Are All the Actors on Board?

By Ann Taylor Reeves

When the Civil War ended, the railroad companies almost immediately began to lay new tracks. This was especially true in the northeast corner of Texas for these lines branched west toward Dallas, south to the Gulf of Mexico, and southeast to the Deep South states. From there, the railroads traversed the East Coast back to New York and other cities that were the homes for touring theatrical companies. There were quite a few towns that were happy to welcome the railroads and the businesses that soon followed. Five Texan towns whose newspapers recorded this business growth were Texarkana, Pittsburg, Jefferson, Longview, and Marshall. These five towns also had citizens who appreciated theater and were eager to be entertained by traveling acting companies. The playhouses in some cases were makeshift, but this did not deter the audiences from patronizing shows that ran the gamut from a family of bell ringers to the great artistry of Shakespeare.

There is not a complete listing of the performances in the aforementioned towns, but there are enough newspaper critiques to inform us that several hundred varied entertainments were performed in this area. It is interesting to read between the lines of these and realize the erudition of the newspaper reviewers. As a result of their knowledge, the audiences were made aware of whether the acting companies were good, bad, or a total waste of ones time and money.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Apr 22, 2016
• ISBN: 9781514477724

Ann Taylor Reeves

Ann Taylor Reeves loves life, and she tries to experience as much of it as possible. She loves people. She loves dogs and has never been without a terrier. As she has a BFA and an MFA in theater from the University of Texas, it follows that she loves every aspect of theater. One example of this love is that she has amassed a collection of 1,186 programs from all over the world. The Dallas Public Library learned of this and wanted the collection. They now have it, and it is listed as the Ann Reeves Theatrical Programs Collection. She recently had her eightieth birthday and still loves to read, study, and direct. She was even in the movie Bernie a few years ago. She is thankful for her family, friends, dogs, and being the sixth-generation member of the Taylor ancestry to worship at the Pittsburg United Methodist Church. She cherishes every wonderful, sad, or enriching event she has experienced in her life.

Book preview

Copyright © 2016 by Ann Taylor Reeves.

ISBN: eBook   978-1-5144-7772-4

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.

The Hoblitzelle and Interstate Theater

Harry D. Ransom Center

The University of Texas at Austin, Texas

is the source of the photos in the interior

Rev. date: 04/20/2016

Xlibris

1-888-795-4274

www.Xlibris.com

712196

CONTENTS

Dedication

Chapter 1:   The Towns and Their Theaters

Chapter 2:   The Touring Companies

Chapter 3:   The Plays They Presented

Chapter 4:   Tales of Misbehavior

Chapter 5:   The Public’s Response to Theatricals

Appendix

Bibliography

DEDICATION

To the memory of my grandmother Mary Gertrude Taylor, who once told me of the time when she appeared onstage with a traveling theater company performing in Pittsburg. Actually, she was a walk-on, but it was important to her. It was important to me too because it led me to later research the concept that theater companies traveled and that Pittsburg was one of the towns where they performed.

To the memory of my mother, Juanita Taylor Reeves, who took me to see every sort of presentation within a 150-mile radius of our home. These presentations ran the gamut from ballets, plays, operas, and musicals to even a lovely, artistic performance by Sally Rand! On the way home, she would discuss with me the good and bad points of every performance. She was also a brilliant poetry interpreter.

To my high-school-theater teacher, Janet Hargrove, who cast me in virtually every high school production and had such great belief in me.

To my supervising professor, Dr. Fred Hunter, who encouraged me in the research and writing of my thesis. He was a great leader, teacher, and friend.

All the above are gone, but their influences upon my life were stupendous.

To every student I taught for I learned as much from you as you did from me.

To Judith Saxton, Ph.D., for tremendous advice and assistance with editing.

Especially to Aurelia and William Drake, two of the most brilliant students any teacher could ask for. They are also two of the dearest friends I have.

Theater_Bio_21_004.tif

Lawrence Barrett

An actor of noble stature and beautiful voice and diction.

Theater_Bio_149_002a.tif

Minnie Maddern Fiske

A child actress (who later married one of the wealthiest men in America, Harris Grey Fiske) was brilliant in comedies and serious dramas.

TheaterBio_34_001a.tif

Maurice Barrymore...actor and father of the most noted family of actors of the 19th and 20th centuries.

TheaterBio_98_001a.tif

Lotta Crabtree

A comic actress and dancer who charmed every audience from the mining camps of California to the stages in New York.

TheaterBio_140_001a.tif

Rose Eytinge

A distinguished actress in comedy and drama at the Union Square Theatre in New York.

