ACROSS THE RIVER FROM BROADWAY: ANNALS OF THE BROOKLYN STAGE (1898-1908): MAY-JUNE 1904

Brooklyn-born star Robert Edeson in Ranson's Folly.

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 ACROSS THE RIVER FROM BROADWAY: ANNALS OF THE BROOKLYN STAGE (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).

MAY-JUNE 1904

*=novelties (recent plays new to Brooklyn)

May 2-7:
Bijou: (Spooner Stock Company) The Lady from Laramie
Broadway: The Sign of the Cross
Columbia: Sapho; East Lynne; Camille (Richard Buhler)
Folly: Wedded but No Wife
Gotham: Queen of the Highway
Grand Opera House: The Peddler (Joe Welch)
Montauk: Ranson’s Folly* (Robert Edeson, Laura Hope Crews)
Park: A Hidden Crime
Payton’s Lee Avenue: (Payton Stock Company) Payton’s Traveling Company
Phillips’ Lyceum: (Lyceum Stock Theatre) Little Lord Fauntleroy
Vaudeville/burlesque: Hyde & Behman’s, Star, Watson’s, Unique, Gayety, Keeney’s, Novelty

May 9-14:
Bijou: (Spooner Stock Company) Adrienne Lecouvreur
Broadway: The Show Girl
Columbia: King of Detectives
Folly: Out of the Fold* (Sylvia Bidwell)
Grand Opera House: Kellar (magician)
Montauk: Red Feather (Grace Van Studdiford)
Park: The Signal Lights of Port Arthur*
Phillips’ Lyceum: (Lyceum Stock Theatre) The Crimes of New York
Vaudeville/burlesque: Hyde & Behman’s, Star, Watson’s, Unique, Gayety, Keeney’s

May 16-21:
Bijou: (Spooner Stock Company) A Bachelor’s Romance
Broadway: The Governor’s Son (the Four Cohans)
Folly: Shadows of a Great City
Park: The Little Mother
Phillips’ Lyceum: (Lyceum Stock Theatre) Camille
Vaudeville/burlesque: Hyde & Behman’s, Star, Watson’s, Unique, Gayety, Keeney’s, Columbia

(this list is temporarily incomplete)

1. May 2-7, 1904