1905: JANUARY

by

Samuel L. Leiter

For comprehensive background on Brooklyn’s pre-20^th-century theatre history please see my book, Brooklyn Takes the Stage: Nineteenth-Century Theater in the City of Churches (McFarland: 2024) and my blog, “Annals of the Brooklyn Stage.” The latter is a week by week description of theatre activity in Brooklyn; obviously, it will expand rather slowly because so much must be described and the present blog will be occupying my attention until live theatre in Brooklyn begins to fade over the early decades of the 20^th century, dying out by the 1930s.

The entries in this blog began as annual ones, for 1898 and 1899. Because of the large amount of memory used, which made editing them problematic, subsequent entries were shortened so they covered only several months at a time, but these too needed to be shortened. Thus, beginning with 1901: September, all entries cover a single month. The quickest way to find any of these entries is probably to click on the following link, where links to everything prior to its date are provided: 

1901: DECEMBER 

Links to all of 1902’s posts can be found here.

Links to all of 1903’s posts can be found here.

Links to all of 1904's post can be found here: 

January 1905 saw some major star power bring their brilliance to Brooklyn stages. They included De Wolf Hopper in a revival of his popular Oriental comic opera, Wang; British matinee idol Kyrle Bellew in Raffles; William Faversham in Pinero’s controversial Letty, finally reaching Brooklyn; Edna May (not to be confused with Brooklyn's Edna May Spooner) in The School Girl; Lionel Barrymore in The Other Girl (plays with “Girl” in the title were everywhere); Brooklyn stock actress-turned Broadway star Henrietta Crosman in her hit play, David Belasco’s Sweet Kitty Bellairs; and, most memorably, both British light comedian Sir Charles Wyndham in repertory and the recently formed (1904) partnership of E.H. Sothern and Julia Marlowe, each already a star, to focus on Shakespeare. They began with Much Ado About Nothing, Hamlet, and Romeo and Juliet, and continued touring in the Bard’s plays for 15 years, before moving on to occasional performances in other plays

But perhaps the most distinctive offering of the month was the Montauk’s presentation of Henry W. Savage’s English-language version of Richard Wagner’s Parsifal, a revolutionary step in Wagner productions. It had opened at Boston’s Tremont Theatre in October 1904, played in other cities, including Philadelphia and Manhattan, and was now in Brooklyn. As reported here, the borough had been intimately involved in Parsifal’s reception following its unauthorized production, in German, at the Metropolitan Opera House under Heinrich Conried’s management in December 1903, a story I will be telling in an essay in the Wagner Journal in 2026.

As anyone who has followed this blog knows, the instability of local theatre business continued to force theatres to occasionally change their policies, from stock to combinations, from legit to burlesque/vaudeville, from high to low priced, and back again to whatever it was before. One such change announced in the press was the decision of the Amphion’s manager, William T. Grover, to change the currently dormant Williamsburg venue from its familiar legitimate offerings to vaudeville, beginning in February, with a top price of 50 cents and reserved seats at 25 cents, women and children allowed to pay 15 cents at matinees, and no price increases made on Saturdays and holidays. These were called “summer prices” because they were the same as the “bargain prices” charged for summer shows at Brooklyn’s beach theatres.

Another major development was the newest revision of the Columbia Theatre’s policy, which most recently had been vaudeville under the name Columbia Music Hall, which it held for only several months. However, after opening on Monday, January 9, several principals of the London Gayety Girls Company playing there quit, forcing manager Clarence L. Weis to shut the show. It was decided to make the place a stock theatre again, employing a troupe from New York’s American Theatre called the American Stock Company, who were quickly hired and set to begin on January 21. The theatre, changing its name back to the Columbia Theatre, revised the company’s standard pricing from a one-dollar top to a cheap scale of 10, 20, 30, and 50 cents; daily matinees would be given. Heading the company was a young romantic actor named Maurice Freeman, his supporting company led by Nadine Winston, “a beautiful and talented leading woman,” according to the Citizen of January 15. Among the other troupe members was the “juvenile man,” Donald Meek, born in Scotland, who went on to fame in Hollywood playing timid characters, as per his name.

Vaudeville was eating away at Brooklyn’s legitimate theatres. One reason was its ability to draw crowds to programs in which star actors appeared in one-act plays, often by well-known playwrights, along with the usual assortment of animal acts, acrobats, magicians, singers, dancers, comedians, and assorted other entertainers. Even Brooklyn’s Etta Reed Payton, leading lady of her husband, Corse Payton’s, stock company, used the occasion of their Lee Avenue Theatre being occupied by Henrietta Crosman’s Sweet Kitty Bellairs to do a week of vaudeville at Keeney’s Fulton Street Theatre along with her troupe’s leading man Louis Leon Hall. The dramatic sketch was called “Man and Wife” and was the first play by the venue’s manager, Frank Keeney.

One acts were increasingly in demand by vaudeville everywhere, as actors needed them to earn the large salaries managements were willing to pay anyone with a well-known name in the legitimate. Formerly considered by the profession a lapse (the way TV commercials once were), it was no longer considered a step down to move from the legit to vaudeville. When reputable and talented actors were unable to secure an engagement because there were no available parts for them, as often happened even in good seasons, it was no wonder that auspices they would have preferred to avoid suddenly became attractive.

