Burgoyne’s Thespians and Boston’s First Theater Season, with Susan Lester

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Jake:
[0:04] Welcome to Hub History, where we go far beyond the freedom trail to share our favorite stories from the history of Boston, the hub of the universe.

Episode 344 Introduction

Jake:
[0:14] This is episode 344, Burgoyne’s Thespians and Boston’s First Theater Season, with Susan Lester. Hi, I’m Jake. In just a few minutes, I’m going to be joined by Susan Lester, who’s going to be my first listener guest. We’re going to be talking about the research that she’s done into the first season of theater that was held for Boston audiences 250 years ago this winter. While the British were occupying the town and Boston was under siege, audiences flocked to a makeshift playhouse to watch a series of performances, including one called The Blockade of Boston that premiered 250 years ago this week, only to be interrupted by a real-life attack on the British lines in Charlestown. Susan will reveal what she’s learned about the legality of theater in colonial Boston, the format of a typical 18th century performance, and even the identities of a few of the actors who tread the boards at Faneuil Hall in January 1776.

Listener Support Appreciation

Jake:
[1:19] But before we talk about Boston’s 1776 theater season, I just want to pause and say thanks to all the listener supporters who made this interview with a listener guest possible. This is a good time to show my appreciation, because I not only had to replace my laptop last month, I also ended up having to replace one of my microphones before sitting down to record this interview. You’ll probably be able to hear when we start talking that both Susan and I were getting over colds at the time we talked, and it’s a good thing that we rescheduled our conversation because that gave me a chance to order a new Samson Q2U to replace one of my Audio-Technica ATR 2100s that finally broke after being a workhorse for a few years now. My listeners are what makes it possible for me to cover unexpected expenses like that. I like to say that those listeners who kick in one-time funds on PayPal end up covering one-time expenses like mics and laptops, While the listeners are committed to ongoing monthly support of as little as $2 or as much as $20 or more each month, cover ongoing expenses like podcast media hosting. So to everyone who’s already supporting the show, thank you. And if you, dear listener, are not yet supporting the show and you’d like to start, it’s easy. Just go to patreon.com slash hubhistory or visit hubhistory.com and click on the support us link. And thanks again to all our new and returning sponsors.

Jake:
[2:48] Now, as you’ll hear in just a moment, this episode is a little bit of a different format than usual.

Transition to Susan Lester

Jake:
[2:53] So instead of hearing a pre-recorded introduction from me, I’m just going to jump straight into my conversation with Susan Lester and let her introduce herself. Susan Lester, I want to say welcome to the show. This is a very different format of an interview than what we usually do. I’ll tell our listeners that this is our very first in-person interview for Hub History. So instead of pre-recording an introduction, I’m going to ask you to introduce yourself and talk about who you are and how you got interested in our topic today, which is theater in British-occupied Boston in the first year of our Revolutionary War.

Susan Lester:
[3:30] Hi, Jake. Thanks so much for your invitation to participate on your podcast, because I’ve been a huge fan since the beginning.

Susan’s Interest in Theater

Susan Lester:
[3:38] What first interested me about the theater season during the siege of Boston is that it seems so remarkable to me that under such horrible conditions, the civilians and soldiers trapped there were actually putting on plays. I’m just a great admirer of people who can respond to adversity with creativity and humor instead of just feeling miserable, because that’s what I tend to do, is just feel miserable. So this just struck me as something quite unusual. So when I started looking for more information about the plays and history books, I couldn’t even find a list of the plays that were performed. And I also started finding information from original sources about the plays that weren’t even mentioned in the books. So as an important disclaimer, I am not a professional historian. I am a surgical pathologist at Brigham and Women’s Hospital. So if there are any historians listening to this podcast who know more about the British theater in Boston or theater in general, please step forward because Jake and I would love to hear from you.

Jake:
[4:36] And that gets to some of how we started talking about this topic, because we’ve been emailing back and forth about the idea of this episode for years, literally years now. And at first, you were just excited. You were sharing some of the facts you had uncovered in your research. And then you were sort of saying, like, who could Jake invite to be a guest on the show to talk about this. And I tried to find that guest and it turns out that you, Susan, are the guest that we need to have to talk about that. The timing of this, we’re recording this at the beginning of January, 2026, but it’ll come out in another week or so. And I’m timing the release because 250 years ago this week, the week that our listeners are hearing this, Boston audiences got to see a comedic play that was called The Blockade of Boston.

The Blockade of Boston

Jake:
[5:28] And I think that both the plot and the circumstances are really interesting. So can you tell us a little bit about what you uncovered about the plot of The Blockade of Boston?

Susan Lester:
[5:41] Well, unfortunately, I can’t tell you much about the plot of the blockade of Boston because the script has been lost. It’s one of the great mysteries from the Revolutionary War. All we have is the finale in which five of the characters sing a verse from a satirical song. So the characters singing the songs are a loyalist, a deserter from the American army, a British soldier, his American wife, and Fan Fan, a black servant or enslaved woman. We also have some information from a diary entry from a Continental Army surgeon, so he relates that, “…the figure designed to burlesque General Washington was dressed in an uncouth style with a large wig and a long rusty sword, attended by his orderly sergeant in his country dress, having on his shoulder an old rusty gun, seven or eight feet long.”, So the play was clearly mocking the American troops.

Susan Lester:
[6:33] I think the play was also likely making some political commentary. The character Fan Fan, the servant or enslaved woman, is a very interesting character. So this would have been a black woman. And there’s evidence from history that black women did act on the stage in England at the time. So she’s very happy living in Boston under British rule. Her mistress is pleased with her work. She’s paid well. She’s eating well. White men think she’s attractive. And this is in contrast to the treatment of black people outside of Boston. So George Washington had just issued orders the past November banning black men from serving in the American Army. In the same month, Lord Dunmore in Virginia had offered freedom to enslaved people who would fight for the British against American rebels. So the play was sending a message that people of color were treated much better under British rule than colonial rule. It was certainly a message a slaveholder such as George Washington would not have wanted to hear at that time. So I suspect the play was the equivalent of the Saturday Night Live weekend update of its time and mixed humor with political commentary.

Opening Night Chaos

Jake:
[7:40] And again, coming back to our anniversary week, the opening night for this play, the blockade of Boston was January 8th, 1776, 250 years ago this week. But for circumstances outside the actor’s control, the play wasn’t performed all the way through on opening night. What happened? To interrupt the blockade of Boston.

Susan Lester:
[8:01] Well, interestingly enough, that night there was an American raid on some of the houses left in Charlestown, which resulted in a general alarm for all of the troops in Boston. So invitations to the plays had been sent to General Washington and John Hancock over in Cambridge and possibly others. So this raid was probably planned. So in the December 14th issue of the Boston Newsletter, So that was a newspaper published in Boston.

Susan Lester:
[8:29] It announced that the play would be performed in two weeks. And then following that, a Cambridge newspaper reprinted the announcement. So the original announcement read, We are informed that there is now getting up at the theater and will be performed in the course of a fortnight, a new farce called The Blockade of Boston. But the Cambridge newspaper added their commentary, it is more probable before that time the poor wretches will be presented with a tragedy called the Bombardment of Boston.

