Classicism in New York Theatre Architecture: 1825–1850

• Published in: Theatre survey 1965-05, Vol.6 (1), p.12-31
• Main Author: Lewis, Stanley T.
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• ISSN: 0040-5574; 1475-4533
• DOI: 10.1017/S0040557400008401

Nathaniel Currier's spectacular lithograph of the “Great Riot at the Astor Place Opera House, New York” (1), is one of the most well-known images depicting a nineteenth-century U.S. theatre building left to us by the popular pictorial reporting of that prephotographic era. The background of the event in terms of drama history is familiar, when It is the building itself, as a theatrical monument, that we tend to overlook, except for its appeal as a bygone relic, and architecturally it is easy to dismiss it as simply another manifestation of the rage which was caustically described by the New York correspondent of The Architectural Magazine (London) in 1834: One factor which discourages the theatre historian is the difficulty of relating any one theatre of the period with other examples in a city, let alone the country.