A HISTORY OF THE BROOKLYN STAGE: ACROSS THE RIVER FROM BROADWAY (1898-1908): APRIL 1898

This blog is dedicated to preserving a record of Brooklyn theatre theatre-related images based largely on publication in nearly a half-dozen contemporary Brooklyn newspapers and one weekly magazine (Brooklyn Life) of 1898-1908. It also lists the week-by-week productions at each legitimate theatre from January 1898 through December 1908. It is adapted from my earlier blog, BROOKLYN THEATRE FROM 1898: AN ILLUSTRATED CHRONOLOGY and is intended as a supplement to a forthcoming two-volume book also called A HISTORY OF THE BROOKLYN STAGE: ACROSS THE RIVER FROM BROADWAY (1898-1908).

The book covers everything related to Brooklyn theatre during the first decade of the former city's first decade as a borough of Greater New York, including plays, playhouses, productions, people, producing policies, scandals, lawsuits, fires, accidents, brawls, ethnic theatres, crimes, religious attacks, rivalry with Manhattan, and so on. The focus is on legitimate theatre, but considerable attention is paid to developments in vaudeville and burlesque as well.

To find a specific month, please use the search box in the upper left corner. May-June and August-September are always joined, so searches for one of those months should be, for example, May-June 1906.

Samuel L. Leiter

Author: BROOKLYN TAKES THE STAGE: NINETEENTH-CENTURY THEATER IN THE CITY OF CHURCHES (McFarland: 2024).

APRIL 1898

*=novelties (recent plays new to Brooklyn)

April 4-9
Bijou: Northern Lights
Columbia: The Ballet Girl*
Gayety: The Sunshine of Paradise Alley

Grand Opera House: Lucia di Lammermoor and Cavalleria Rusticana, with the Jaxon Opera Company

Montauk: The Princess and the Butterfly* (Mary Mannering, James K. Hackett, Julie Opp)
Park: Waifs of New York (Merry Katie Emmett)
Vaudeville/burlesque: Hyde & Behman’s, Brooklyn Music Hall, Empire, Star

April 11-16
Bijou: McFadden’s Row of Flats

Brooklyn Academy of Music: The Country Girl, The School for Scandal, The Taming of the Shrew (Ada Rehan)

Columbia: The Ballet Girl
Gayety: Uncle Tom’s Cabin (Mabel Taliaferro)
Montauk: The Wedding Day (Lillian Russell, Della Fox, Jeff De Angelis)
Park: Out in the Streets (N. S. Wood)
Vaudeville/burlesque: Hyde & Behman’s, Brooklyn Music Hall, Empire, Star

April 18-23
Bijou: Hamlet, Othello, Julius Caesar, Romeo and Juliet, Spartacus (Louis James)
Columbia: The Fair at Midgettown (Royal Lilliputians)

Gayety: East Lynne (Wilton Lackaye, Nance O’Neil)
Grand Opera House: Il Trovatore (in English; Jaxon Opera Company)
Montauk: A Virginia Courtship* (William H. Crane)
Park: A Romance of Coon Hollow
Vaudeville/burlesque: Hyde & Behman’s, Brooklyn Music Hall, Empire, Star

April 25-30
Bijou: The Two Orphans, with Kate Claxton
Columbia: Oh! Susanna!, “Dangerfield ‘95”* (Annie Russell)
Grand Opera House: Il Trovatore (Jaxon Opera Company)
Montauk: El Capitan (De Wolf Hopper)
Vaudeville/burlesque: Hyde & Behman’s, Brooklyn Music Hall, Empire, Star, Gayety

APRIL 4-9, 1898