Research

My published research explores nineteenth-century amateur theatricals as they intersected with contemporary commercial trends. Most detail how women manipulated contemporary gender expectations to achieve public voices. Some pieces also analyze how amateurs adopted and adapted to new developments in technology and publishing.

Amateur Biographies: Attempting to Fill Archival Gaps” Pamiętnik Teatralny, 71.3 (2022): 37-63.

The story of the Lawrence sisters adds another layer of challenge to writing an amateur biography: determining how to contextualize an ephemeral art form within the biographical history of two women and their friends when one sister left an autobiography that, interestingly, attempts to follow typical biographical structure and yet, upon deeper analysis, only introduces yet more unverifiable knowledge gaps. By acknowledging and analyzing those gaps and the challenges they present, an organic narrative can develop – a narrative which speaks to the complexities of this work and the challenges of telling the lives of those whom history might otherwise neglect. The biography becomes, thus, the story of women whose history is imperfectly recorded and a vehicle for a discussion of a popular art form which does not readily lend itself to being archived, while also providing a narrative of the historiographical and historical possibilities that the past presents through its gaps.

“Troubled Collaboration: Belasco, the Fiskes, and the Society Playwright, Mrs. Burton Harrison,” Journal of American Drama and Theatre 33.1 (2020).

In 1901, David Belasco sued to stop a production of Mrs. Burton Harrison’s The Unwelcome Mrs. Hatch just as it was about to open under the management of the Fiskes. Belasco claimed he had hired Harrison to write the piece, whereas she argued for a collaborative writing relationship which was never formalized with a production contract. This article analyzes the legal implications of the play’s collaborative writing and revision process, while situating that process and the resulting lawsuit in the competitive world of early twentieth-century New York producers and exploring the impact of these production conditions on aspiring female playwrights. Belasco’s attempts to co-opt and erase Harrison’s labor ultimately failed.

“Mutual Profiteering: Sensational Journalism, Society Columns, and Mrs James Brown Potter’s Theatrical Debuts,” Nineteenth Century Theatre and Film 46.1 (2019): 73-98.

In 1887 Cora Urquhart Brown Potter left behind her life as an amateur theatrical practitioner in elite New York City society and turned professional amid a newspaper maelstrom. This article explores how Potter used her agency and celebrity as a socialite to lay the foundation for a professional career in the press. By exploiting the concurrent expansion of sensational journalism and society page news, Potter encouraged the press to market her scandalous departure for the stage to sell papers and, in doing so, ensured that her transition from amateur to professional was newsworthy enough to sell tickets outside a traditional producing framework, even if perhaps her acting might not have been up to par.

“Parlor Conflagrations: Science and Special Effects in Amateur Theatricals Manuals,” Popular Entertainment Studies 6.1 (2015): 26-41.

The article analyzes the special effects advice contained in nineteenth-century guidebooks for amateur theatricals. Most of the guidebooks include instructions for potentially explosive effects while simultaneously steering amateurs away from technologically complex productions. By contextualizing the guidebooks within commercial theatrical and popular science publishing traditions, this article argues that the technological advice is included to appeal to a broader popular science readership as well as theatre patrons who are interested in the technology of the stage. 

“Amateur Economies: Widowhood and Marriage for Amateur Performers,” in “To Have or Have Not”: Essays on Commerce and Capital in Modern Theatre, edited by James Fisher, (McFarland & Co., 2011): 41-56.

Drama chosen by amateur theatricals performers also sought to counteract any potential societal critiques of immorality. This article discusses a set of popular plays which show young widows who remarry despite having achieved financial and societal freedom. The regular appearance of this character type tempers the actual power being expressed by the young women in these shows. 

“Recording Forbidden Careers: Nineteenth-Century Amateur Theatricals” in Scrapbooks, Snapshots and Memorabilia: Hidden Archives of Performance, edited by Glen McGillivray, (Peter Lang, 2011): 229- 248.

The latter half of the nineteenth century saw the confluence of fads for theatricals and scrapbooking. These combined with developments in newspaper publishing and society column reporting to enable performers to save public and private records of their productions. This article explores the historiographical questions raised by this interplay of sources in scrapbooks. 

“’a most dreadful position’: Amateur Reputations in a Professional World,” PAR 28: A Tyranny of Documents: The Performance Historian as Film Noir Detective: Essays Dedicated to Brooks McNamara, edited by Stephen Johnson, 28 (2011): 160-168.

This piece explores a scandal about a performance at the Lyceum Theatre in late winter of 1890. The extant documentation provides an alluring if unclear layering of society women interacting with the professional stage, despite lingering societal and familial concerns that a professional stage career might have been an inappropriate choice for members of the New York elite, as it certainly was for the Lawrence sisters in the eyes of their parents.

“A Shot over the Bow: William Gillette and Amateur Play Piracy,” Journal of American Drama and Theatre, 22 no.3 (2010): 23-41. 

In 1891, the Mansfield Amateur Dramatic Association ignored legal correspondence and continued with an unlicensed production of William Gillette's Held by the Enemy. The resulting lawsuit serves as the basis for an exploration of the uncertain legal terrain in which amateur performers and professional playwrights were operating at the end of the nineteenth century. While publishers - the so-called play pirates - printed unauthorized copies of plays in these days before robust international copyright laws, producers were presented with the choice to perform from pirated or licensed texts. Amateurs such as the Mansfield saw themselves as above these legal restrictions, but the playwrights and courts thought otherwise. 

“Tainted Money? Nineteenth Century Charity Theatricals,” Theatre Symposium: Theatre and Moral Order, 15 (2007): 52-73.

As the nineteenth-century progressed, more and more amateur performers took their theatricals out of private venues and into public spaces, including rented commercial theatres. For many, this move was fraught because of social approbation, but women in particular were able to shield themselves from moral criticism by performing for charity. By exploiting traditional class-based gender roles, the women could simultaneously gain public voices and perform theatricals, safely under the rhetorical cover of charitable giving.