Susan Lester:
[9:00] So they’re probably referring to the fact that General Knox had left in November to bring the cannons from Fort Ticonderoga back to Boston. However, he did not arrive back in Cambridge in time to disrupt the play because he didn’t get there till January 25th. So the raid on Charlestown may have been the next best plan to disrupt the play. So there are multiple accounts of the event, including newspaper articles, letters, diary entries, and memoirs. There are also accounts from both the British and American sides, and all the reports agree in general as to what had happened. So the first play of the evening was a comedy called The Busy Body. So the play had ended, they were getting ready to start the blockade of Boston. The orderly sergeant, who was assigned to take tickets at the door, ran up to the stage and announced that Charlestown and the British Ford on Bunker Hill were under attack. But at first the audience thought he was just an actor and this was part of the play. They thought it was just a clever way that the play was beginning and so they just started clapping enthusiastically. But eventually it became apparent there actually was a real attack. And at that point there was quite a bit of confusion as the civilians rushed out of the hall. The soldiers tore off their costumes and makeup to get to their posts. And because all of the male actors were officers, It was particularly important for them to get back to their regiments if what they thought was that Boston was being attacked.

Jake:
[10:22] Yeah, in recent episodes, I’ve found some of the orders saying the officers should sleep in the barracks with their men, which is pretty unusual, or the officers should sleep with their arms, which is pretty unusual. So, they were supposed to be ready to turn out at a moment’s notice. And when I’ve talked about this raid on Charlestown on the night of the 8th before, and it’s a very typical sort of raid. The idea was to take some prisoners, if possible, who might have intelligence or papers on them, try to burn some of the houses that had survived the Battle of Bunker Hill to deny them to the enemy. It seems very standard, but it gets a pretty humorous write-up in the Boston area press at the time. Can you give our listeners a little sample of what the coverage on either side thought about this dramatic interruption?

Susan Lester:
[11:13] Three days later, so the pro-British newspaper reported, On Monday was presented at the theater at Faneuil Hall, the comedy of the busybody, which was received with great applause. A new farce called the Blockade of Boston was to have been presented the same evening, but was interrupted by a sergeant’s representing, or rather misrepresenting, the burning of two or three old houses at Charlestown as a general attack on the town of Boston, but it is very evident the rebels possessed a sufficiency of what Falstaff terms the better part of valor to prevent their making an attempt that must inevitably end in their own destruction. In contrast, the pro-American newspaper followed up with this report.

Susan Lester:
[11:56] We hear that the enemy, the evening on which our troops burnt the houses at Charlestown, were entertaining themselves at the exhibition of a play which they called The Blockade of Boston, in the midst of which a person appeared before the audience and with great earnestness declared that the Yankees were attacking Bunkers Hill. The deluded wretches at first took this to be merely farcical and intended as part of their diversion, but soon convinced that the actor meant to represent a solemn reality. The whole assembly left the house in confusion and scampered off with great precipitation. Thus, the British were downplaying the raid and ridiculed the Americans for being too timid to make an actual attack. And in contrast, the Americans mocked the British because of the terror produced in Boston by even a few houses being burnt.

First Theater in Boston

Jake:
[12:45] I’ve heard you describe 1775 and 1776 as the first theater season. In Boston, because there was a whole series of plays staged, but it wasn’t the very first time that a play was staged in Boston. Could you find evidence of the very first play that was publicly performed in Boston?

Susan Lester:
[13:06] Yeah. The first known theater production was back in 1750 at the British Coffeehouse.

Jake:
[13:12] So in 1750, who would have been putting on a play at the British Coffeehouse?

Susan Lester:
[13:17] So all we know about it is it was described as two men from England came over to produce the orphan or unhappy marriage. So this is a tragedy about an orphan girl who’s loved by two brothers.

Jake:
[13:30] Do we know how the public received the unhappy marriage or the orphan?

Susan Lester:
[13:35] I haven’t found any specific information about the response of the audience, but it certainly generated a response by the colonial government.

Jake:
[13:43] I know that Boston had a reputation as a very culturally conservative town. You wouldn’t expect it today, but that was the time. Was it just that sort of conservative cultural norm that was keeping theater from being performed, or was there a law about theater by 1750?

Susan Lester:
[13:59] Well, I think to explain this, you kind of have to back up a little bit back to the defeat of the monarchy in England in 1648 by parliamentarians who were supported by Puritans. So this was when Oliver Cromwell took over and eventually became the Lord Protector of England and poor King Charles I was beheaded. So this is… I think this is very ironic, because the Charles River in Boston is actually named after Charles I. And we have a race called the Head of the Charles. So whenever this race gets mentioned, it just brings to my mind poor King Charles holding his head. So it seems to me like an unintentional but appropriate nod to Boston’s feelings about kings. And it’s also sadly ironic that we still have the need to have protests about being ruled by kings 250 years later.

Jake:
[14:52] Yeah, that is sad.

Susan Lester:
[14:53] Yeah, it’s kind of sad. But I think that would be a great, you know, like a mascot for the head of the Charles’s, poor King Charles I. He just gets it everywhere. He gets, you know, the Monty Python song about Oliver Cromwell and poor King Charles is very amusing as well. So, going back to actual history, during the rule of Oliver Cromwell, theater productions were banned in England. So here’s another disclaimer, I’m not an expert in religion. So I think in general, Puritans were against anything that took time away from either religious duties or work. So theater was particularly a harmful influence as the plot often showed people behaving badly and because the actors were essentially lying. So after the restoration in 1660 with the coronation of King Charles II in England, theater did return to England. But to the Puritans, the theater was even worse than it was before Oliver Cromwell took over, because before the band, all the female roles were played by young men, but now women were allowed to act on the stage.

Jake:
[16:02] And certainly having women in some public role like that must be incredibly corrupting to them, right? That couldn’t possibly be upstanding women on the stage like that.

Theater Laws in Colonial Boston

Jake:
[16:12] So how did laws here in the Bay Colony change in reaction to that 1750 first play in Boston?

Susan Lester:
[16:19] So they were so shocked that the colony passed the Act to Prevent Stage Plays and Other Theatrical Entertainments. And to quote from the law, the law was for preventing and avoiding the many and great mischiefs which arise from public stage plays, interludes, and other theatrical entertainments, which not only occasion great and unnecessary expenses and discourage industry and frugality, but likewise tend generally to increase immorality, impiety, and a contempt of religion. And there were also monetary penalties for anyone acting in the play, producing a play, or attending a play. They were definitely not theater fans, not fans at all.

Jake:
[17:06] So how seriously was this law taken? Like how strictly was it enforced? Would you get a fine for merely running an ad that you might stage a play?

Susan Lester:
[17:16] Yeah, there’s very little information about this after the act. The only thing I could find was a diary from John Rowe. So he was a merchant in Boston. So he does mention that he saw the orphan acted in 1765. He says it was miserably performed, but on the other hand, he says that about 210 people were there. So, there was clearly public interest in attending a play, but we have no information if any of those people were fine for putting it on or watching it.