TheaterBio_232_001a.tif

Joseph Jefferson

Described as a poet among actors with a magical charm.

TheaterBio_277_001a.tif

Richard Mansfield

His superior specialty was romantic melodrama.

TheaterBio_401_001a.tif

Fay Templeton.

One of the beauties and comedians who performed in a company headed by Weber and Fields.

CHAPTER 1

The Towns and Their Theaters

When the railroad-building boom started in Texas around 1870, it not only served as an aid in promoting rapid settlement and development of the state but also made many towns accessible. It also served to encourage more and more traveling theatrical companies to visit Texas. In the thirty-year period from 1870 to 1900, the total railroad mileage in Texas increased from a scant 591 miles to 9,838 miles. So with railroad tracks spanning the length and breadth of the state and giving Texas more ties to the rest of the United States, the state’s amazing growth statistics of its population and economic development are understandable. During this time, according to the Texas Almanac, the state’s population increased from 1,591,749 to 3,048,710, which elevated her rank among the states from nineteenth to sixth. Quite naturally, great strides were made in agricultural and industrial productivities and in the incomes from these products. For example, cotton production increased by 2,908,000 bales with a valuation growth of $152,991,000. In the same thirty-year period, the number of industrial plants rose from 2,399 to 3,107, and their product valuations grew from $11,517,302 to $92,894,433. No doubt about it—Texas was off and going.

As railroad mileage increased, business and industry boomed, and Texans had incomes that allowed them to afford the prices of tickets to theatrical entertainments. With this knowledge, waves of traveling theatrical companies began to see the great monetary potential, so they included Texas on their itineraries. Traveling actors were not a new innovation at this time in American theater (the system of stars traveling from city to city attained great popularity in the 1830s). However, by 1870, not only did talented and renowned actors tour alone, but they also were now accompanied by supporting players with the necessary costumes and sceneries to stage their particular plays. If extras or walk-ons were needed, the companies had no trouble in locating local actors to fill out their casts of characters.

In her book The Romance of the American Theatre, Mary Caroline Crawford called this plan of touring a play with its star and company the combination system. This touring single-play combination soon took the ascendancy and caused an expansion of the national theater. At the same time, it severely wounded the resident-repertory-companies’ position as being the core of the nation’s theater business. This expansion, however, was inevitable. Barnard W. Hewitt, in his book Theatre U.S.A., 1668 to 1957, wrote, Vast stretches of new territory were settled and built up, and the population swollen by the first floods of immigration from Europe, grew by leaps and bounds. The theatre quickly followed the frontier west to the Mississippi and south to the Gulf of Mexico. These leaps and bounds were accelerated by the railroads, which brought players and audiences together, and one meeting ground for the two was Northeast Texas.

Before the advent of touring players to the Northeast Texas area, the principal forms of entertainment were local play productions and varied social gatherings. One such play production in Pittsburg was entitled Deestrick Skule. No author is noted on the playbill, but all the actors were locally prominent individuals, and it is highly suspected that a committee from this group gathered together and wrote this entertainment. The play was presented on April 6, 1903, at the opera house there. (This author is pleased to note that the role of Sally Polly Smart was performed by her grandmother Mary Gertrude Taylor.) This production was a benefit for the Baptist Church.

From The History of Gregg County, produced by the Longview Chamber of Commerce, it is recorded that prior to the advent of touring players performing in the Northeast Texas area, the principal forms of entertainment revolved around social gatherings. Some of these were dances, quilting parties, box suppers, and graveyard workings. The dances were frequently square dances, but occasionally, there were grand balls given by a men’s organization, such as a volunteer fire department. If a woman decided she needed a new quilt, she would invite her neighbors to a quilting party. These parties not only accomplished the task of making a quilt, but they also afforded the ladies a chance to talk or gossip as they sewed. Box suppers often gave a young lady the chance to win her beau’s heart via his stomach. The gentlemen would bid for the ladies’ decorated boxes of food, and when the bidding was over, the couples would pair off to enjoy the food and some mild flirtation. (Many a gent soon realized that if a box was extremely decorated, it often meant that the food inside probably was not up to snuff.) A graveyard working may not sound like a source of entertainment, but it certainly was. Its purpose was to clean and landscape a cemetery, but it also gave the workers an opportunity to socialize with their neighbors and have a picnic as they worked on a common project. The people enjoyed their homegrown amusements, but when professional theatrical entertainment was brought to them, they became enthusiastic audiences for it.

Northeast Texas was one of the many areas in the United States given new vistas and commerce by the coming of the railroads. New and distant markets could be reached, more products could be shipped, transportation was convenient and economical, and the towns experienced an influx of new money. In turn, the towns became markets for the theatrical productions of the acting companies whose first visits began around 1875.

