Lithograph of Broadway and City Hall by John Bachman, circa 1850.
Today at noon, join us for Behind the Curtain, a unique virtual look at New York City’s earliest theaters—the birth of Broadway—through images of its locations, its builders and managers, and the actors who made history on its stages. Join downtown theater-maker Ralph Lewis of Peculiar Works Project for a virtual tour up Broadway and the Bowery from Lower Manhattan to Astor Place.
Broadway from Bowling Green, 1828, James Gordon Bennett.
Inspired by a rare 1851 book, Before and Behind the Curtain by William Knight Northall, Lewis shares the writer’s passion for the struggles and the growth of theater in New York City, from a single venue to an entire Theater District. See the sites today where the first theaters once stood, why they succeeded, and what became of them, with over-the- top anecdotes from the book and over 100 images. For anyone interested in American popular theater and its New York City history, this is the down-n-dirty story of how the Great White Way was born!
This live talk is organized for Untapped New York Insiders — get two months free with code STAYHOME. A video of the talk will also be made available to all our Insiders afterwards in the Video Archive section of our website.
