I was reading a (fictional) novel that was ostensibly based on some research on the influence of Shakespeare in the old west.
I was wondering, was there any evidence (e.g. playbills etc) of Shakespearean plays being performed for miners out west? How lucrative would these performances have been? Would the audiences have known the plays/understood them? Would actors have performed works by others from that era (Marlowe etc) or more contemporary playwrights?
Sorry for that barrage of questions, and thanks in advance.
I'd greatly appreciate any literature sources to peruse, as I'm very interested in this subject, but couldn’t seem to find much info.
Here is a playbill for the July 2, 1863 opening of Maguire's Opera House in Virginia City, Nevada. Maguire already had a famed theater in San Francisco, so this was a branch operation, which became even more famous as Piper's Opera House after its 1867 purchase by John Piper. The playbill identifies many important actors of the North American theater, and this is typical of what would find in many of the more prosperous mining camps of the old West. Junius Brutus Booth, Jr., the famed Shakespearean actor, is part of the theater group that performed at the premier. They stayed for over a month and acted many plays including some Shakespeare. In fact, every Booth brother who didn't shoot a president appeared on the stage.
Theater in the Old West frequently featured fairly high-brow performances because the audience was mixed and many were educated and sophisticated, and many who weren't wanted to purchase sophistication. At the same time, the stage could feature some fairly low-brow acts; it was a place of diversity.
For a good source on this, see Margaret G. Watson, Silver Theatre: Amusements of Nevada's Mining Frontier, 1850-1864) (1964).
