The first theatre in New York City to bear the name The Winter Garden Theatre had a brief but important seventeen-year history (beginning in 1850) as one of New York's premier showcases for a wide range of theatrical fare, from variety shows to extravagant productions of the works of Shakespeare. Initially known as Tripler's Hall or Metropolitan Hall, it burned down in 1854 and was rebuilt as The New York Theatre. It rose from the ashes under different managers, bearing various names, to become known as one of the most important theatres in New York history.Mary C. Henderson. The City and the Theatre, (Back Stage Books, New York, 2004) p. 94-96. It nearly burned again in November 1864, in a plot hatched by Confederate sympathsizers, and burned to the ground a second time in 1867.
Showcase Some of the leading actors and theatre managers of the 19th century worked at The Winter Garden Theatre, from Jenny Lind (1820–1887), and Laura Keene (1826–1873), to Dion Boucicault (1820–1890), and Edwin Booth (1833–1893).Mary C. Henderson. The City and the Theatre, (Back Stage Books, New York, 2004) p. 95.
One of the most significant and politically influential productions in American theatre history took place at The Winter Garden Theatre on November 25, 1864. Junius Brutus Booth Jr. (1821–1883), Edwin Booth, and John Wilkes Booth (1838–1865), three sons of Junius Brutus Booth (1796–1852), one of America's great acting tragedians, staged a benefit performance of William Shakespeare's Julius Caesar to raise funds to commission a sculpted bronze statue of the playwright by artist/sculptor John Quincy Adams Ward (1830–1910), for New York City's new expansively landscaped Central Park. Four months later on April 14, 1865, John Wilkes Booth fatally shot 16th President Abraham Lincoln at Ford's Theater in Washington D.C., while shouting the historic words of senator Brutus in ancient Rome, upon joining in the murder of Julius Caesar.Eleanor Ruggles. Prince of Players. (New York), p. 282 Throughout its short 17-year existence, The Winter Garden Theatre played a significant role in the history and various notable performances / events of American theatre.
Groundbreaking
The theatre was originally planned in 1850 for the first engagement of Jenny Lind, an internationally known singer known as the "Swedish Nightingale". Located at 667 Broadway, Lower Manhattan, New York, across from Bond Street, and south of Amity Street (today's West Third Street),For 1859 map showing location and address, see Perris, William, "Plate 49" Maps of the City of New York, [Third Edition,] Vol. 4. Perris & Browne, New York, 1859, at New York Public Library Digital Gallery (Image ID: 1268339). For a good map of New York theatres of this era, see Mary C. Henderson's The City and the Theatre, (Back Stage Books, New York), p. 82. the new theatre was to be "one of the largest musical halls in the world," boasting one of the largest stages in New York City.Brown, Thomas Allston. A History of the New York Stage, Vol. 1 (New York, Dodd, Mead & Company, 1903) p. 424.
Delays in construction resulted in the theatre not being ready for Miss Lind's first show. She arrived to great fanfare and a reported gathering of over 40,000 (all arranged by her manager, the famed promoter (and later circus founder / owner), Phineas Taylor ("P.T.") Barnum, 1810–1891), and opened at New York City's other famed venue, the Castle Garden theatre. The theatre that was to have opened with "the name of Jenny Lind [that] would attract attention all over the country",Review of Jenny Lind's first performance in New York, for which tickets were auctioned off by P. T. Barnum for as much as a thousand dollars New York Herald, September 9, 1850. was later opened as Tripler Hall (also known later as the Metropolitan Hall). It had productions of numerous minstrel shows, which were fashionable and popular on the American stage in that 19th and early to mid-20th centuries era.
Tripler Hall also was used for other large gatherings. In December 1850 it was the site of an important ceremonial meeting of the Freemasons of New York City, which was attended by thousands of men. It was described as "the event was regarded and still is regarded as a landmark in the history of Freemasonry in the history of New York."Ross, Peter. A Standard History of Freemasonry in New York. (The Lewis Publishing Company, New York) 1899.
In February 1852, a memorial service was held at Tripler Hall for James Fenimore Cooper (1789–1851), the renowned American author / novelist. Noted statesman and influential U.S. Senator Daniel Webster (1782–1852), of Massachusetts presided, and eulogies were said by fellow literary figures Washington Irving (1783–1859), and William Cullen Bryant (1794–1878). That same year English author William Thackeray concluded a national tour with a lecture at Tripler Hall.The Mercer Arts Center History, compiled by Joseph Devorkin, 2004.
Several different managers had control during this period, with each manager naming the theatre as he or she pleased. When the theatre was used for the American Art-Union Prizes Distribution, a report in the famed British newspaper, The Illustrated London News in London, England, described the event and the interior of Tripler Hall:
Never – not even on the nights of the "Nightingale" – has the capacity of Tripler Hall been more fully booked than the evening appointed for the distribution of the Art Union prizes. The immense floor (30 feet wider than Kester Hall), the aisles, the galleries before the stage, and beside the doors, were crowded to excess."The Illustrated London News, January 24, 1851.
On May 15, 1855, new management took over the venue, presenting a musical by John and Morris Barnett called Monsieur Jacques. John Lafarge, owner of the famed Lafarge House which adjoined the theatre, assumed management and renamed it as Metropolitan Hall (a.k.a. as the Metropolitan Concert Hall).
