A HISTORY OF THE BROOKLYN STAGE: ACROSS THE RIVER FROM BROADWAY (1898-1908): DECEMBER 1905

Digby Bell, center, in Act II of The Education of Mr. Pipp, Seattle's Grand Opera House, October 1906.

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).

DECEMBER 1905

*=novelties (recent plays new to Brooklyn)

December 4-9:
Bijou: (Spooner Stock Company) Mary of Magdala*
Broadway: Raffles, the Amateur Cracksman (Kyrle Bellew)
Folly: Fantasma
Grand Opera House: The Queen of the Highbinders
Imperial: (Imperial Stock Company) The Dancing Girl (vaudeville)
Majestic: The Isle of Spice
New Montauk: Fritz in Tammany Hall* (Joseph Cawthorne)
Payton’s Lee Avenue: (Payton Stock Company) Little Church Around the Corner
Phillips’ Lyceum: (Lyceum Stock Company) A Doctor’s Crime
Shubert-Park: That’s John’s Way (Melbourne MacDowell)
Vaudeville/burlesque: Hyde & Behman’s, Unique, Gotham, Gayety, Keeney’s, Star, Nassau, Alcazar, Amphion, Garden

December 11-16:
Bijou: (Spooner Stock Company) The Night Before Christmas
Broadway: Moonshine* (Marie Cahill)
Folly: Confessions of a Wife*
Grand Opera House: The Curse of Drink
Imperial: (Imperial Stock Company) The Butterflies (with vaudeville)
Majestic: Monte Cristo (James O’Neill)
New Montauk: The Education of Mr. Pipp (Digby Bell)
Payton’s Lee Avenue: (Payton Stock Company) Searchlights of a Great City (Etta Reed Payton)
Phillips’ Lyceum: (Lyceum Stock Company) Runaway Wife
Shubert-Park: Happyland* (De Wolf Hopper)
Vaudeville/burlesque: Hyde & Behman’s, Unique, Gotham, Gayety, Keeney’s, Star, Nassau, Alcazar, Amphion, Garden, Imperial

December 18-23:
Bijou: (Spooner Stock Company) Fanchon, the Cricket
Broadway: Miss Dolly Dollar (Lulu Glaser)
Folly: Secret Service Sam*
Grand Opera House: Queen of the Convicts*
Imperial: (Imperial Theatre Company) Miss Hobbs (with vaudeville)
Majestic: Oliver Twist; East Lynne (Saturday matinee only) (Eugenie Blair)
New Montauk: It Happened in Nordland (Lew Fields and company)
Payton’s Lee Avenue: (Payton Stock Company) Her Mad Marriage (Etta Reed Payton)
Phillips’ Lyceum: (Lyceum Stock Company) Leah, the Forsaken
Vaudeville/burlesque: Hyde & Behman’s, Unique, Gotham, Gayety, Keeney’s, Star, Nassau, Alcazar, Amphion, Garden

December 25-30:
Bijou: (Spooner Stock Company) The Belle of New York
Broadway: The Education of Mr. Pipp (Digby Bell)
Folly: The Duke of Duluth* (Nat M. Wills)
Grand Opera House: How Baxter Butted In* (Sidney Toler)
Imperial: (Imperial Theatre Company) The Christian (with vaudeville)
Majestic: The Belle of Avenue A* (Effie Fay)
New Montauk: De Lancey* (John Drew)
Payton’s Lee Avenue: (Payton Stock Company) Up York State (Corse Payton)
Phillips’ Lyceum: (Lyceum Stock Company) Lost in the World
Shubert-Park: The Heart of Maryland (Odette Tyler)
Vaudeville/burlesque: Hyde & Behman’s, Unique, Gotham, Gayety, Keeney’s, Star, Nassau, Alcazar, Amphion, Garden