ABSTRACT Title of Document: SHAKESPEARE’S STAGE IN AMERICA: THE EARLY HISTORY OF THE FOLGER ELIZABETHAN THEATRE Elizabeth Forte Alman, Doctor of Philosophy, 2013 Directed By: Franklin J. Hildy, School of Theatre, Dance and Performance Studies The Folger Shakespeare Library, a private research institution located in Washington, D.C., was founded by Henry and Emily Folger in 1932. The Folgers intended their memorial to William Shakespeare, a complex that includes a library, an exhibition hall and an Elizabethan-styled theatre, to promote research and the communication of that research to the citizenry. This study suggests the Folgers, influenced by the Elizabethan Revival movement, envisioned the Folger Elizabethan Theatre to be utilized as an important tool to extend the research function of the institution, a laboratory, of sorts, to further the type of performance research that William Poel, Nugent Monk, Harley Granville Barker, B. Iden Payne, and Ben Greet conducted in early modern production practices. Interestingly, however, performance research was not included as one of the Library’s activities at its founding. The author identifies and examines a number of myths of origin about Henry and Emily Folger, the Folger Shakespeare Library and the Folger Elizabethan Theatre, suggesting their promotion by Library officials and others has helped to obscure the Founders’ original intent for the Folger Elizabethan Theatre. Drawing on archival research this study attempts to re-contextualize the early history of the Folger Elizabethan Theatre with that of the Folger Shakespeare Library. SHAKESPEARE’S STAGE IN AMERICA: THE EARLY HISTORY OF THE FOLGER ELIZABETHAN THEATRE By Elizabeth Forte Alman Dissertation submitted to the Faculty of the Graduate School of the University of Maryland, College Park, in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy 2013 Advisory Committee: Professor Franklin J. Hildy, Chair Professor Heather S. Nathans Professor Daniel Conway Professor Kent Cartwright Professor Patrick Tuite © Copyright by Elizabeth Forte Alman 2013 Acknowledgements The final preparation of this document has benefited from the assistance of a number of people who helped to complete it in various ways. Franklin J. Hildy provided ample encouragement as well as practical and intellectual guidance throughout the course of writing this paper. He also served as an example of excellence in scholarly writing. For all of this, I cannot thank him enough. Ann Marie Thomas Saunders and Lee Alman assisted with or read various drafts, and their comments and notes have been incredibly helpful. As the work’s final readers, Heather S. Nathans, Dan Conway, Kent Cartwright, Patrick Tuite, and Franklin J. Hildy all offered constructive and insightful feedback. The research for this study involved consulting the holdings of a number of libraries and archives in the United States. I am eternally grateful for the tireless assistance offered by staff at these various institutions: the Folger Shakespeare Library, the Library of Congress, the Martin Luther King Public Library, the Philadelphia Athenaeum, the University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia Libraries, and the University of Arizona, Tuscon Libraries. I offer special thanks to Richard Khuta, Georgianna Ziegler, Elizabeth Walsh, and Michael Witmore for their encouragement and assistance with various aspects of this project. Finally, the completion of this project has only been possible through the indulgence and support of a number of people. To Sarah and Leonard Forte, whose love and encouragement saw the research and writing of this paper through a number of difficult stretches, I owe more than I can repay here. For those individuals who provided care of my brood so I could steal away a few hours to write: Ted and Renee ii Alman, Debbie Simon, Kerri Sendek, Fabiola Vaz and Elodie Garcia, I am eternally grateful for your help. Matthew, Caleb and Judah, besides being constant inspirations, have been remarkably understanding about why going to the library has sometimes trumped frolicking at the playground. And to David Alman, the finest editor, proofreader, muse and friend a person could hope for, I can only offer my love, and say that none of this would have been possible without you. iii Table of Contents Acknowledgements ....................................................................................................... ii Table of Contents ......................................................................................................... iv Introduction ................................................................................................................... 1 Chapter 1: A Shakespeare Memorial .......................................................................... 28 Section 1: The Folger-Emerson Myth..................................................................... 32 Subsection 1: Henry Clay Folger ........................................................................ 32 Subsection 2: A Passion for Shakespeare ........................................................... 38 Section 2: Nationalism and Other Reasons ............................................................. 61 Subsection 1: A Changeable Capital................................................................... 68 Section 3: The Folgers and The Theatre ................................................................. 83 Subsection 1: Emily Clara Jordan Folger ........................................................... 84 Subsection 2: Sharing Shakespeare .................................................................... 92 Subsection 3: Live Performance and Shakespeare ............................................. 95 Chapter 2: The Folger Shakespeare Theatre Architecture and the Elizabethan Revival Movement ................................................................................................................. 116 Section 1: Setting up for the Design Process ........................................................ 139 Subsection 1: Introducing the Project ............................................................... 146 Subsection 2: Consulting Architect Alexander Buel Trowbridge .................... 149 Subsection 3: Lead Architect Paul Philipe Cret ................................................ 150 Section 2: The Design Process Begins .................................................................. 153 Subsection 1: The Old Reading Room.............................................................. 155 Subsection 2: Designing the Theatre Space ...................................................... 158 Section 3: Cret’s Sources and Design ................................................................... 176 Subsection 1: Conclusion .................................................................................. 184 Chapter 3: Using the Theatre – the First Thirty-Eight Years.................................... 186 Section 1: The Folgers’ Intentions ........................................................................ 188 Section 2: Emily Folger’s School of Elocution .................................................... 202 Section 3: Filming Shakespeare at the Folger Elizabethan Theatre ..................... 233 iv Section 4: “Julius Caesar” and the Amherst Masquers at the Folger Elizabethan Theatre .................................................................................................................. 249 Chapter 4: Conclusion.............................................................................................. 262 Bibliography ............................................................................................................. 273 v Introduction O. B. Hardison Jr. (1928-1990), Director of the Folger Shakespeare Library from 1969 to 1984, considered the founding of the Folger Theatre Group in 1970 at the Folger Elizabethan Theatre as the private research institution’s singularly most important public program.1 The Library’s founders, Henry and Emily Folger (who bequeathed the Library to be administered by the Trustees of Amherst College, Henry Folger’s alma mater), included the Elizabethan-styled theatre in their Library project located in Washington, D.C. for the study of Shakespeare in performance.2 This theatrical activity was meant to complement the studying of Shakespeare as a literary and historical topic by advanced scholars in the Library’s Gail Kern Paster Reading Room.3 Shakespearean scholar W. B. Worthen helps to illuminate the difference between (and, for Worthen, the benefits of) considering Shakespeare from a performance perspective – versus solely a literary one in his 1997 Shakespeare and the Authority of Performance: In a schematic sense, a literary perspective takes the authority of a performance to be a function of how fully the stage expresses meanings, gestures, and themes located ineffably in the written work, the source of the performance and the measure of its success. Though performance may discover nuance and meaning not immediately available through reading or criticism, these meanings are nonetheless 1 Jed I Bergman with William G. Bowen and Thomas I. Nygren, Managing Change in the Nonprofit Sector: Lessons from the Evolution of Five Independent Research Libraries,” (San Francisco: Jossey- Bass Publishers, 1996); 80. 2 Chapter Three focuses on the Folger’s intent to found a public program of performance in the Folger Elizabethan Theatre. 3 This subject is discussed at length in Chapter Three.