Theatre Design & Technology - Winter 2011 - 32

The Most Successful
Dramatist of the Period
The Shaughraun premièred in New York in
1874, where it enjoyed enormous popular success. It tells the story of a wealthy Irishman
wrongfully convicted of being a Fenian rebel
and his shaughraun (vagabond) friend's efforts
to help him. The play includes villains, daring
escapes, double crosses, love at first sight, and
damsels in distress, among other elements essential to melodrama. Dion Boucicault (b. 1820,
d. 1890) was perhaps the most prolific and influential actor, playwright, producer, manager
and American theatrical innovator of the nineteenth century. Boucicault actually founded the
first American school of acting. Boucicault not
only influenced the practices and conventions
of his contemporaries in the theater, but he
also brought important social and cultural issues of historical significance to the stage, such
as race, slavery and political issues. Although
many of Boucicault's plays contain serious social commentary, he was also a true entertainer.
He delighted his audiences with elaborate stage
sets, original musical scores, and exciting stage
theatrics, such as real burning buildings and
horse races. He brought melodrama and free
adaptations of French popular stories and novels to the States, and thereby helped to solidify
theater as the main form of entertainment for
all classes on both sides of the Atlantic in the
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late 1800s. After he had gained notoriety for his
work, he began to incorporate Irish material
into his original plays. The noted theatre historian Oscar Brockett called Boucicault, "The
most successful dramatist of the period (18221890)."
Louise Thorndyke, who became Boucicault's third wife when he was sixty-four and
she was twenty-one, inherited Boucicault's
manuscripts and plays at his death in 1890.
During the Depression, when Boucicault's play,
The Poor of New York, was having a successful revival, she sold her collection to novelist
Fitzhugh Green, who in turn sold it in 1956 to
Jack Clay, Professor of Theatre at the University of South Florida. The University of South
Florida purchased the Dion Boucicault collection in the 1960s from Professor Clay. Now the
property of the Special Collections Department
of the University of South Florida Tampa Campus Library, the collection is the most significant source of Boucicault material available in
public hands in U.S. institutions.
An Important and
Accessible Archive
The Boucicault Archive at USF contains unique
materials of tremendous importance to scholars
of the nineteenth century, whether their interests lie in the American theatre or the European,
for Boucicault is one of the few figures of the
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period to have stature and pertinence in both.
The University of South Florida (Libraries Digitization Center (LDC)) has digitized much of the
largest public collection of original hand-written plays and related materials. This is a matter
of considerable importance to those of us who
know how easily fire, or earthquake, or other
natural or political disaster, can wipe out irreplaceable materials.
The Boucicault collection consists of
approximately 800 items, including printed
and manuscript play scripts, sides, stage directions, letters, prompt books, photographs
and musical scores. The material spans his
career from 1843 (A Fallen Angel, produced
in London, Box #1) to 1887 (Fin McCool,
Box #13). The collection includes his own
French translations and other work from the
years 1844 to 1848 when he lived in France
while mastering French romantic drama and
melodrama. The collection includes three
promptbooks and many pictures from The
Shaughraun, one showing Boucicault as Conn
and six other photos. Promptbook #1 contains
the printed script with handwritten notes and
markings. The handwriting may be from four
different people. Some notes appear to be in
Boucicault's handwriting. The first production
of The Shaughraun was staged at Wallack's
Theatre at Broome Street and Broadway in
New York.

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Theatre Design & Technology - Winter 2011