Jake:
[17:46] So, I’m going to ask a very unfair question because you just told me that you’re not a historian of religion, and I know that you’re not. But when a couple of years ago, I was researching the first secular concert held in Boston back in, and I have it in my notes here, episode 264, I thought it was noteworthy that the first public secular performances of music were held by Anglicans. And my reading of that was that they were less constrained by the sort of Puritan traditions that have been handed down to now the congregational descendants of those Puritans. Could you figure out, was that the case for the first play as well? Was it also performed or staged by Anglicans?

Susan Lester:
[18:33] The majority of English citizens were Anglican and the two English men were probably Anglican. So probably, yes, they were more open to the theater. However, the majority of the colonists in Massachusetts were Puritans.

Early Audience Reception

Susan Lester:
[18:46] So if 210 people showed up to see the orphan in 1765, you know.

Jake:
[18:51] The audience at least had to be beyond.

Susan Lester:
[18:54] Yeah.

Jake:
[18:55] And sort of building on that or expanding on that, did you get a sense for how attitudes about theater here in Boston that had this conservative reputation compared to our neighboring colonies, especially, and it sounds in 2025 or 2026 crazy to say so, the less conservative Southern colonies?

Susan Lester:
[19:15] Yes. Yeah, it’s interesting. So Pennsylvania and Rhode Island, so they had Quaker populations, which also had objections to the theater. So they did pass laws against the theater. The southern colonies had larger Anglican populations, and they were somewhat more welcoming, as you had brought up earlier. So I did find that theater companies from England toured in the colonies in the 1750s and 1760s. However, it also seems like they often met with controversy, including in some of the southern colonies. So there was no place in the colonies where theater was just openly and happily welcomed.

Jake:
[19:53] There’s a big change, a sea change in 1768 that changes life in Boston, but it also changes the equation for theater in Boston. And that’s the military occupation that starts in the fall of 1768. And way back in episode 100, which was probably in the second year of the show, we talked to historian J.L. Bell around the anniversary of the 1768 occupation, the landing of the troops at Long Wharf. The short version is basically the Bostonians had been rioting too much and protesting the Stamp Act, the Townsend Act, the Intolerable Acts. And so the governor requests troops and the king sends in thousands of redcoats into Boston. The troops are sent here to suppress rebellion, to keep this growing dissent from getting out of hand. But what happens? Tensions rise and rise and rise until we have the Boston Massacre in 1770.

Theater During Occupation

Jake:
[20:49] And I thought it was shocking that against that background of rising tensions –, There’s a play in March of 1769, right in the middle of this rising strife and tension in Boston. Who was putting on a play in the spring of 1769?

Susan Lester:
[21:05] Yeah, this is a really interesting event, especially with what’s going to happen later. So just five months after the soldiers arrived, they announced they were going to put on two plays. And so this sparked the following comment in the Boston Evening Post. So he writes, I am informed that next Tuesday night two plays are to be formed in this town by the soldiers now here. I should be much obliged to anyone to inform me what right the commanding officers have to give leave to their men to perform any such entertainments here, whether we are to be governed by the military law or the military by the civil. I hope the same spirit of piety reigns now as did in former times. So clearly not a theater fan. However, what was really interesting is five days later, the newspaper printed a response from another reader. So he says, I would inform this writer and all other intermeddlers that there is an act of Parliament licensing theatrical performances throughout the king’s dominions, which I take upon me to say, and no one can contradict.

Susan Lester:
[22:14] Entirely supersedes the act of this province for preventing the same, and besides, according to the little knowledge I have of the constitution of the province, the assembly are restricted to the making of laws not constituted to the laws of England. And if so, certainly the act of this province above mentioned can be of no force. That plays are disagreeable to the inhabitants in general in this town, I believe, is a mistake. But upon supposition that they are disagreeable, as no person is obliged to attend that has not the leisure, ability, and inclination, there cannot be any reasonable objection in that respect.

Jake:
[22:55] Obviously, this isn’t a word or a phrase that anybody used at that time, but it really sounds like what we would today call an issue of federalism. Which law is supreme? Is the military beholden to civil power, local power, or is the local government beholden to the military? Obviously, this is still something we talk about today, but how did that end up getting resolved in colonial Boston?

Susan Lester:
[23:24] So after the announcement of the play in 1769 to try to lower the tension, two regiments were moved to Castle William in the harbor, but two remained in the city. And then after the Boston Massacre in 1770, all the troops were moved out of the city.

Jake:
[23:40] How much do we know about what the plan for these plays was? We know actually what pieces were planned to be staged and whether they actually made it to the stage in 1769?

Susan Lester:
[23:51] Well, so sadly, I haven’t found any information about what plays were planned or if they were ever performed. I strongly suspect they were not performed in the city, as I think this would have generated more coverage in the newspapers. However, they might have been performed by the troops at Castle William.

Jake:
[24:09] And we’ve heard that by early 1776, the British soldiers were performing plays in Boston. But did you find any evidence one way or the other about whether they or anybody was attempting to perform plays between spring of 1769 and the Siege of Boston, sort of the fall of 1775 into 1776?

Susan Lester:
[24:32] Well, I haven’t found any mention of plays being performed after 1769. But there had been this big shift, because originally the objection had been religious, and now it had become also political. So I suspect loyalists were not interested in attracting the attention of the Sons of Liberty, because as we know, they had a very low threshold for tarring and feathering people. And I think they probably wanted to avoid that.

Jake:
[24:57] There was also one more law, although not exactly a provincial law, that was passed banning, quote, the exhibition of shows in 1774. What was the cause or the impetus behind that new resolution?

Susan Lester:
[25:14] So in that year, the Continental Congress adopted a series of resolutions, which were originally created by the Continental Association. So the resolutions were primarily aimed at getting all the colonies to agree to a boycott of British goods, but they also included banning a number of activities, including the exhibition of shows. And it seemed to be… Pretty effective, because we do have this record that in the spring of 1775, a soldier stationed in Boston wrote the following about Boston. No such thing as a playhouse. They are too puritanical to admit such lewd entertainments, though there’s perhaps no town of its size that could turn out more whores than this one could.

Jake:
[25:56] So much for that religiously conservative reputation in one particular area, at least. So, a shooting war breaks out in April of 1775, and I don’t need to recap all of that. That’s been much of what the last 10 months of this podcast has been focused on. But the fact that there was firing at Lexington and Concord didn’t change province law. But then you found that Boston was suddenly much more receptive to the idea of theater than it had been before the war. Obviously, people are getting killed on both sides. But for theater, what changes in the spring of 1775?

Susan Lester:
[26:38] So after the retreat from Lexington, basically the army is confined to Boston. And as you and Nikki have said many times, Boston was like an island at that time. It was a very narrow connection.

Jake:
[26:52] Maybe I’ll find my classic clip of me saying Boston is a peninsula town like 20 times in a row and play it here.

Peninsula:
[26:59] Militia units from around New England streamed into Cambridge and Roxbury to keep the British regulars trapped in the peninsula town of Boston. Boston transformed itself from a tiny town on a peninsula to a sprawling city. It was a small, densely populated city on a tiny, mitten-shaped peninsula. The tiny Shawmut Peninsula that comprised Boston. Before Boston was expanded by filling the salt marshes that surrounded the Shawmut Peninsula. John Winthrop and his Puritan followers settled on the tiny peninsula they called Boston.

