Theatre Design & Technology - Winter 1975 - 18

History of New York City from Discovery to the Present Day

(New York: Virtue and Yorston, 18721. p. 670.

2Blbid .

29Honaker, p. 129.

12Stone, p. 610.

30Bunce, p. 590.

13The available sources do not totally agree as to the arrangement
or number of seats in each section, nor with the naming of the
tiers. The parquet, orchestra and first balcony capacity is from the
seating plan (Figure 3) and the upper two galleries are from
Gerald L. Honaker, "Edwin Booth, Producer - A Study of Four
Productions at Booth's Theatre" (unpUblished Ph .0. Dissertation,
Indiana University, Bloomington, 19691. p. 104, who maintains
that his information came from a notation by Booth found at
the bottom of an article from the Evening Traveler dated February 3, 1869 (presumably in the files at the Walter Hampden
Memorial Library, New York). The section and tier nomenclature
was taken from Stone, p. 610, which seems to agree with most
of the commentaries, as well as t e general practice of the time.
14Harper's Weekly, p. 32.

15Honaker maintains that "without a doubt there were ten
proscenium boxes, five on each side" (p. 1071. but he offers no
evidence to substantiate his claim. Brown also states that there
were five boxes (p. 941. but Winter, writing a number of years
earlier, opts for three (p. 49). Of the pictorial evidence., Figure 4
shows three boxes. Figure 5 (after the 1879 modifications) depicts
three full size boxes, surmounted by a smaller box above the
curtain line which may not have been functional. The use of five
boxes within a 40-50footcurtain height does not seem reasonable,
especially when it is noted that the Academy of Music in Philadelphia (built in 1857) can only accommodate two boxes within
a proscenium of a similar size to Booth's. Three functional boxes
on each side would appear to be the practical limit in this case.

31 0live Logan, "The Secret Regions of the Stage," Harper's
New Monthly Magazine, December, 1873, p. 629.
321bid

33Logan, p. 629.
34Bunce, p. 529.
350dell , VIII, p. 423.
36Bunce, p. 591.
37Honaker,p.117
38 1t is generally assumed, but not verified, that when Mme.
Vestris toured the U.S. in 1838 she may have utilized the box-set
principle of staging that she had originated in England a few
years before. Also, E.W. Mammon stated in The Old Stock
Company School of Acting (Boston, 1945, p. 30), that, while
Booth's Hamlet in 1869 was the first New York usage of the
box-set, the Boston Museum had used one in 1862 [found in
Nicholas A. 'Vardac, Stage to Screen (Cambridge: Harvard
University Press, 19491. pp. 15·16]. Vardac also maintains that
a box-set was utilized in a production of The Corsican Brothers
at New York's Bowery Theatre in 1852.
39Bunce, p. 591.
40 0dell , VIII, p. 423.
41 Logan, p. 629.

Continued on Page

16Calhoun, p. 86.
17Honaker, p. 106.

1200 WATT
HI·LITE
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180 .B. Bunce, "Behind, Below and Above the Scenes," "Appleton's
Journal, 111 (May 28, 1870), p. 590.

19Seventeen-inch seats were used in American theatres at least
up to the turn of the century (the writer has some from that
period that came from the Walnut Street Theatre in Philadelphia).
20Honaker, p. 106.

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21 lbid.

22Calhoun p. 86.
23Evidence for a 45 foot opening is based primarily upon the
layout and spacing of the front seats as indicated in the post-1879
seating plan (Figure 31. and by the room required for the boxes
and their associated stairs and passageways.
24The 45 foot trim height is scaled from Figures 4 and 5 and is
compatible with the sight·line requirements of the fly-gallery.
25Honaker, p. 112.
26 No contemporary sources mention the length of the south
wing of the structure. However, the picture of the paint room
(Figure 6) shows no ceiling up to at least 30 or 40 feet above
the stage floor level, which argues against any overhead rooms
in this part of the wing. If the wing covered the total length of the
main structure, then the remaining 98 feet not occupied by the
paint room would provide a space 486 linear feet (less wall thicknesses) by about 10 feet wide (subtracting the aisle spaces) for the
required rooms and a "convenient staircase" (Winter, p. 51). Also,
Winter mentions that there were "five stories of rooms at the
south side of the Theatre" , which might be construed to mean
that portion relegated to the aud ience.
27Harper's Weekly, p. 22.

WINTER,1975

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Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Theatre Design & Technology - Winter 1975