SHAKESPEARE AND THE AMERICAN
POPULAR STAGE

Shakespeare’s effect on America’s intellectual and artistic life has been much discussed, but what role does he play on the American popular stage? This study changes our understanding of Shakespeare’s presence in American life. The book looks at how Shakespeare came to America just before the Revolutionary War. As Americans broke with Britain, they embraced Britain’s playwright. Teague re-examines P. T. Barnum’s attempt to buy Shakespeare’s birthplace, the Astor Place Riot in which twenty-three people died, and the way both Abraham Lincoln and John Wilkes Booth regarded Shakespeare. In the history of Broadway, more musicals have drawn on Shakespeare than on any other author. Shakespearean musicals like Kiss Me, Kate and West Side Story can tell us much about America’s culture, but sometimes failed musicals such as Swingin’ the Dream can tell us more. With discussion of over twenty Shakespearean musicals, this study demonstrates that Shakespeare has always been present in popular shows.

FRANCES TEAGUE is a Meigs Professor at the University of Georgia, where she teaches in the English Department and is an affiliate member of the Women’s Studies Program. Widely published, she has received fellowships from the National Endowment for the Humanities, the American Council of Learned Societies, and the Association of College and Research Libraries. She frequently directs plays in Athens, Georgia, and has a long-time involvement in the Georgia Shakespeare Festival.

SHAKESPEARE AND THE
AMERICAN POPULAR
STAGE

FRANCES TEAGUE

CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS
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Cambridge University Press
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Published in the United States of America by Cambridge University Press, New York

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Information on this title: www.cambridge.org/978-0-521-67992-3

© Frances Teague 2006

This publication is in copyright. Subject to statutory exception
and to the provisions of relevant collective licensing agreements,
no reproduction of any part may take place without
the written permission of Cambridge University Press.

First published 2006

Printed in the United Kingdom at the University Press, Cambridge

A catalogue record for this publication is available from the British Library

ISBN-13 978-0-521-86187-8 hardback
ISBN-10 0-521-86187-X hardback
ISBN-13 978-0-521-67992-3 paperback
ISBN-10 0-521-67992-3 paperback

Cambridge University Press has no responsibility for the persistence or accuracy of URLs for external or third-party internet websites referred to in this publication, and does not guarantee that any content on such websites is, or will remain, accurate or appropriate.

Contents

Illustrations

Acknowledgments

My first debt is to John Velz, who invited me to edit with him the correspondence of the nineteenth-century Shakespearean Joseph Crosby of Zanesville, Ohio. Work on those letters provided me with a far greater education about my adopted country than I had received in any classroom. I owe a major debt to the Shakespeare Association of America, since it is an organization that features original research and long discussions of that research at its annual conference; its affiliation with the International Shakespeare Congress also encourages American scholars to look behind the screen of their own culture and to set aside parochialism. Several sections of this study began as seminar papers for Shakespeare Association seminars; I am indebted to Alexander Leggatt, Virginia and Alden Vaughan, and Terence Hawkes and John Drakakis for leading such seminars and to the responses I received in those seminars from Helen Whall, Georgianna Ziegler, and Irene Dash. Irene is of particular importance because she so generously shared her own research findings about musical comedy with me and so wisely suggested places where my analyses were weak. A crucial seminar for my thinking on this book was one that Richard Burt and Lynda Boose ran; Richard’s encouragement and his interest in what I had to say about musical comedies helped persuade me that I was on the right track in my work. A version of the final chapter went through his hands, and he helped to make it much better. To Susan Cerasano, I owe many thanks for manifold favors and good conversation, and thanks also go to Stephen Buhler and Doug Lanier for their encouragement. The questions and comments I received from Sarah Stanton and the anonymous readers of this book were invaluable. Informal discussions with Douglas Anderson, Susan Baker, Allen Corrigan, Christy Desmet, the late Margaret Dickie, David Gants, Peter Holland, Sujata Iyengar, Allan Kulikoff, Naomi Liebler, Hubert McAlexander, Thomas Moisan, Tim Powell, Tom Riis, David Schiller, Joseph Sigalas, Ben Teague, John Velz, Robin Warren, and Elizabeth Wright have been very important. Naomi’s invitation to speak at the Columbia University Shakespeare Seminar, Allan’s to participate in the Georgia Workshop in Early American History and Culture, and Thomas Moisan’s to lecture at St. Louis University all allowed me to get responses to material at a crucial point. Elizabeth Hardaway gave me some old sheet music that she thought would amuse me: it led me to Mr. Hamlet of Broadway, an overlooked production, which may be Broadway’s first Shakespearean musical. Grants from the University of Georgia Research Foundation, the Center for the Humanities and the Arts, and the Department of English have made it possible for me to attend professional meetings where I presented sections of this research and profited from exchanging ideas with other Shakespeareans. Recording these debts I am reminded of my good fortune in the work I do.

   Finally, I wish to thank the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation, the Library of Congress, Scott Tambert of PDImages, Margo Feiden and the Margo Feiden Galleries, the Museum of the City of New York, the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust, and the Shakespeare Centre Library for their assistance in providing illustrations. I am, like all scholars, in awe of research librarians, without whom our work would be impossible. In particular my thanks to the University of Georgia Library and its Hargrett Special Collections, the Folger Library, the British Library, the Yale University Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, the New York Public Library’s Billy Rose Theatre Collection, the Shubert Archive, the UCLA Library, and the Shakespeare Centre Library.

   My husband, Ben Teague, has never doubted for a moment that this project was worth doing and for that belief, as well as much more, I dedicate this book to him.