Boston’s Transformation

Peninsula:
[27:26] Back when Boston was a tiny village on the Shawmut Peninsula. The only road leading off the peninsula of Boston. New England militias rushed to surround Boston and trap the British regulars within the peninsular town.

Susan Lester:
[27:37] Yes, it was basically an island with this tiny neck. And so it’s been, it was been described as a lion in a cage, you know, that they were. So even though it was easy for them to defend Boston because of that, it was also difficult for them to get out of Boston. So now you have basically the British Army and the Loyalists that stayed in Boston confined to the city. And so they were in complete control. And the colonists that didn’t like the theater for the most part were now in Cambridge or at least outside the boundaries of Boston.

Jake:
[28:12] So despite this sort of great sorting that has our patriots going out to Roxbury and Cambridge and the loyalists flocking into Boston and sort of sorting the two camps physically as well as politically, the first plays that were put on in 1775 didn’t hit the stage until very late fall or winter. And when I think about Boston at that time, it is not a happy place. There are firewood shortages. There aren’t enough barracks or bedrooms for all the officers and British soldiers. There isn’t enough food. All the food’s having to be shipped in from Britain or Canada from Halifax, or everything’s coming in by ship. There’s not enough hay for the horses. There’s not enough salt pork for the soldiers. There’s not straw for bedding and insulation. So there’s privation and hardship everywhere. Why is this the moment when… They decided, hey, let’s have a theater season.

Susan Lester:
[29:15] So to look at the timeline. So after the retreat from Lexington on April 19th, so their first concern would have been to fortify the city. Because literally they’re being swarmed by thousands of militiamen ringing the city. However, before they could get around to fortifying Charlestown and Roxbury Heights, the colonial army sparked the Battle of Lunker Hill. So after that battle, they had over 800 wounded soldiers to care for. They lost many of their officers. They had to set up the fort on Charlestown Heights. And over the summer, I think everybody expected there would be another attack, but the British weren’t dealing with what had happened at Bunker Hill. The Americans were concerned. There was a smallpox epidemic raging in Boston. There was some concern about trying to send soldiers in and setting off a smallpox epidemic. So there was really, they were really at a stalemate. And at that point, they were moving into the winter, and they generally did not, were not interested in fighting during the wintertime.

Theater Season Amid Adversity

Susan Lester:
[30:22] And so I think that’s probably when their minds turned. And this is what impresses me. Like, everything you’ve said, under these horrible conditions, they said, let’s put on a show, which I just think is great.

Jake:
[30:34] I haven’t had fresh produce in four weeks, and my horse is so skinny I can’t ride him anymore, but sure, let’s have a play.

Susan Lester:
[30:41] Yeah, let’s do something creative, interesting, fun.

Jake:
[30:46] Speaking of Bunker Hill, which you mentioned in passing there is one of the conditions going into the fall of 1775. Our listeners probably know British General John Burgoyne from our past episodes as one of three British generals who arrived in Boston on the ship, the Cerberus, right before the Bunker Hill battle in late May 1775. They got there just in time to argue with the others, Howe and Clinton, over what the tactics at Bunker Hill would have been. Other listeners are going to remember John Burgoyne as the commander of the British forces who surrendered an entire army at Saratoga a couple of years later when he was attempting to invade from Canada and split New England off from the rest of the colonies, probably the largest single surrender of the war. And while our listeners might know John Burgoyne for that, they may not know that he considered himself also, along with being a general, a playwright. playwright. By the time he gets to Boston, how much writing had he done in the past? Do we know what his literary credentials were at that point?

Susan Lester:
[31:53] So, he had just had his first play called The Maid of the Oaks produced in England the year before, and it was actually had some success in England.

Jake:
[32:02] So, he wasn’t a novice to playwriting by the time he arrived in Boston. And along those lines, You found a quote that referred to our gentleman, Johnny Burgoyne, as our Garrick, from the British perspective, referring to David Garrick, who at that time was one of the most influential figures in British theatre back in the old country. How much of a role did John Burgoyne personally play in getting this first season of theatre up and running in Boston?

John Burgoyne’s Influence

Susan Lester:
[32:32] Burgoyne was a friend of David Garrick, and Garrick had helped him produce his play in England. So having a British officer refer to Burgoyne as our Garrick would have been quite a great compliment for him.

Susan Lester:
[32:45] So in reading Burgoyne’s letters, he really did not want to go to Boston, because he didn’t think there would be anything for him to do, because he was the most junior of the four generals there. So he wrote many letters saying, if I have to go to America, send me to New York, and I’ll take over New York because I really don’t think I’m going to be able to do anything in Boston. And once he arrived, he was absolutely right. I mean, he had three people above him, and they were all stuck in the city. It wasn’t like he could go somewhere else. So he immediately started writing letters asking permission to return to England. And so given his lack of leadership role, he had time to write for the theater when he was in Boston. So that probably was a big impetus for him. He just wanted something to do, and obviously he was interested in the theater.

Susan Lester:
[33:31] So I’d love to know how important his role was during the siege. I’ve had a hard time researching the relationship of the theater with the British Army in general, both before and after the Revolutionary War. So I found it’s kind of hard because the term theater of war is a common term. So when you start researching theater and soldiers, you know, you get all these other references that have nothing to do with the actual, putting on plays.

Theater Tradition in the Army

Susan Lester:
[33:58] The incident in 1769 when British soldiers were planning a play suggests that the relationship may have predated Burgoyne, but I think it’d be really interesting for a British military historian to really look into that. Was this a pivotal event in Boston, or were they continuing a tradition that British soldiers had always performed plays? And I don’t know.

Jake:
[34:23] And maybe they just hadn’t been public before or something.

Susan Lester:
[34:25] Maybe it was just taken for granted and they didn’t feel the need to talk about it.

Jake:
[34:31] Not worthy of comment, kind of, yeah. You mentioned in that very flattering quote about Boston before that there was,

Venue for Performances

Jake:
[34:41] quote, no such thing as a playhouse in Boston by 1775. So if there was going to be this theater season with a whole run of plays in Boston that year, what was the venue? Where was the theater?

Susan Lester:
[34:55] The plays were performed in Faneuil Hall. And I suspect the soldiers enjoyed knowing that they were using the cradle of liberty for their playhouse. It would really aggravate the rebels.

Jake:
[35:07] Just talk a little bit about what was typical for a performance in this time. So what did a night at the theater look like or sound like?

Susan Lester:
[35:17] They were like double features. So in British theater of the time, typically you’d have a main play, and then that would be followed by an afterpiece, which was usually a short comedic play.

18th Century Performance Style

Jake:
[35:27] You know, I have this mental image of British theater that comes, I think, from an earlier time. I have this picture of Shakespeare’s Globe Theater and men basically in drag performing all the female parts in Hamlet. But how much – is that what a performance looked like in Boston? How much could you tell about who actually performed these roles? Who were the actors who were filling these roles on the Boston stage?

Susan Lester:
[35:58] You’re right. So early on, women weren’t allowed on the stage. But after the Reformation in England, the female roles were played by actual women. And then the newspaper announcements in Boston specifically say that the plays will be performed by officers. and ladies. So the ladies would have likely been loyalists from families living in Boston.

