in 1821, and was mostly destroyed, but it was somewhat rebuilt and used and a w…
