Hackett. Later that same year, the 3,000-seat Bowery Theatre opened; it was the first playhouse to have both a press agent and glass-shaded gas-jet lighting. The grand new venue would soon become legendary for the frequently rowdy working-class theatergoers it would attract. Over the next 20 years, Americans flocked to the New York theater district in increasing numbers, and in 1849, when the celebrated British actor William Macready broughthis
Macbeth to the Astor Place Opera House, Edwin Forrest supporters turned out en masse to protest the British star. On May 10th, a riot of over 1,000 resulted in the death of 22 people.
During the mid-nineteenth century, the biggest stars of the American theater were Fanny Kemble and Edwin Booth. Booth's 100 performances of Hamlet at the Winter Garden would stand as a record for the Shakespearean tragedy until John Barrymore's 1923 production. In addition to European classics, among the most popular of American plays was Uncle Tom's Cabin, which, in its first production, ran for 325 performances. But while both dramas and melodramas drew steady audiences, a new kind of revue called vaudeville, featuring burlesques and other musical entertainment, was beginning to come into fashion at the Olympic Theatre.
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