Jake:
[36:21] Do we know the specific, whether it’s the ladies or some of the gentlemen who are performing, how much do we know about the individual performers?

Susan Lester:
[36:30] So I was only able to find the names of three of the actors. So we know Lord Francis Rodden Hastings was in the play. So he was a captain in the 5th Regiment of Foot. He went on later to have a very successful military and political career. We also have Thomas Stanley Esquire. So he was kind of a mystery as to who this person was because sometimes he was referred to Burgoyne’s brother-in-law, sometimes as Lord Stanley. So he was actually the nephew of Burgoyne’s wife. He was the brother of Lord Stanley, but he was not Lord Stanley. And he was in Boston as a gentleman observer at the time. He later enlisted in the Army and sadly died at a young age in Jamaica. So that’s why he was performing in the plays, and he later leaves with Burgoyne to go back to England. And then very interestingly, in a diary of a soldier at the time, mentions a Miss Sally Fletcher who had the main role in the first play.

Notable Actors and Performances

Susan Lester:
[37:30] So I haven’t been able to find out more about her. I mean, presumably she was a loyalist. She may have left during the evacuation, but that would be really interesting if somebody could track down and find out who Sally Fletcher was.

Jake:
[37:43] You mentioned that Ms. Fletcher was playing the lead role in the first play. And so let’s pick it up with the announcement of the first play and the theater season to follow that’s carried in the Boston newsletter, a Loyalist, I believe, paper from November 23rd in 1775. So what was announced? How many plays were there supposed to be? How often were there going to be performances held? What was announced for the Boston theater season?

Susan Lester:
[38:14] So they said that they had planned. So this association of soldiers and ladies had set up this theater association and they would have a play once a week. So they didn’t quite stick to that schedule, but there were plays presented on at least six days in December and January. Six different plays were performed, and four of these plays were performed more than once.

Jake:
[38:36] I thought it was interesting, as we were prepping for this episode, you mentioned that there was a charitable component. Basically, the plays were set up as fundraisers in a way. Who was supposed to benefit from the charitable aspect of Boston’s theater season?

Susan Lester:
[38:51] So the organizers said that after the expenses of the house were paid, the remainder of the money would go to the benefit of the widows and children of the soldiers. And obviously, there were many of those after Bunker Hill, sadly. So a letter that Thomas Stanley wrote said they took in 100 pounds for the first play. So according to an internet calculator, if you can trust this, that would be about equivalent to $27,000 today. So this would have been quite a help to the families, but I haven’t found any information on how much, if any, of the money was ever given to the widows and children. Thomas Stanley also wrote that he had heard that people were criticizing the Army for putting on plays. Again, going back to was this something that was common or was this quite unusual that they were doing this? So by framing them as a charity event, that could have been a very shrewd PR move for the Army.

Jake:
[39:45] Right. So we’re not having these disagreeable entertainments. We’re just trying to raise money for the orphans. Come on, guys. Now we know where the playhouse was at Faneuil Hall. We know who the cast was, at least a handful of the actors.

First Play of the Season

Jake:
[39:59] What was the first play of the first season in Boston, and when did it open?

Susan Lester:
[40:05] The first play was performed on Saturday, December 2nd, and it was The Tragedy of Zara. So Sally Fletcher was playing the role of Zara. So it was a play published in 1735, so during the Reformation, and was very popular in England.

Jake:
[40:21] So, I haven’t been able to make heads or tails of Zara. Can you try to give our listeners some sort of simplified summary of what this plays about?

Susan Lester:
[40:31] Yes. So, with your patience. This is very complicated. So, all the tragedies are set in the far past in kind of exotic locations. So, Zara is set in Jerusalem at the time of the Crusades. So, she was captured as an infant when French crusaders lost control of Jerusalem. So she and other children have been raised as slaves, whereas the soldiers have been kept in prison for 20 years. So Zahra and the Sultan Selim, the Muslim ruler of Jerusalem, have fallen in love and are about to be married. The day before the wedding, a deal is reached to release the prisoners for ransom so that they can return home. So they bring this leader of the crusaders. He’s been in this dungeon for 20 years. He sees Zara and a friend of hers and recognizes them. Wait a minute, you’re my son and daughter who were taken from me 20 years ago at the fall of Jerusalem. So he pleads with Zara to remember that she’s a Christian, and please don’t marry the sultan. So she’s torn between her love for the sultan and her duty to her father.

Themes in Zara

Susan Lester:
[41:39] Her brother, that she’s just discovered, arranges for her to secretly meet with a Christian priest to help her decide what to do. So the sultan is made aware of the secret meeting, but he thinks it’s a tryst between Zara and a lover. So he’s angry, he feels betrayed, and he orders his servant to kill Zara if she actually goes to this meeting.

Susan Lester:
[41:59] And sadly, that’s what happens. But when her brother explains to the sultan the mistake that she was really going to meet this priest, the sultan’s heartbroken. So he says all the Christians should be given riches and passage back to Europe. He then says, I’m killing myself because I deserve it, because I made this horrible mistake. And then the play ends with her brother saying that he admires the sultan for taking responsibility for his actions and mourns that he has died.

Jake:
[42:30] Cheerful stuff.

Susan Lester:
[42:32] Well, it isn’t, I said it was a tragedy. It lives up to its title. So I thought about why, you know, because I’m thinking this play was probably chosen by Burgoyne. So why, why would you choose this play? Why, why would soldiers be interested in it? So I think. First, soldiers, particularly the crusader commander, play important roles, and that could be appealing to a military audience, so it is about soldiers. Secondly, the tragedy ultimately results from a French military defeat, which I think they would also find appealing. And thirdly, and I think this is probably the most important,

Provocation Through Theater

Susan Lester:
[43:09] is that I think Burgoyne was really interested in provoking the Americans. So there are many elements of the play that would have aggravated them. There’s white slavery. Zahra is a white slave, slave to Muslims. She’s being raised as a Muslim. We have a slave that is actually going to marry a sultan. We have a Christian who’s in love with and intending to marry a Muslim. So there’s just multiple things here that would have provoked the Americans.

Jake:
[43:37] And so having carefully selected a play that’s going to be a stick in the eye for the Americans, And John Burgoyne then holds his departure, holds the ship so he can attend Zara on opening night, and then he sails back to Britain just a couple days later. Besides being a big theater fan… Why else might he have wanted to be around for opening night?

Susan Lester:
[44:01] He was very anxious to get back to England. But he also had a lot of time on his hands, so he had actually written a new prologue and epilogue for the play, and he probably wanted to see how they were received, so I think that’s why he stayed. So his prologue is very interesting because it starts, well, it supports that he may have chosen this play to provoke the Americans. So it starts out describing how Oliver Cromwell’s rule in England killed freedom and with it liberal arts in the theater. So echoing back to what had happened in England previously. He then compares Cromwell’s rule to the current situation in Boston. He says the play Tsar is performed to soothe the times too much resembling those. He says the play shows heroic virtue and teaches soldiers to not just want to conquer but to also be forgiving.

