For information about American attitudes toward gays and lesbians in the 1990s, see especially “LGBT Rights Timeline,” http://breakingprejudice.org/assets/AHAA/Activities/Gay%20Rights%20Movement%20Timeline%20Activity/LGBT%20Rights%20Timeline.pdf; https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2013/04/how-america-got-past-the-anti-gay-politics-of-the-90s/266976/; and https://www.vanityfair.com/news/1999/13/matthew-shepard-199903. And for 9/11 and the warnings leading up to it, see the official report: “9/11 and Terrorist Travel: Staff Report of the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States” (https://govinfo.library.unt.edu/911/staff_statements/911_TerrTrav_Monograph.pdf).
CONCLUSION: 2017
On the Culture Wars, see, for example, James Davison Hunter, Culture Wars: The Struggle to Define America (New York: Basic Books, 1991); Roger Kimball, Tenured Radicals (New York: Harper & Row, 1990); Ivo Kamps, Shakespeare Left and Right (New York: Routledge, 1991); and Allan Bloom, The Closing of the American Mind (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1987). On color-blind casting, see Ayanna Thompson, ed., Colorblind Shakespeare: New Perspectives on Race and Performance (New York: Routledge, 2006), and Charlene Widener, “The Changing Face of American Theatre: Colorblind and Uni-Racial Casting at the New York Shakespeare Festival Under the Direction of Joseph Papp” (PhD diss., University of Missouri-Columbia, 2006). On American presidents and Shakespeare, see Bogar, American Presidents Attend the Theatre. For statistics on the decline of English majors, see, for example, Colleen Flaherty, “The Evolving English Major,” Inside Higher Ed (July 18, 2018).
As noted previously, much of my information in this chapter is based on what I saw, on data shared with me by the Public Theater, and on extended interviews I conducted with Oskar Eustis, Patrick Willingham, Rosalind Barbour, Ruth E. Sternberg, Jeremy Adams, and Tom McCann at the Public Theater.
On Steve Bannon, Shakespeare, Julius Caesar, and Coriolanus, see Lauren Gambino, “Steve Bannon Renews Call for War on Republican Establishment,” Guardian, October 14, 2017; Connie Bruck, “How Hollywood Remembers Steve Bannon,” New Yorker, May 1, 2017; Todd Van Luling, “Steve Bannon’s Failed ‘Star Wars’-Meets-Shakespeare Movie Script,” Huffington Post, May 10, 2017; Daniel Pollack-Pelzner, “Behold, Steve Bannon’s Hip-Hop Shakespeare Rewrite: Coriolanus,” New York Times, December 17, 2016; Rex Weiner, “Titus in Space: Steve Bannon’s Obsession with Shakespeare’s Goriest Play,” Paris Review, November 29, 2016; and Asawin Suebsaeng, “The Thing I Am: Steve Bannon, Donald Trump’s Campaign CEO, Once Wrote a Rap Musical,” Daily Beast, August 23, 2016. On Bannon’s desire for the destruction of institutions (“I want to bring everything crashing down and destroy all of today’s establishment”) see Guardian, February 6, 2017. To see and hear a staged table reading of Bannon’s adaptation of Coriolanus, through which his script can be accessed, see the link to https://nowthisnews.com/steve-bannon-hip-hop-rap-musical provided by Jon Blistein, “‘He Approaches the Baby Gangsta’: Watch Steve Bannon’s Rap Musical,” Rolling Stone, May 3, 2017. The script, in addition to being recited, is reproduced on the bottom of the screen. See too Joshua Green, Devil’s Bargain: Steve Bannon, Donald Trump, and the Storming of the Presidency (New York: Penguin Press, 2017). And for background on the Rodney King riots in LA, see Mark Baldassare, ed., The Los Angeles Riots: Lessons for the Urban Future (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1994), and Nathan Cohen, ed., The Los Angeles Riots: A Socio-Psychological Study, published in cooperation with the Institute of Government and Public Affairs, University of California, Los Angeles (New York: Praeger, 1970).
