Winter Garden Theatre (1850) - A Showcase For The Finest in American Theatre

A Showcase For The Finest in American Theatre

Some of the leading actors and theatre managers of the 19th century worked at The Winter Garden Theatre, from Jenny Lind and Laura Keene to Dion Boucicault and Edwin Booth. One of the most significant and politically influential productions in American theatre history took place on a single night at The Winter Garden Theatre on November 25, 1864, when three sons of one of America's great tragedians, Junius Brutus Booth, namely Junius Brutus Booth, Jr., Edwin Booth, and John Wilkes Booth staged a benefit performance of Shakespeare's Julius Caesar to raise funds to build a statue of Shakespeare in Central Park; four months later John Wilkes would assassinate Abraham Lincoln in Washington D.C. as he cried out the historic words of Brutus in ancient Rome. Throughout its seventeen-year history, The Winter Garden Theatre played a significant role in the history of the American theatre.

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