Laura Keene
On December 27, 1855, the actress and manager Laura Keene reopened the theatre as Laura Keene's Varieties with Old Heads and Young Hearts.Brown, pp. 431–2
Here the leading female impresario of New York produced an eclectic form of entertainment which she would perfect in subsequent productions such as the musical Seven Sisters five years later.
A rare etching of the interior of the theatre at this time depicts a production by Laura Keene in her theatre; From the point of view of the stage, it depicts what is probably the production of a classical text, with two figures in historical costumes standing downstage close to the footlights.Vernanne Bryan. Laura Keene: A British Actress on the American Stage, 1826–1873 (McFarland & Company, Inc., 1997). This etching, from the actors' point of view, gives a rare glimpse into theatrical production on the American stage in the pre-Civil War era.
Despite the success of the theatre under Laura Keene, the Panic of 1857 bankrupted the theatre, and it was forced to close once again.Mary C. Henderson. The City and the Theatre, (Back Stage Books, New York, 2004) p. 94.
This house was reopened Sept. 8, 1856 as Burton's New Theatre, managed by William Evans Burton, with The Rivals. In 1858, Joseph Jefferson performed in the burlesque Mazeppa by F. A. Brady. He was drawn across the stage atop a Crandall horse.McClintock, Inez and Marshall, Toys in America, Public Affairs Press, Washington, D. C., 1961, p. 151
Dion Boucicault
During the summer of 1859, the daring actor–playwright–manager Dion Boucicault (1820–1890), called "the most conspicuous English dramatist of the 19th century",The New York Times, September 19, 1890. tried his hand at management, took over the theatre, and gave the theatre its final name of The Winter Garden Theatre with the opening of his original burlesque Chamooni III on October 19, 1859. The theatre was aptly named The Winter Garden because Boucicault remodeled the theatre extensively, surprisingly cutting the auditorium in half and installing "artificial tropical plants after a Parisian prototype."Henderson, p. 95. Boucicault effectively turned the theatre into a "winter garden" in the fall of the year. Among Boucicault's stable of first-rung actors were Joseph Jefferson (1829–1905), Agnes Kelly Robertson (1833–1916), and Mrs. John Wood (born Matilda Charlotte Vining, 1831–1915). Boucicault's dramatization of Charles Dickens's (1812–1870) Christmas story Cricket on the Hearth was his opening production, starring Jefferson as Caleb Plummer and Robertson as Dot. This immensely popular production eventually toured, as one critic has said, to "every possible playhouse in English-speaking America."Dickensian 48: 21.
The Octoroon That winter, on December 5 of 1859, Boucicault premiered one of his most popular – and controversial – melodramas The Octoroon, subtitled "Life in Louisiana", which he had adapted from the novel The Quadroon by Thomas Mayne Reid (1818–1883). The Octoroon, dealing with people of mixed white and African heritage, caused nothing short of a sensation, to see on the stage a drama that provoked discussions about race and politics. About this new phenomenon, The New York Times wrote that it had become "the great dramatic sensation of the season":
Everybody talks about the Octoroon, [sic] wonders about the Octoroon, goes to see the Octoroon; and the "Octoroon" thus becomes, in point of fact, the work of the public mind...the public having insisted on rewriting the piece according to its own notions, interprets every word and incident in wholly unexpected lights; and, for aught we know, therefore, the "Octoroon" may prove after all to be a political treatise of great emphasis and significance, very much to the author's amazement.The New York Times, December 15, 1859, p. 4.
The newly named Winter Garden Theatre eventually became home to a series of musical extravaganzas and burlesques: Cinderella with music by Charles Koppitz and a text by Charles Dawson Shanley on September 9, 1861; The Wizard's Tempest by Charles Gayler, on June 9, 1862; and King Cotton by Charles Chamberlain on June 21, 1862.
Edwin Booth
On February 21, 1863, Edwin Booth (1833–1893), took on the management of the Winter Garden Theatre (together with his brother-in-law, John Sleeper Clarke, 1833–1899) with the intention of shifting the focus from musicals and burlesques to classical dramas. This enterprise included a toga-clad, one-night production of Julius Caesar on the evening of November 25, 1864, Evacuation Day holiday (New York City celebration, marking the leaving of the seven years occupying British Army from the town at the end of the American Revolutionary War, after the signing / ratification of the Treaty of Paris earlier in 1783), played by Edwin and his brothers, John Wilkes Booth and Junius Brutus Booth Jr.
The goal of staging the 16th century play Julius Caesar for just one night was to raise funds for the erection of a sculpted bronze statue of William Shakespeare designed by sculptor/artist John Quincy Adams Ward (1830–1910), in the decade-old new Central Park on the northern outskirts (then) of Manhattan.The statue of Shakespeare now stands to the south of the main Promenade and east of the Sheep Meadow in Central Park. Tickets went for sale for a (then) astounding price of five dollars. Considering the way history was to unfold, it is curious that it was middle brother Edwin Booth who played the role of ancient Roman senator Brutus, assassin of Julius Caesar, and the role of Marc Antony was played by youngest brother John Wilkes Booth, while "lean and hungry" Cassius was given to the heavier built oldest brother Junius Brutus Booth Jr.Julius Caesar, Act I, Scene ii