Concerning this northeastern corner of Texas, probably the best topographical description in its early days was given by a civil engineer, John Barrow, sent from England in 1849 to examine the region as a possible area for emigration. In Mr. Barrow’s opinion, this area possessed certain advantages over any colony attached to the British Crown either in the southern or northern hemispheres. In his report, Facts Relating to North-Eastern Texas, Mr. Barrow cited these advantages:

Firstly, that it possesses a climate equal to that of any portion of the globe; a soil of greater extent, and of unbounded fertility; topographical features equal to those of any of our colonies; hill, valley, and stream in great abundance intersecting the face of the country in every direction; plenty of water; produces the majority of the grains, fruits, and esculents both of the tropical and temperate zones; land of almost a nominal value; is supplied with herds of deer and smaller animals, within the reach of every settler; is only six weeks voyage from England; and secondly, that its farms can be brought into cultivation with less means and a greater surety of abundant return, with less labour, than in any other country. The farmer can reap two crops off the same land in one year, and its small grains ripen two months before those of the Northern States of the Union, thus enabling the produce to be in the market before the others can compete.

What effect Mr. Barrow’s report (which reads like a US Chamber of Commerce prospectus) had upon English emigration is not known, but according to Barnes F. Lathrop in his book, Migration Into East Texas, it is a recognized fact that people from all over the United States were immigrating to Texas.

Rupert N. Richardson’s book Texas, the Lone Star State stated, As for a picture of immigration and colonization in Texas, it should be pointed out that the earliest of all colonization movements occurred in the extreme northeast portion. In 1815, a trading house was set up at Pecan Point on the Red River. Settlers arrived and soon a community was established. These settlers were first under the jurisdiction of Missouri; in 1820, they became a part of Miller County, Arkansas; and in 1828, when Miller County was re-shaped, their settlement lay within the boundaries of Texas. In 1821, there were about eighty families in the area and this number was greatly increased in 1825 through the influx of settlers from north of the Red River, who were driven from their homes as their land was allocated to the Choctaw Indians for a reservation.

Mr. Richardson further stated that in 1837, the combination of a poor year for crops, a panic and subsequent business stagnation, and the urge to possess virgin land (made available by a liberal public-land policy) appealed strongly to immigrants and sent them swarming to Texas. The majority of the settlers entered the state through its northeastern corner. Although a great number only used this area as a stepping stone to other parts of the state, many others were attracted to the abundance of land and the navigability of the Red River and Cypress Bayou and elected to settle in this area. It is interesting to note that even now whenever one drives from the Deep South and enters Texas in that northeastern corner, the flora and fauna will remind them of the states they just left. However, if they go more than one hundred miles farther, they immediately recognize that they are no longer in the Deep South. Mr. Lathrop (cited earlier) stated that 1,594 families settled in Northeast Texas between 1836 and 1860. Five of the towns, which were established by this inflow of population and were in possession of two or more railroads, welcomed (with open arms and pocketbooks) many visits from traveling players between 1875 and 1900. These towns were Jefferson, Marshall, Pittsburg, Longview, and Texarkana.

Jefferson

Jefferson had its beginning around 1832 when a few families settled seven miles east of its present location at a ferry landing owned by S. P. Smith. Defective land titles obstructed development at this site, so the people moved, and Jefferson was established in 1836 at a bend of Cypress Bayou, according to a book authored by Winnie Mims Dean entitled Jefferson, Texas, Queen of the Cypress. Jefferson’s accessibility by riverboat made her a desirable location to immigrants who could envision her potential as the shipping port she eventually became.

In his book, The Presbyterian Church in Jefferson, J. A. R. Moseley informs us that a natural barrier in Red River known as the Great Raft backed water up into Cypress Bayou, making navigation possible as far as Jefferson. The boats went from Jefferson down Cypress River, through Caddo Lake, down Red River to the Mississippi and to New Orleans. Boats came up the river to Jefferson as early as 1850, but the peak of shipping was reached in the years 1868 to 1873. During this period Jefferson grew to be second in size only to Galveston among Texas cities.

The town did a thriving business since farmers from miles around brought their products and produce to be sold and shipped out from Jefferson, and also, while there, they could purchase provisions for their families. One can only imagine some bearded farmer walking into a general store and asking for a dress for his wife, who is about yea big around and about 6 hands high, plus flour, salt, sugar, and peppermint stick candies for his children, and his most important purchase was a new harness and a new plow for old Blue, his faithful mule.

Between 1870 and 1900, the population of Marion County (of which Jefferson is the county seat) rose from 8,562 to