The Decline of a Shakespearean Tradition in Charleston, South Carolina, 1869–1900

Abstract

The Academy of Music in Charleston, South Carolina, opened its doors in December 1869 to a public who, according to the local newspaper, “for the past four years … had been sighing for, writing for, combining for, and begging for–a first class Opera House and Theatre.” This first post-Civil War theatre in Charleston had inherited a theatre history dating back to as early as 1703, as well as an ardent and long-standing interest in Shakespearean playgoing which, despite the Civil War's devastating interruption, continued to be an essential part of the city's way of life for the next two decades. Because of its importance as both a literary and a drama centre before the Civil War, Charleston has already attracted the attention of several theatre historians, and numerous studies have been made of this city's brilliant antebellum stage. However, there were no records of Charleston's post-Civil War theatre until I undertook my study of the Academy of Music, the principal playhouse between 1869 and 1936—indeed, its only post-Civil War theatre except for approximately seven years between 1888 and 1893 when the Charleston Opera House offered sporadic entertainment. Particularly in the first three decades of the Academy of Music, the worlds of audience and stage seem to have coincided to a remarkable degree. Charleston's theatre years between 1869 and 1899 offer insights into the changing cultural attitudes and needs of an impoverished Southern city as its leaders struggled to meet the challenges of that difficult time. The best theatrical index to such cultural changes I have found is the degree of the Charlestonians' response to Shakespearean drama during these transitional years.