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.
Read more about this topic: Winter Garden Theatre (1850)
Famous quotes containing the words finest, american and/or theatre:
“If someone took the finest marble and knew how to shape it artfully: Prometheus’ material was lowly clay, but his statues walked.”
—Franz Grillparzer (1791–1872)
“My wish for the American woman is that she may always be an elevating influence—man’s inspiration. Let him go forth to duty while she weaves the spell which makes home a paradise to which he may return, ever welcome, whether he is victor or vanquished.”
—Rutherford Birchard Hayes (1822–1893)
“To save the theatre, the theatre must be destroyed, the actors and actresses must all die of the plague. They poison the air, they make art impossible. It is not drama that they play, but pieces for the theatre. We should return to the Greeks, play in the open air: the drama dies of stalls and boxes and evening dress, and people who come to digest their dinner.”
—Eleonora Duse (1858–1924)