The actor Edwin Forrest (1806-1872) was the first great American-born tragedian. Heroic in technique, he was acclaimed by the popular audience but often scorned by the cultured. His career had important social and political implications. Edwin Forrest,...

On a cold New York City night in mid-December, 1829, a twenty-two-year-old actor named Edwin Forrest revolutionized both the art of public speaking and the history of American drama. The audience who came to the Park Theatre that night not only witnessed a...

"Riot," as punk rocker Chaz Ruffino once observed, is at the heart of "patriotism." Which is apparently why the B'hoys, the legendary nineteenth-century New York City gang of the Bowery, tore up the city's toniest opera house 153 years ago in a melee...