Hostname: page-component-848d4c4894-2pzkn Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-05-24T16:38:13.373Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Theatrical Clubs of the Nineteenth Century: Tradition Versus Assimilation in the Acting Community

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  21 October 2010

Benjamin McArthur
Affiliation:
Assistant Professor of History at Southern Missionary College.

Extract

One of the more enduring images of actors is that they are a highly sociable, gregarious people. Perhaps less so today, but in the nineteenth century this characterization had solid basis in fact. The origins of this trait are easily understood. It was encouraged by the cooperative aspect of the theatre and the closed nature of the acting fraternity, which resulted from both the constant travel and the social proscription that actors had always faced. It also was based in the acting personality itself which, though varied and incapable of stereotyped description, often contains an extra measure of extroversion and companionability.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © American Society for Theatre Research 1982

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

NOTES

1 Tracy, Virginia, “The Home Life of Actors,” Collier's 48 (October 1911): 19.Google Scholar

2 New York Dramatic Mirror (hereafter NYDM), 11 January 1890, p. 6; Ibid., 24 December 1898, pp. 68–70; King, Emmett C., “The Club Life of Actors,” Munsey's 43 (May 1910): 267.Google Scholar

3 Nicholson, James, History of the Order of Elks (New York: published by National Memorial and Pub. Commission of the Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks of the U.S. of A., 1953), pp. 1117,29.Google Scholar

4 NYDM, 9 June 1900, p. 12; Skinner, Otis, Footlights and Spotlights (Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1924), p. 161Google Scholar; NYDM, 31 March 1915, p. 5.

5 King, , “Club Life of Actors,” pp. 264–65Google Scholar; Hopper, DeWolf, Once a Clown, Always a Clown (Boston: Little, Brown & Co., 1927), p. 209Google Scholar; NYDM. 28 February 1891, p. 5; Kotsilibas-Davis, James, Great Times Good Times: the Odyssey of Maurice Barrymore (Garden City, NY: Doubleday & Co., 1977), pp. 165Google Scholar, 268–69; Churchill, Allen, The Great White Way (New York: E. P. Dutton, 1962), pp. 115–27.Google Scholar

6 Hopper, p. 211.

7 Ibid., pp, 188–93.

8 NYDM, 4 May 1889, p. 6; Powers, James, Twinkle Little Star (New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1939), pp. 266–68.Google Scholar

9 Variety, 3 August 1917, p. 11.

10 NYDM, 4 April 1891, p. 1; Hornblow, Arthur, Training for the Stage (Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott, 1916), p. 44.Google Scholar

11 NYDM. 17 December 1892, p. 3; Ibid, 24 December 1898, pp. 30–32; Ibid., 20 May 1893, p. 12; King, , “Club Life of Actors,” p. 268Google Scholar; Hornblow, p. 44.

12 Gerth, Hans and Wright Mills, C., editors, From Max Weber (New York: Oxford University Press, 1946), pp. 1417.Google Scholar

13 Ibid. pp. 302–11.

14 Digby Baltzell, E., Philadelphia Gentlemen (Glencoe, Illinois: The Free Press, 1958), pp. 336–38.Google Scholar

15 Fairfield, Francis Gerry, Clubs of New York (New York: Henry L. Hinton, 1873), p. 7.Google Scholar

16 Baltzell, p. 340.

17 Fairfield, pp. 66–70.

18 NYDM, 2 July 1887, p. 2.

19 The Century Association, The Century 1847–1946 (New York: The Century Association, 1947), pp. 310Google Scholar; Fairfield, pp. 40–45.

20 Ibid, pp. 215–16; Todd, C. B., “New York Clubs,” Lippincott's 32 (July 1883): 89101Google Scholar; The Illustrated Rambler and Dramatic Weekly 19 (July 1879):3.

21 Matthews, Brander, These Many Yean: (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1917), pp. 220–21.Google Scholar

22 Darlington, W. A., The Actor and his Audience (London: Phoenix House, 1949), p. 120.Google Scholar

23 Griffiths, Major Arthur, Clubs and Clubmen (London: Hutchinson & Co., 1907), pp. 102–09.Google Scholar

24 Phillips, John S., The Players (Printed by Direction of the Board of Directors, The Players, 1935), pp. 57.Google Scholar

25 Wright, Richardson, “The New Tenants at no. 16,” in The Players Book, edited by Lanier, Henry Wysham (New York: The Players, 1938), pp. 97116.Google Scholar

26 Ford, Corey, “Durable Den of Wits,” in The Players After 75 Years, edited by Stewart, George Woodbridge (n.p., 1968), pp. 139–40Google Scholar; Wright, , “The New Tenants,” pp. 97116.Google Scholar

27 The Players, Minutes of the First Meeting, December 31, 1888 (New York: n.p., 1908), pp. 5–6.

28 Quoted in Watermeier, Daniel, editor, Between Actor and Critic: Selected Letters of Edwin Booth and William Winter (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1971)Google Scholar, introduction, p. 9.

29 Edwin Booth to William Winter, 8 June 1888, in Watermeier, p. 290.

30 Edwin Booth to Jervis McEntee, 28 May 1888, Booth Papers, The Players, New York City.

31 Winter, William, Life and Art of Edwin Booth (New York: Macmillan and Co., 1893), p. 133.Google Scholar

32 Matthews, Brander, “The Players,” Century 21 (November 1891): 2829Google Scholar; NYDM, 27 May 1893, p. 4.

33 Matthews, , “The Players,” pp. 2930Google Scholar; Harrison Blake Hodge to George Foster Platt, 28 October 1908, The Players.

34 King, , “Club Life of Actors,” pp. 261–62.Google Scholar

35 Both quotations are from The Players After 75 Years, pp. 119–20; Bynner, Witter, “A Word or Two with Henry James,” The Critic 46 (February 1905): 146–48.Google Scholar

36 Frank Conlan, Reminiscences, typed manuscript, Chicago Historical Society.

37 Catalogue of Relics in Safes Belonging to The Players, 23 April 1901, Theatre Collection, New York Public Library at Lincoln Center; Matthews, , “The Century,” pp. 3133.Google Scholar

38 Ruggles, Eleanor, Prince of Players, Edwin Booth (New York: W. W. Norton, 1953), p. 363Google Scholar; “The Memoirs of Clarence Clough Buel, 1850–1933,” unpublished manuscript, The Players, p. 122.

39 The Players, brochure, June 1959 (published for The Players at Marchbanks Press, New York).

40 Phillips, , The Players, p. 17.Google Scholar

41 Quoted in Ruggles, p. 341.

42 Edwin Booth to Laurence Hutton, 5 June –, Laurence Hutton Papers, Princeton University Library.

43 Quoted in Churchill, p. 116.

44 NYDM, 25 February 1914, p. 8.

45 White, Frank Marshall, “New York's Clubs for Actors,” Green Book Album 2 (August 1909): 343–50.Google Scholar