For Mike Cernovich and Pizzagate, see https://www.thewrap.com/mike-cernovich-timeline-choking-advice-pizzagate-firings-photos/. For his offer of payment to disrupt the show, see Elliot Hannon, “Right-Wing Protesters Rush Stage, Disrupt Trump-Themed Julius Caesar Production,” Slate, June 17, 2017, which names the pair who interrupted the show: Laura Loomer and Jack Posobiec. For the threats to other theaters across America, see Jeremy Gerard, “Free Theaters Threatened in Fallout from Julius Caesar as Supporters Plan Rally,” Deadline Hollywood, June 14, 2017, and Malcolm Gay, “Knives Are Out for Theaters That Bear the Name ‘Shakespeare,’” Boston Globe, June 16, 2017. Tom Finkelpearl’s support for the production is quoted from Michael Paulson and Sopan Deb, “How Outrage Built over a Shakespearean Depiction of Trump,” New York Times, June 12, 2017. And for threats to the Eustis family, see Tina Moore and Max Jaeger, “Julius Caesar’s Director Gets Death Threats at Home,” New York Post, June 21, 2017. Clips of the disruption of the Delacorte production, a tape of Joe Piscopo’s show, the Fox & Friends show, Ben Shapiro’s critique, and the Inside Edition clip can all be accessed on YouTube.
For Summer Shakespeare Festivals in America, see https://www.stahome.org. For the percentage of American secondary schools that taught Shakespeare in the 1980s, see Valerie Strauss, “A Shakespeare for All Ages,” Washington Post, March 7, 1999. For Shakespeare in the Common Core standards, see http://www.corestandards.org/ELA-Literacy/RL/11-12/. And for the National Endowment for the Arts program Shakespeare in American Communities, see Amanda Giguere, Shakespeare in American Communities: Conservative Politics, Appropriation, and the NEA (Saarbrücken, Germany: VDM Verlag, 2010) and the US government website https://www.arts.gov/partnership/shakespeare-american-communities.
And for the pulling down of London’s theaters in 1642, see N. W. Bawcutt, “Puritanism and the Closing of the Theaters in 1642,” Medieval & Renaissance Drama in England 22 (2009), pp. 179–200.
CREDITS
ILLUSTRATION CREDITS
This page: American Soldier in Vietnam, with the Folger Shakespeare edition of The Taming of the Shrew in his helmet. Uncatalogued photograph, Folger Shakespeare Library.
This page: E. W. Clay, “The Fruits of Amalgamation,” New York: John Childs, 1839. Courtesy of the American Antiquarian Society.
This page: E. W. Clay, “Practical Amalgamation,” New York: John Childs, 1839. Courtesy of the Library Company of Philadelphia.
This page: Ulysses S. Grant (on the left) and Alexander Hays at Camp Salubrity, Louisiana, 1845. Courtesy of the Library of Congress.
This page: Charlotte Cushman as Romeo, c. 1854. Courtesy of the Harry Ransom Center.
This page: Charlotte Cushman as Romeo and Susan Cushman as Juliet at the Haymarket Theatre, Illustrated London News, January 3, 1846.
This page: Great Riot at the Astor Place Opera House, New York, on Thursday Evening May 10th, 1849. Courtesy of the Library of Congress.
This page: Theodore Muller, New York and Brooklyn, c. 1849 (Vue prise au dessus de la batterie). Courtesy of the Library of Congress.
This page: John Wilkes Booth (on the left), Edwin Thomas Booth, and Junius Brutus Booth Jr. in Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar in 1864. Courtesy of the John Hay Library, Brown University.
This page: Shakespeare Tercentenary Celebration, Caliban by the Yellow Sands by Percy MacKaye, Program, May 23–27, 1916. Courtesy of the Folger Shakespeare Library.
This page: Alfred Drake and Patricia Morison in Kiss Me, Kate, 1948. Spewack Papers, Columbia University Libraries. With kind permission of the Spewack estate.
This page: David Parfitt, Donna Gigliotti, Harvey Weinstein, Gwyneth Paltrow, Edward Zwick, and Marc Norman at the 71st Academy Awards, March 21, 1999. Courtesy of ImageCollect.
This page: Cropped screen grab of the assassination scene in Julius Caesar at the Delacorte Theater in Central Park, June 2017, Inside Edition, YouTube.
TEXT CREDITS
Excerpt from “Brush Up Your Shakespeare” (from Kiss Me, Kate). Words and Music by Cole Porter. © 1949 by Cole Porter. © Renewed and Assigned to John F. Wharton. Trustee of the Cole Porter Musical and Literary Property Trusts. Chappell & Co. Owner of Publication and Allied Rights Throughout the World. All Rights Reserved. Used By Permission of Alfred Publishing, LLC.
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INDEX
The page numbers in this index
refer to the printed version of this book. The link provided will take you to the beginning of that print page. You may need to scroll forward from that location to find the corresponding reference on your e-reader.
Page numbers in italics refer to illustrations.
