If you've been to a Broadway show, you've probably seen the merchandise booth. You may even have bought a t-shirt, or a magnet for your fridge. But where did the Broadway merchandise industry come from? Margaret Hall joins us to talk about her recent Theatermania articles chronicling the rise and development of this unique theatrical industry.

The Theatre History Podcast

Episode 81: “Simultaneously Unhinged and Fantastical in Every Possible Way”: Margaret Hall Introduces Us to the History of Theatrical Merchandise

We know that over half of the plays produced during Shakespeare's time have since been lost. What might we discover about that era if we knew what those lost plays were about? Dr. Davis McInnis's book "Shakespeare and Lost Plays" explores what we can figure out from the fragmentary evidence that remains.

Episode 80: Rediscovering Lost Plays with Dr. David McInnis

There are many theatrical movements and institutions that have been marginalized in histories of the American theatre. But there are also individuals and groups who are further marginalized within those movements, such as the role played by women in the development of Nuyorican performance. Dr. Patricia Herrera joins us to talk about these women and her book, "Nuyorican Feminist Performance."

Episode 79: Exploring Nuyorican Feminist Performance with Dr. Patricia Herrera

How do we recover and retell the stories of theatrical performance from ages past? That's a question that Peter Schmitz is exploring with his podcast Adventures in Theater History: Philadelphia, which delves into the theatrical past of one of America's most important centers of performance. 

Episode 78: Peter Schmitz's Adventures in Theatre History

"Imitation" is often a dirty word in the arts, but dancer and performer Gertrude Hoffmann was a genius at borrowing and recreating elements of other artists' acts, and in doing so she exposed early 20th-century American audiences to important developments in Modernist art. Dr. Sunn Stalter-Pace joins us to talk about "Imitation Artist," her biography of Hoffman.

Episode 77: Exploring the Imitations of Gertrude Hoffmann with Dr. Sunny Stalter-Pace

Learn how Peter Michael Marino is drawing on the Victorian-era tradition of toy theatre to create a new theatrical epic based on the classic sci-fi movie Planet of the Apes.

Episode 76: Voyage to the Planet of the Grapes with Pete Marino

Our Town is one of the classics of the American stage, but how well do we really know this play? Howard Sherman joins us to discuss his new book, Another Day's Begun: Thornton Wilder's Our Town in the 21st Century.

Episode 75: "Our Town" in the 21st Century: Howard Sherman's "Another Day's Begun"

Teresa Deevy was one of the most frequently-produced Irish playwrights of the 1930s, bringing her unique experience as a Deaf woman playwright in a patriarchal society together with her dramatic skill to create fascinating works such as Katie Roche. But she's been relatively neglected by subsequent generations. Drs. Kate McCarthy and Una Kealy are working to change that, and they join us for this episode to talk about Deevy's work and legacy.

Episode 74: Discovering Teresa Deevy with Drs. Una Kealy and Kate McCarthy

Learn how Dr. Eric Colleary and his colleagues at the Harry Ransom Center are documenting how the tumultuous events of 2020 affected theatre.

Episode 73: Introducing the Theatre 2020 Collection with Dr. Eric Colleary

Who can forget the timeless moments in Shakespeare’s plays, such as Hamlet’s encounter with the Ghost, Beatrice and Benedick’s playful sparring, or the happy ending to King Lear? If that last example doesn’t ring a bell, it’s because it’s from a different version of the famous tragedy, one that comes from the era known as the Restoration. Coming after a period of civil war, during which English theatres had been forcibly closed, the Restoration saw the revival of Shakespeare’s work onstage. However, the plays didn’t return in quite the same way that they’d appeared before the wars: they were staged in new venues, rewritten to fit changing tastes, and featured women in roles that had previously been played by boys. Dr. Amanda Eubanks Winkler and Dr. Richard Schoch are working to help us better understand how Shakespeare’s works changed in performance during the Restoration with their project, Performing Restoration Shakespeare. In addition to facilitating scholarship on these revised plays, Amanda and Richard have also partnered with institutions such as the Folger Shakespeare Library to produce them onstage. Amanda joins us for this episode to introduce us to the world of Restoration Shakespeare and to explain what the project has accomplished so far.

Episode 70: Restoring An Alternate Version of Shakespeare’s Works

Popular culture has largely forgotten about the freak show – or has it? The display of so-called “freaks,” human beings with bodies that were perceived as drastically different from what was considered “normal,” was once an incredibly popular form of public entertainment, but one which we now look back on with embarrassment. However, as Dr. Matt DiCintio explains in this episode, the origins of the freak show reveal fascinations and anxieties with matters of race and physical difference that remain with us to this very day. CORRECTION TO THE EPISODE: Matt has confirmed that Emma Leach’s appearances took place in 1771-2, not 1781-2.

Episode 69: Tracing the Origins of the Freak Show with Dr. Matt DiCintio

Mary Ann Yates is the best actress whom you’ve never heard of. That’s how Dr. Elaine McGirr characterizes this fascinating woman, who rose to stardom on the eighteenth-century British stage and later went on to become the first female manager of a major London theatre. As Elaine explains in this episode, Yates’s time as the reigning queen of the stage, as well as her subsequent obscurity, reveal a lot about how we write women into —and out of—theatrical history.

Episode 68: Learning About Mary Ann Yates with Dr. Elaine McGirr

If you’ve ever tried to get permission to perform a play, you’ve probably encountered some issues having to do with theatrical copyright. But where did the concept of copyrighting theatrical works come from? What do the legal wrangles over who owns the rights to a performance say about the nature of theatre?

Episode 67: Dr. Derek Miller on the History of Performance and Copyright

How do you depict pregnancy onstage when your cast is all-male? That was one of a number of problems that English playwrights and performers faced in the Stuart era, when plays like The Winter’s Tale frequently began to feature pregnancies as major plot points. Dr. Sara BT Thiel has been exploring this subject, and it’s resulted in a chapter entitled “’Cushion Come Forth’: Materializing Pregnancy on the Stuart Stage.” The chapter appears in the new book Stage Matters: Props, Bodies, and Spaces in Shakespearean Performance. Sara joins us to explain how Stuart-era playwrights and theatre companies created the illusion of pregnancy onstage, as well as the significance of her research to how we understand the depiction of women in Shakespeare’s time.

Episode 66: Dr. Sara B.T. Thiel on Pregnancy on the Stage in Early Modern English Drama

Dr. Robert Davis has been studying the world of nineteenth-century theatre in New York City for much of his career, but he’s recently engaged with that world in a new and unconventional way. Robert is the author of Broadway: 1849, an online game and app that takes the form of a multiple-choice novel. Players can explore what it was like to manage a theatre in the 1840s and navigate the outsized personalities and harrowing events that marked the theatrical world of the period. Robert joined us to talk about how his game reflects New York’s social, political, and artistic history, as well as the ways in which turning this subject matter into a game provide a new perspective on historical events.

Episode 65: Playing Around with Nineteenth-Century Theatre in Dr. Robert Davis’s Broadway 1849

Performance is an ephemeral thing, so how do we rediscover its history, and what can that teach us about theatre today? The Theatre History Podcast explores these questions through interviews with scholars and artists who are studying theatre's past in order to help shape its future.

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The Theatre History Podcast

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