Such appearances raised the tone of vaudeville (or “variety”) and made it more popular. It also created a taste among many theatergoers for tabloid-length plays, even though, contrary to popular opinion, they were extremely difficult to write. The Citizen offered this interesting comment:

In the days of the old stock companies one-act curtain raisers were common in the theaters that were entirely devoted to the legitimate but now the author of the piece de resistance of the menu for the evening claims the center of the stage all the time.

The writer predicted a prosperous future for the one-act play “in the drama of the future.”

1. January 2-7, 1905

Amphion: Iris, Mercy Merrick, with Eugenie Blair

Bijou: (Spooner Stock Company) The Cavalier

Broadway: Wang, with De Wolf Hopper

Folly: Cohen’s Luck, with Joe Welch

Gotham: A Wife’s Secret

Grand Opera House: Texas

Majestic: Twirly-Whirly, with Charles J. Ross, Mabel Fenton

Montauk: Much Ado About Nothing, Hamlet, Romeo and Juliet, E.H. Sothern and Julia Marlowe

Novelty: Too Proud to Beg

Park: Driven from Home

Payton’s Lee Avenue: The Cherry Pickers

Phillips’ Lyceum: A Royal Slave

Vaudeville and burlesque: Hyde & Behman’s, Gayety, Unique, Star, Orpheum, Watson’s, Keeney’s Fulton Street, Columbia Music Hall

2. January 9-14, 1905

Amphion: Sinbad, with the Royal Lilliputians

Bijou: (Spooner Stock Company) Miles Aroon

Broadway: Piff, Paff, Pouf

Folly: Texas

Gotham: At Risk of His Life

Grand Opera House: Sky Farm

Majestic: Superba

Montauk: Parsifal, with Henry W. Savage Grand Opera Company

Novelty: At Cripple Creek

Park: Fast Life in New York

Payton’s Lee Avenue: Sweet Kitty Bellairs, with Henrietta Crosman

Phillips’ Lyceum: Northern Lights

Vaudeville and burlesque: Hyde & Behman’s, Gayety, Unique, Star, Orpheum, Watson’s, Keeney’s Fulton Street, Columbia Music Hall

    3. January 16-21, 1905

Amphion: Polly Primrose, with Adelaide Thurston

Bijou: (Spooner Stock Company) Zaza

Broadway: Raffles, with Kyrle Bellew

Columbia: (American Stock Company) Because She Loved

Folly: Sky Farm

Gotham: Too Proud to Beg

Grand Opera House: His Honor, the Mayor of the Bowery

Majestic: His Last Dollar, with David Higgins

Montauk: Letty, with William Faversham

Novelty: A Little Outcast

Park: Queen of the White Slaves

Payton’s Lee Avenue: (Payton’s Lee Avenue Stock Company) Out of the Fold, with Corse Payton, Etta Reed Payton

Phillips’ Lyceum: Two Little Sailor Boys

Vaudeville and burlesque: Hyde & Behman’s, Gayety, Unique, Star, Orpheum, Watson’s, Keeney’s Fulton Street

    4. January 23-28, 1905

Amphion: Closed temporarily

Bijou: (Spooner Stock Company) All the Comforts of Home

Broadway: The Pit, with Wilton Lackaye

Columbia: (American Theatre Stock Company) At the Sign of the Four

Folly: His Last Dollar

Gotham: For His Brother's Crime

Grand Opera House: Sinbad

Majestic: The Burgomaster

Montauk: The School Girl, with Edna May

Novelty: On the Suwanee River

Park: A Midnight Marriage

Payton’s Lee Avenue: (Payton’s Lee Avenue Stock Company) For Fair Virginia, with Corse Payton, Etta Reed Payton

Phillips’ Lyceum: (Lyceum Stock Company) The Marriage Vow

Vaudeville and burlesque: Hyde & Behman’s, Gayety, Unique, Star, Orpheum, Watson’s, Keeney’s Fulton Street

    6. January 30-February 5, 1905

Amphion: Closed temporarily

Bijou: (Spooner Stock Company) Joan of Arc

Broadway: The Other Girl, with Lionel Barrymore

Columbia: (American Theatre Stock Company) Tennessee's Partner

Folly: His Honor, the Mayor of the Bowery

Gotham: For His Brother's Crime

Grand Opera House: Quincy Adams Sawyer

Majestic: Primrose's Minstrels

Montauk: Mrs. Gorringe's Necklace, David Garrick, The Case of Rebellious Susan, with Charles Wyndham

Novelty: Driven from Home, with Patrice

Park: The Child Wife

Payton’s Lee Avenue: (Payton’s Lee Avenue Stock Company) The Gay Lord Sinch, with Corse Payton, Etta Reed Payton

Phillips’ Lyceum: (Lyceum Stock Company) A Ragged Hero

Vaudeville and burlesque: Hyde & Behman’s, Gayety, Unique, Star, Orpheum, Watson’s, Keeney’s Fulton Street