à Beckett, Gilbert Abbott, 37–38
abolition, 16, 17, 19–21, 27, 59, 62, 68
Abolition Riots, 58
Academy Awards, 174, 176, 179, 196, 197
Academy of Music, 79
Access Hollywood, xxi–xxii
Actors’ Fund of America, 138
Adams, Abigail, 10–12
Adams, Charles, 17, 19
Adams, Jeremy, 214
Adams, John, ix, 10, 15
Adams, John Quincy, 1–4, 6–10, 12–21
“The Character of Desdemona,” 1–2, 16, 20–21
Kemble and, 6–8, 13, 20, 21
“Misconceptions of Shakspeare Upon the Stage,” 2, 20–21
Adams, Joseph Quincy, 145–47
Adams, Louisa, 6, 9
Addams, Jane, xiv
Addison, Joseph, 17
adultery, 184, 187–90, 193
Aegis and Intelligencer, 110
African Americans, 130, 142, 155
as actors, xii, xiii, 17–18, 202
miscegenation (amalgamation) and, 1–21, 24, 68
in New York, 55–57
slavery and, see slavery
African Grove Riot, 58
Albion, 66
Aldridge, Ira, xii
Alexandria Gazette, 9
Alfriend, Edward M., 94, 116
Alliance Française, 141
al-Qaeda, 198
amalgamation (miscegenation), 1–21, 24, 68
American Antiquarian Society, 133
American Anti-Slavery Society, 58–59, 68
American exceptionalism, 27
American Monthly Magazine, 1
Amistad, 3
Anderton, Sarah, 41
Angels in America, 181
Anglin, Margaret, 150
Annals of the New York Stage (Odell), 34
Antonio, 125
Antony:
in Antony and Cleopatra, xxvi
in Julius Caesar, xvii, xviii, xx–xxii, xxvi–xxvii, 101, 104, 207, 219
Antony and Cleopatra, xxvi
Apostate, The (Shiel), 107
Arch Street Theatre, 53
Arendt, Hannah, xiv
Argento, Asia, 186–87
Ariel, 125, 139
Armstrong, Louis, 157
Army Theater, 24, 30–32
Asian Americans, 130, 136
as actors, 202
Chinese, 123
Japanese, xii–xiii, 136, 155
Astor, John Jacob, 60
Astor Place, 79–80
Astor Place Opera House, 45, 56, 60–64, 66–69, 75–76, 79–80
riots at, 48, 49–50, 56, 58, 69–80, 204, 217
As You Like It, 35, 86, 109, 125, 143, 180–81, 194
Athenaeum, 42
Atlas and Argus (Albany), 101
Austen, Jane, 186
Austin Statesman, 166
Ayers, Lemuel, 156, 161
Backlash: The Undeclared War Against American Women (Faludi), 181
Badeau, Adam, 108
Baker, Luther Byron, 110
Baldwin, Alec, xviii
Bank of America, 210
Bannon, Steve, 207–9
Banquo, 64, 65, 114
Baptista, 159
Barnes, Mrs., 34
Barry, Mrs., 34
Basie, Count, 157
Bates, David Homer, 96
Battle of the Wilderness, 100
Beatrice, 5
Bedford Hills Correctional Facility, xv
Benedick, 107
Benko, Tina, xviii
Benson, Frank, 122
Beringer, Esmé, 33
Bianca, 159
Bible, x
Bingham, John A., 116
Bloom, Allan, 201
Bohemian Grove, xiv–xv
Booth, Asia, 91–93, 105
Booth, Edwin Thomas, 35, 47, 82, 87, 91, 92, 97, 99–101, 103–4, 107, 108, 127
Booth, John Wilkes, xiii, 82
capture of, 110–11
Confederate agents and, 103
Lincoln assassinated by, xiii, 83–85, 96, 104, 106, 108, 109, 111, 113–18
Lincoln kidnapping planned by, 103, 104, 105
Booth, Junius Brutus, 90–93, 107
Booth, Junius Brutus, Jr., 82, 91, 100, 101, 103, 104
Bork, Robert, xxix
Boston Globe, 151
Boston Theater, 127
Bottom, 61, 157
Bougere, Teagle, xviii, xxiii
Bowery Theatre, 55, 56, 58, 59, 63–64, 67
Boys from Syracuse, The, 157
Brabantio, 10
Braham, Lionel, 141
Branagh, Kenneth, 177
Brecht, Bertolt, xvi–xvii
Breitbart, 205–7, 209
Bristol, Frank M., 133
British Empire, 38–39, 46
Broadway Theatre, 56, 63, 64
