The Mormons and the Theatre; or, The History of Theatricals in UtahLindsay, John S. (John Shanks)
Religion
The Mormons and the Theatre; or, The History of Theatricals in Utah
Lindsay, John S. (John Shanks)
Latter Day Saints; Theater -- Utah -- History
The Bush Street theatre season ended rather ingloriously soon after
the New Year holiday. I had on the very morning preceding our closing
night, received a telegram from Mr. Piper of Virginia City, offering
me the leading business for the remainder of the season, but declined
it, believing the Bush would struggle along. That night we had a new
piece on, "The Circus Queen," and it proved such a failure that Tom
Maguire decided to close, which he did without any previous notice, so
the entire company were out of a job. Next morning I lost no time
wiring to Piper to know if the engagement was still open to me and in
a few hours I had received the agreeable answer "yes" and took the
train the same day for Virginia City. I had been there about three
weeks when I met T. B. H. Stenhouse, who was there writing up the
Comstock mines for the New York Herald. He said to me, "They need you
in Salt Lake badly; why don't you wire them? Katherine Rogers opens
there Monday night for a two weeks' engagement and they have no
competent leading man to support her." "Well," I said, "they know
where I am. If they want me why don't they wire me?" "Will you go,"
said he, "if I wire for you and get you the engagement?" "Yes," I
replied, "I shall be glad to go, for I am tired of this." So he went
right off and wired, and the next day I left for home, but did not
arrive in time to open with Miss Rogers in the opening bill, but got
in on the second night and played throughout the rest of the
engagement.
I had been absent from October 14th, 1874, to January 26th, 1875, a
little over three months, during which time the following attractions
appeared at the Salt Lake Theatre: The Wheeler Comedy troupe, October
29th to 31st. On November 2nd, Risley's Panorama "Mirror of England"
opened for a week. On the 13th and 14th the Infantry combination. On
the 16th Frank Mayo and Rosa Rand opened a week's engagement
presenting "Davy Crockett" and "Streets of New York." On the 25th
Agnes Booth and Joseph Wheelock opened in "Much Ado About Nothing,"
and filled out a week with "King John" and the comedy "Engaged." On
December 2nd R. H. Cox, familiarly known as "Daddy Cox," among
professionals on the coast, opened a four nights' engagement with "The
Detective," which went for two nights. The other two nights he gave
"The Bells That Rang Nellie a Bride." Daddy Cox had recently left
Piper's theatre in Virginia City, where he had been stage manager for
a time.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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