Susan Lester:
[44:53] He asks the Boston Prudes if it is wrong to use theater to show people the way to avoid vice, and says, when the heart is right, the action can’t be wrong. The prologue was read by Lord Rodden, and it’s interesting, the Massachusetts Historical Society has a handwritten copy that includes the stage direction, Curtain Rises and Discovers Zara and Selina. So the handwriting has been looked at, so it’s not Burgoyne’s handwriting, so perhaps Lord Rodden wrote it out. Actually, we don’t know what the scripts were that were being used by the performers of these… Access to printed scripts or if somebody was actually writing them out. But it’s interesting that that’s been preserved all these years that we have the prologue. The last two lines of the epilogue are, duty and female breasts should give the law, but make even love obedient to Papa. So he’s referring to Zara doing the right thing by obeying her father and agreeing to meet with the priest. Perhaps she would have decided that she’s a Christian and would have canceled the wedding. So, this may have been meant as an allegory with the crusader leader representing King George and the immediate daughter representing the colonies that the child should do what the parent tells them to do.

Jake:
[46:10] Having stuck around for a couple of days because he wanted to hear how his editions, this epilogue and prologue that he wrote, how they were received –,

Reception of Burgoyne’s Writing

Jake:
[46:18] How were they received in Boston? Did you have a sense of what people thought?

Susan Lester:
[46:22] So I haven’t found any specific references as to what people thought about Burgoyne’s prologue and epilogue. After this first performance, which was just Zara, there was a second performance where they did Zara, and then afterwards had a comedy presented The Citizen. So a newspaper article reports that the second performance of Zara was again received with general applause, but that the comedy of The Citizen created one continued laugh. So it really seems like the audience were more enthusiastic about seeing the comedy than seeing the tragedy.

Jake:
[46:55] Which I think that’s probably an audience much after my own heart. About a week after the final performance of Zara, another feature opens at Faneuil Hall, and it’s again a double feature. Like you said, it’s the typical format for the time. So, this next version is going to be a comedy of the busybody followed by the farce of The Apprentice. And while it is a double feature, like you mentioned, you said that it was typical for there to be a tragedy paired with the comedy.

Comedy Performances

Jake:
[47:28] And this time, we have two comedies being played. What can you tell us about the plays themselves and what this performance was like?

Susan Lester:
[47:34] Yeah, so you’re right, doing two comedies at the same time. But yeah, I think they were just, they had enough tragedy without having to go sit and listen to one. So the next three performances actually consisted of two comedies instead of a tragedy. The Busy Body concerns two young ladies who are engaged against their will to marry older men they dislike. And that’s a very common theme in these comedies, young ladies being engaged to older men and wanting to marry their young lovers. So in the play, through their cleverness, they’re able to turn the tables and marry their true lovers by the end of the play. The Apprentice is about Dick, who’s a young man who spends more time at his spouting club than working to become an apothecary. So I thought this was interesting. So this was actually a thing in England. A spouting club was formed by amateur actors who used the club to practice acting in the hopes of becoming professionals. So this would have been a very self-referential play as the person playing Dick was an actual amateur.

Susan Lester:
[48:40] So in the end, Dick runs away with his employer’s niece who also wants to be an actor, but he eventually realizes the errors of his ways and agrees to reform so that he and his girlfriend can get married. So I’ve read all the plays that were performed in Boston. I have to say the tragedies are very dreadful. It makes you really appreciate Shakespeare because they just seem to be tragic for the purposes of being tragic. But I think the comedies, they all take place in sort of contemporary London, and I find them quite amusing still today.

Jake:
[49:14] The Apprentice, it sounds almost like the way you described a spouting club sounds kind of like the way people do improv to try to polish up their acting chops. And it’s almost like an improv show about doing improv to try to hope to become an actor, right?

Susan Lester:
[49:26] Exactly.

Jake:
[49:28] Okay, so coming back to the blockade of Boston, which we started off talking about, the second performance happens on January 22nd. And this time around, luckily for the actors, I suppose, it doesn’t get interrupted

The Blockade of Boston Resumes

Jake:
[49:44] by a raid on Charlestown or any other intrusion of actual war into the stage play of war. And this time around, it’s the farce, the blockade of Boston, the comedy, the blockade of Boston is paired with Tamerlane, which is another tragedy. Is it as dreadful as all the rest?

Susan Lester:
[50:06] Yeah kind of so again it’s sort of a exotic background so tamerlane was an actual historical turkish leader in the 14th century so in the play he’s a strong just king who wants to restore order to the region and to do what’s right to improve the lives of the people he’s just he’s like the perfect person you know there’s like absolutely nothing you could complain about him his arch enemy is Bazajet, who has started a war. And he’s like the polar opposite. He’s just awful, awful, awful. So he started a war due to his own personal greed. So I think this play may have been chosen because Bostonians could have made easy parallels between King George trying to restore peace and order in his kingdom versus the rebels who were interested in maintaining their smuggling enterprises and taking land from the Native Americans for their own benefit. I think that would have been an easy analogy. So the tragedy involves two sets of lovers whose lives are ruined by Bazaget’s evil acts.

Jake:
[51:06] It’s interesting you pointed out that Tamerlane was a historical figure. The name might ring a bell for many Bostonians today. And if it does, it’s probably not from this dreadful historical tragic play, but maybe from the namesake Tamerlane Tsarnaev, who caused a stir here in Boston a few years ago. Obviously, we’ve made some editorial statements about what these tragedies were

Reviews of Tamerlane

Jake:
[51:31] like, but what did the newspapers of the time say about Tamerlane? Did they think it was good, bad, ugly?

Susan Lester:
[51:39] Yeah, so this is something interesting because there are commentaries in the newspapers that I’ve never seen in any historical account of the theater season. So there was an article by a gentleman with the initials SB, and so that’s like another sort of mystery, like who was SB? He seems to be somebody who was very familiar with the English theater. So he wrote a kind of detailed critique of all the characters in the following week. So he had good things to say. is very complimentary about all of the actors. He compared the soldier portraying Bazajet to Spranger Berry. So he was a London actor who rivaled David Garrick. So this was quite a compliment to the actor. He particularly liked the performances of the ladies. To quote him, we have reserved our choicest subject for the last. Apasia and Salima, so these are both female characters, were most agreeably performed. A sweet timidity prevented the full exertion of their powers, but that they felt the beauties of the poet, their expressive features, sufficiently inform us. I also thought it was funny that he remarked that the soldier playing the Prince of Tannis was that he was wholly engrossed in watching the ladies whenever he was not speaking.

Susan Lester:
[52:54] So clearly, well, it goes back to Sally Fletcher. I mean, I think a lot of the enjoyment of people going to the play were seeing the ladies of Boston. And obviously, they were amateur. I don’t think any of these young ladies had any previous theater. Right.

Jake:
[53:11] How could they have? So, Tamerlane gets some pretty good reviews. Did our local papers… Have good reviews of the blockade of Boston, or did they even have anything to say about the blockade of Boston?

Susan Lester:
[53:25] The newspaper reported that the tears created by the tragedy were soon dispelled by the humor of the farce, which was received with one continued shout of applause.

The Blockade of Boston’s Impact

Susan Lester:
[53:36] So again, it seems like the audiences were more interested in the comedies than the tragedies.