Brock, Zoe, 187
Brokeback Mountain, 197
Brooklyn Academy of Music, 100
Brown, John, 94
Brown, Tina, 196, 197
“Brush Up Your Shakespeare,” 167–69
Brutus, xvi–xviii, xix, xxii, xxiv–xxvii, 85, 92, 94, 97, 101, 104, 106, 110, 114–16, 207, 219
Buckley, William F., Jr., 204
Bulos, Yusef, xx
Buntline, Ned, 63, 72, 76
Burbage, Richard, 32, 51
Burdman, Stephen, 211–12
Bush, George W., 202–3
Butler, Pierce, 7, 12, 14
Caesar, Julius, xvii, xix–xxiii, xxv–xxvii, 101, 104, 106, 116
Trump and, xviii, xx–xxiv, xxix, 204–6, 209–20
Cagney, James, 177
Calhoun, John C., 15
Caliban, 122–23, 125, 133, 136–37, 139–40, 146, 202
Caliban: The Missing Link (Wilson), 122
“Caliban at the Stadium” (Mastin), 144
Caliban by the Yellow Sands (MacKaye), 120, 122–23, 137–45
“Call of the West, The: America and Elizabethan England” (Lee), 133–34
Calpurnia, xviii, xxi, xxii
Camp Salubrity, 22
Cannon, Le Grand B., 89–90
Carlyle, Thomas, 130
Carmin, Caleb, 88
Carousel, 156
Carpenter, Francis, 87, 95–97
Casablanca, 183
Casca, xviii, xxii–xxiv, 215
Cash, Rosalind, 202
Cassius, xvi–xviii, xxii, xxiv, xxvii, 92, 101, 104, 206, 219
Cather, Willa, 192
Catholics, 93, 126
Cato (Addison), 17
Cavalier and Yankee: The Old South and American National Character (Taylor), 108
Central Park, 78, 100, 101, 139
Delacorte Theater in, see Delacorte Theater
Central Park Theater, 213
Cernovich, Mike, 213–14
Chambrun, Marquis de, 112
Chanfrau’s Theatre, 56, 64
“Character of Desdemona, The” (Adams), 1–2, 16, 20–21
Charles I, 101
Chatham Garden Theatre, 54–55, 67
Chester, Sam, 104, 105
Chicago Times, 121
Child, Lydia Maria, 13
Chinese Exclusion Act, 123
Christian Science Monitor, 171
Chubb, Per
cival, 138
Cibber, Colley, 98
Cicero, 17
Cimber, Metellus, xxiv
Cinna, xx, xxiv
City College of New York, 139, 142
Civil War, xiii, 25, 27, 30, 46–47, 78, 89, 96, 99, 102, 109, 110, 121, 192
Battle of the Wilderness, 100
Confederacy’s responsibility for, 104–5
end of, 111
Clarke, John Sleeper, 92
class warfare, 49–80
Claudius, 87, 90, 113
Clay, E. W., 3, 18
The Fruits of Amalgamation, xxxii, 18
Practical Amalgamation, 3, 4
Cleopatra, xxvi
Cleveland, Grover, 131
Cleveland Plain Dealer, 41
Clift, Montgomery, 160
Clinton, Bill, xiv, 189–90, 195–98
Clinton, Hillary, xxi, 213–14, 218
Clinton Hall, 79
Closing of the American Mind, The (Bloom), 201
CNN, 214
codfish aristocracy, 57, 67
Cohen, Buzz, 216
Cold War, xiv
Coleman, John, 36, 51
Collins, Asa, 49
Columbia University, xv
Comedy of Errors, The, 64
The Boys from Syracuse, 157
Common Core, 220
community, xiii
Confederacy, 102, 108–10
Booth and, 103
Lincoln’s placing responsibility for war on, 104–5
Lost Cause of, 85, 109, 110, 114
New York City fires set by agents of, 103–4
Confederate Veteran Magazine, 115
Constitution, U.S., 102, 128
Continental Congress, x
Conway, Moncure, 192–93
Cooke, George Frederick, 132
Corbett, Boston, 111
Coriolanus, xxvi, 64, 209
Bannon’s adaptation of, 208–9
Coriolanus in, 37, 107
Corpus Christi, TX, 23–27, 29–30, 32, 46
Courier and Enquirer, 77
Cromwell, Oliver, 101
Culture Wars, 201
Culture Wars: The Struggle to Define America (Hunter), 201
Cushman, Charlotte, 33–47, 43, 44, 91, 97, 112