In Victorian theatre, a special production or anniversary performance was often commemorated with programmes printed on satin or silk, as here:
This is a blog about 19th-century theater, primarily meant for members and fans of New Old Theater, an acting company dedicated to the revival of popular 19th-century drama and its conventions. All text is in my copyright and cannot be reproduced or distributed without my permission. Please feel free to share comments and questions.
E.A. Sothern as The Crushed Tragedian
Labels
- Augustin Daly (1)
- Beerbohm Tree (1)
- before television (5)
- Box and Cox (12)
- circus (1)
- costume (1)
- deportment (1)
- E.A. Sothern (1)
- Edwin Booth (5)
- Edwin Forrest (2)
- Ellen Terry (1)
- elocution (5)
- facial expression (4)
- Helena Modjeska (1)
- Joseph Jefferson (1)
- Julia Marlowe (1)
- Madame Celeste (1)
- Maria Marten (1)
- Marie Wilkins (1)
- Mary Anderson (1)
- Maude Adams (1)
- Much Ado About Nothing (1)
- music (3)
- New Old Theater (7)
- Othello (1)
- parade (1)
- playbills (6)
- Richard Mansfield (1)
- Sarah Siddons (1)
- Shakespeare (8)
- stage gestures (11)
- Stereoscope (1)
- Ten Major Emotions (1)
- The Vampire (8)
- Theatre buildings (1)
- theatre practice (5)
- Two Orphans (1)
- Uncle Tom's Cabin (1)
- victorian acting (19)
- Victorian actors (14)
- Victorian plays (13)
- victoriana (3)
- Yankee actors (5)
Links for Theatre History
- 19th-Century Actor Autobiographies
- 19th-century Actors Photographs - Univ. of Washington
- 19th-Century London Stage
- America-in-Play
- Carthalia -- Theatres on Postcards
- Cigar label art -- Actors
- Dickens and Popular Entertainment
- Dictionary of Americanisms (1848)
- E.A. Sothern
- Early Nineteenth Century Audiences
- English Prose Drama online
- Footlight Notes (wonderful site!)
- Historical Speeches
- Juvenile Drama Tinsel Pictures in the Victorian Style
- Lacy's Acting Edition of Victorian Plays (1848-1874)
- Life of the Famous Dog Carlo of Drury Lane Theatre (1809)
- Make-up Book for Professionals, c. 1900
- Nahum Tate's play King Lear (online text)
- Philip H. Ward Collection of Theatrical Images, 1856-1910
- Scenes from the Life of an Actor, by George Handel "Yankee" Hill (1853)
- Stage Yankee
- Stage-Land by Jerome K. Jerome (contemporary comic author's take on Victorian melodrama)
- The Vampire, by J.R. Planche (1820)
- University of Pennsylvania Shakespeare Image Collection
Recommended Books
- BLOOD AND THUNDER: MID-VICTORIAN MELODRAMA AND ITS ORIGINS, by Maurice Wilson Disher
- THE VICTORIAN THEATRE, by George Rowell
- QUEEN VICTORIA GOES TO THE THEATRE, by George Rowell
- VICTORIAN THEATRE: THE THEATRE IN ITS TIME, by Russell Jackson
- DICKENS, NOVEL READING, AND THE VICTORIAN POPULAR THEATRE, by Deborah Vlock
- IT WAS PLAY OR STARVE: ACTING IN THE 19C AMERICAN POPULAR THEATRE by John Hanners
- MELODRAMA UNVEILED; AMERICAN THEATER AND CULTURE, 1800-1850, by David Grimsted
- STRONG ON MUSIC: THE NEW YORK MUSIC SCENE IN THE DAYS OF GEORGE TEMPLETON STRONG, by Vera Lawrence Brodsky
- THEATRE CULTURE IN AMERICA, 1825-1860, by Rosemarie K. Bank
- THEATRE IN THE VICTORIAN AGE by Michael R. Booth
- SPEAKING SHAKESPEARE, by Patsy Rodenburg
- THOMAS ABTHORPE COOPER, FATHER OF THE AMERICAN STAGE, 1775-1849, by F. Arant Maginnes
- VICTORIAN ACTORS AND ACTRESSES IN REVIEW, by Donald Mullin
- AN AMERICAN ICON: BROTHER JONATHAN AND AMERICAN IDENTITY, by Winifred Morgan
- YANKEE THEATRE: THE IMAGE OF AMERICA ON THE STAGE, 1825-1850, by Francis Hodge
- NIGHTMARE: THE BIRTH OF HORROR, by Christopher Frayling
- STAGE BLOOD: VAMPIRES OF THE 19TH-CENTURY STAGE, by Roxana Stuart
- THE VAMPIRE, by Montague Summers
- THE VAMPYRE, by John Polidori, Oxford World Classics edition
- VAMPYRES: LORD BYRON TO COUNT DRACULA, by Christopher Frayling
About Me
- Buff Huntley
- Metropolitan Washington, D.C., United States
- Over-educated Anglophile, currently working as dramaturg for New Old Theater. I have a B.A. in Humanities from Georgetown University and Master's degrees in Research Studies and Victorian Literature from Oxford. I am an enthusiast of early theatre and have directed and/or produced a Jacobean masque, a baroque opera, a concert of music composed by women, and a canine melodrama.
Not to know what happened before you were born is always to be a child.
----Cicero
----Cicero