Jake:
[53:43] Yeah, I can’t blame them a bit. The Boston newsletter, which unlike the New England Chronicle and some others, but the Boston newsletter is still getting published in Boston at the time. And after this performance, it has ads for a new printing of Tamerlane that was getting sold in Boston, I think getting printed in Boston. Was that the typical outcome? Was it usual for a publisher to put out copies of the scripts here in town after a performance of a play?

Susan Lester:
[54:13] This was the only play that was announced to be printed. So it was being printed by John Howe. So I really wonder, were the other scripts in private libraries? You know, why was this particular one picked out? Perhaps it wasn’t a common play that other people would have. So obviously they had the scripts somewhere, so I guess they must have been coming from private libraries. He also printed, because that’s why we have the prologue of Zara, so that was a broadside, so that was printed. And the reason we have the songs from the blockade of Boston, that was also a broadside printed by him. And so, it’d be really – well, he’s a very interesting – he was a loyalist. He evacuated with the British. He continues to be in printing his entire life. He ends up in Canada. He was a spy for the British in the War of 1812. I mean, I think a really interesting character.

Jake:
[55:08] All right. So, you uncovered some interesting detail about Venice Preserved, which is a play that was performed in March of 1776. But before we get there… We just talked about a performance of Tamerlane in January. Was there anything happening in the theater in February 1776?

Susan Lester:
[55:29] The last plays that were performed in Boston were this last one with Tamerlane and Locate of Boston. However, in February, there were three balls and a reading of the book called The Wonder of Wonders, which is kind of a strange book about a man who had a vision of an angel, a devil, and a ghost, which had appeared to him the previous November. So even though they weren’t putting on plays, they were certainly still seeking out entertainment.

Jake:
[55:55] The Wonder of Wonders… A vision of an angel, a devil, and a ghost. That’s happening to somebody in Boston?

Susan Lester:
[56:03] Yeah. Yeah, I encourage you to go back and you can read the book. I thought it was quite strange. He thought it was sort of an omen of the future.

Jake:
[56:15] I mean, it sounds like it’s ripped straight from the pages of Increase Mather from like a hundred years before.

Susan Lester:
[56:21] Yeah, I’m sure it was quite an interesting reading.

Jake:
[56:24] Sounds like it. Okay, you also uncovered some evidence, I think from the press, indicating that there were some plays performed in March, March 4th, 1776, which is Venice Preserved, and then a comedy, The Brave Irishman, which I love is also known as Captain O’Blunder.

Post-Occupation Theater

Jake:
[56:43] What can you tell us about those?

Susan Lester:
[56:46] I’ve never seen any mention of these plays as part of the theater season during the siege in any other location. So like the other tragedies, Venice Preserved occurs in a faraway place in the past. People have conflicting loyalties, mistakes occur, people die. It’s all very sad. I highly recommend the comedies. I would not recommend them. Go read Shakespeare. You could skip the tragedies. However, I really did like The Brave Irishman. So Captain O’Blunder is an Irish officer who comes to London seeking love and fortune. So a lot of the humor comes from the different English accents, which result in misunderstandings. So I particularly like the characters of Dr. Clyster and Dr. Gallipod who are trying to treat the captain, but he keeps misinterpreting what they’re saying.

Jake:
[57:36] Which, I have to imagine, besides the accent play as a physician yourself, having the medical terminology get mispronounced and misunderstood has to add to the comedy a little bit.

Susan Lester:
[57:46] Exactly.

Jake:
[57:48] Now, I’ve gotten very used to saying that these plays are getting performed at Faneuil Hall, which was in its own way surprising, but this performance is not at Faneuil Hall. It’s in a more surprising, bordering on, shocking venue. Where was this late performance supposed to happen?

Susan Lester:
[58:10] The plan was to perform them at what they called the Theater on the Heights of Charlestown. So this would be the British fort built on Bunkers Hill after the battle. So I have General Howe’s orderly book, so you can follow movement of the troops. So troops were rotated from Boston to Charlestown every two weeks. You can imagine people didn’t really want to be out on the front lines across the river for a very long period of time. So the troops that were sent on February 22nd were the 4th, 5th, and the 10th regiments of foot in the grenadier company of the 44th regiment. And they’re only going to be there for two weeks. And so seven days later, the newspaper had put out this notice that they were going to give this performance. And so this is a very tight schedule because they would be coming back to Boston a week after that. And then I was wondering, because the comedy is about an Irishman outwitting the English, I wondered if the troops there were the Irish regiments. However, these regiments were not specifically from Ireland.

Jake:
[59:13] Part of the reason that I was so surprised when you said that this performance was happening in Charlestown, I mean, I just can’t imagine. What were the conditions like in British-occupied Charlestown after the incredibly bloody and destructive Battle of Bunker Hill?

Susan Lester:
[59:31] So, first of all, there is no Charlestown. It was burned down during the battle. And then during the raid on the, you know, at the first performance of the blockade of Boston, they were burning down what was – What little was left. Yeah, the remaining houses. So if Boston was grim, the fort on Bunker’s Hill had to be even rimmer. Because you’re up on this hill. So if you look to the west, it’s just these smoldering, burning ruins of Charlestown. To the south, it’s just this huge cemetery of trenches filled with hundreds of soldiers from Bunker, you know, from the battle. And when they look to the north, those are the colonial fortifications on Prospect Hill and Winter Hill manned by Americans who’d like to kill them. So just thinking, and then, you know, you’re in this little probably dirt fort. I don’t even think they had houses. Were they living in tents in the wintertime? I mean, talk about fortitude. It’s like under those conditions, like let’s put out a play. So they certainly planned to do so.

Jake:
[1:00:35] Yeah, I’m still amazed that in those conditions, really very unpleasant, your reaction is, all right, time for theater. Amazingly, on the very night when this performance is scheduled, that’s the night when the Continentals secretly overnight under the cover of darkness drag all of Henry Knox’s cannons up to the top of Dorchester Heights, dig these trenches, fortify the top of the hill. And on the morning of March 5th, the guns of Fort Tye are overlooking Boston down below, and it’s time to start considering getting the heck out of Dodge.

Susan Lester:
[1:01:15] Yeah, so when you look at General Howe’s orderly book, so cannonades were being exchanged on the nights of March 2nd, 3rd, and 4th, because the Americans were covering, setting up the cannons. And so, according to the orderly book, I mean, the British Army, they’re on full alert, and the people in Charlestown are, they’re right on the front lines. They were really expecting, you know, there to be a frontal attack on the lines. So I imagine they did not put on the play.

Jake:
[1:01:49] Yeah, it seems if you’re expecting a frontal assault by a superior force in hours, maybe it’s not the perfect time.

Susan Lester:
[1:01:57] Particularly because they specifically said, you know, this is going to be performed by soldiers and ladies. I don’t think the ladies were likely there.

Jake:
[1:02:07] So that’s the precipitating event, the guns of Fort Ty being taken up to the top of Dorchester Heights. That’s what precipitates the evacuation of Boston, which we’ll be celebrating very soon. On March 17th, the British are forced to sail away and take the occupying force elsewhere, first to Halifax and then New York and Point South. As the war moves on from Boston, did the other cities or areas where the Redcoats go and set up camp, Later on in the war, did they also have theater seasons?

Susan Lester:
[1:02:41] So there were much longer and more elaborate theater seasons in New York and Philadelphia during the British occupations. So again, it would be really interesting to know if these were inspired by the Boston Theater during the siege, or if this is something that British occupying forces often did, so I don’t know. You had mentioned previously Burgoyne’s army being captured at Saratoga. So they were eventually sent to southern prison camps, and there are records that his soldiers performed plays in the camps. And this was an opportunity for some colonists to see plays for the first time. Again, I don’t know if that was specific to his captured troops or if other captured troops would have done that as well. Then I also thought it was interesting that on the American side, George Washington approved of performances of plays at Valley Forge. And I know they put on the play Cato, which was one of his favorite plays. So, of course, this resulted in Congress passing a resolution to suppress theatrical entertainments, horse racing, gaming, and such other diversions as are productive of idleness, dissipation, and a general depravity of principles and manners. Again, as you brought up, this may be a difference. George Washington was from the South. A lot of the people passing these resolutions were from the North. So this may have been the North-South. as well as you pointed out an Anglican Puritan.

Susan Lester:
[1:04:07] Division. So as far as I know, Valley Forge was the only time that plays were performed by the American soldiers during the war.

Jake:
[1:04:15] The British are forced to leave Boston in March 1776. And after the declarations read in July 1776, the townspeople pull the lion and unicorn down from the top of the statehouse and burn them in the street. And there’s a quote from Abigail Adams about like the symbols of the crown are rejected everywhere and all the people say huzzah or something like that.

Reestablishing Theater in Boston

Jake:
[1:04:39] And so if the theater is so associated with this British occupation that’s now being totally rejected, how long does it take then for theater to come back to Boston? How long until theater is even permitted in Boston?

Susan Lester:
[1:04:54] It took quite a bit of time. So people would submit petitions to repeal the act to ban theater productions after the war, but they were without success.

Jake:
[1:05:04] So when it does finally come back around, what’s the first venue for theater, the first place where theater’s performed?

Susan Lester:
[1:05:11] So in 1792, a group of Bostonians built what was called the New Exhibition Room. So it was a hall that would seat 500 people, and it was located near where Downtown Crossing is today on Holly Street.

Jake:
[1:05:25] At this new exhibition room, this exhibition room, what was the entertainment that was offered? Was it all highbrow theater like we’ve heard about during the occupation?

Susan Lester:
[1:05:36] Well, I found it very amusing. It was kind of like a vaudeville show because they had people singing, you know, reading poetry. I thought these were particularly amusing. What they announced is that Monsieur Placide would dance a hornpipe on a tightrope and jump over a cane backwards and forwards. Master Henry would walk on his belly in the shape of a camel. I don’t even know what that means. And Master Manley would balance his whole body on the edge of a candlestick. He would also roll like a whale in the sea. So it sounded more like circus, really, which seems like the Puritans would have disliked as much, if not more, than theater. But eventually they did start presenting plays, but at first they called them moral lessons.

Jake:
[1:06:22] A little bit later, by the 1820s, I guess, the theater does become accepted in Boston, because I know that John Wilkes Booth’s father was a theater owner and manager at the Tremont Theater, which was in the space where the Tremont Temple is today, on Tremont Street, right by the Omni Parker Hotel. So certainly by the time the Tremont Theatre is open and being managed by the Booth Family Theatre is established here in Boston. So when was it legal or when could people openly perform plays? There’s still a 1750 ban on theatre. When does that go away?

Susan Lester:
[1:07:04] So in 1793, the Massachusetts legislature passed a bill to repeal the 1750 ban. However, interestingly enough, Governor John Hancock, staunch conservative, refused to sign it, leaving the ban still in effect.

Theater Ban Repeal

Susan Lester:
[1:07:21] However, it was generally ignored after that time, so they were putting on these other performances. But the ban wasn’t officially removed until 1806.

Jake:
[1:07:30] And then finally, we could have theater in Boston. I’m sitting here with you and looking at the stack of papers and books on your table, revealing all the extensive research you’ve done into the birth of theater in Boston, which happens thanks to the Redcoats, who we love to hate here in Boston. After all this research… Do you still have unanswered questions about early theater in Boston?

Susan Lester:
[1:07:55] Oh, I have tons of unanswered questions. One in particular would be fantastic for someone to find the lost script of the blockade of Boston. This is just sort of a mystery. I would love to see what Burgoyne had to write. I’d love to see. I’d love to know what Fan Fan, you know, had to say about her life in Boston. So maybe it still exists in the papers of one of the soldiers or loyalists that were in Boston during the siege. You know, we have these little hints, you know, we’ve known the names of three actors. We know who printed the vaudeville. Hopefully some could follow that up. It’d be interesting to know who SB was, who was the person writing in the paper. I’d also, I’d really enjoy seeing a reenactment of the busy body and the interrupted blockade at Fano Hall, because it’s so powerful to see a performance in the actual room where it happened to take a line from Hamilton. So excellent examples have been Revolution’s Edge at Old North Church and Blood on the Snow at the old statehouse. I remember seeing Blood on the Snow and having the actor actually go to the window where somebody would have stood and looked out and seen actual Blood on the Snow. So I hope historian detectives are out there. I think we’ve given them a lot

Conclusion and Future Research

Susan Lester:
[1:09:10] of breadcrumbs to follow. It would be wonderful if people followed up. And I hope a theater group is inspired to do a reenactment in Pano Hall. I’ll be there. I’ll be first in line.

Jake:
[1:09:22] Well, Susan, I have to say thank you so much for agreeing to join me on the show. Again, we have been talking about the possibility of this conversation for literally years now. And I’m glad that it’s finally happened. And thanks so much. Again, just looking at the extensive research that you’ve put into this topic. It’s obviously a labor of love. So thank you so much for sharing your thoughts with our listeners.

Susan Lester:
[1:09:45] Thank you and thank Nikki for all you’ve done for history in Boston. I really appreciate it.

Jake:
[1:09:50] Thank you. To learn more about early theater in Boston, check out this week’s show notes at hubhistory.com slash 344. We’re going to have a pretty long reading list that comes straight from Susan’s research. There are a few online resources, but most of what she gave us are books. If you decide you’d like to purchase any of these books, make sure to use the affiliate links that are in the show notes. Somebody just bought two copies of Stephen Ujafus’ book, Barons of the Sea, using my link, and that netted me almost $4.

Jake:
[1:10:24] $4 doesn’t sound like a lot, but it adds up over time, and every little bit helps when it comes to supporting the show. If you’d like to get in touch with us, you can email podcast at hubhistory.com. I still have profiles for Hub History on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram, and as at hubhistoryatbetter.boston on Mastodon. Lately, though, the only social media site where I’ve been posting regularly and actually interacting with listeners is BlueSky. And you can find me over there as hubhistory.com Sometimes it seems like everybody I know is taking a break or at least a step back from social media, so if that’s what you’re doing, just go to hubhistory.com and click on the Contact Us link. And while you’re on the site, hit the Subscribe link and be sure that you never miss an episode. If you subscribe on Apple Podcasts, please consider writing us a brief review. If you do, drop me a line, and I’ll send you a Hub History sticker as a token of appreciation. That’s all for now. Stay safe out there, listeners.