American Presidents Attend The Theatre

Not every presidential visit to the theatre is as famous as Lincoln’s last night at Ford’s, but American presidents attended the theatre long before and long after that ill-fated night. In 1751, George Washington saw his first play, The London Merchant, during a visit to Barbados. John Quincy Adams published dramatic critiques. William McKinley avoided the theatre while in office, on professional as well as moral grounds. Richard Nixon met his wife at a community theatre audition. Surveying 255 years, this volume examines presidential theatre-going as it has reflected shifting popular tastes in America.

Based upon a collection of true stories. What does it take to be The President of the United States? What kind of person? THE FOUR PRESIDENTS examines these questions as it looks at the lives and characters of four of the most colorful personalities to hold the office. Much of the dialogue comes from the Presidents' own words. THE FARMER WHO WOULD BE KING presents George Washington to the audience through his own words, and the words of his biographer Mason Locke Weems. Was the father of our country a simple farmer who answered the call of his countrymen, or was his destiny preordained? Or is the truth located somewhere in the middleground? THE GREAT EMANCIPATOR is the story of a simple man. Born in the wilds of Kentucky and mostly self taught, Abraham Lincoln would someday be regarded as the greatest American who ever lived. This play presents him as the storyteller he was. Complete with his Gettysburg Address. THE BULL MOOSE who occupied the White House 100 years ago was truly a man of action. Theodore Roosevelt was a father, author, rancher, sportsman, policeman, Rough Rider, cowboy, big game hunter, Governor of New York and eventually The President of the United States! He believed that power should be used to help the little man, and he practiced what he preached! NIXON AND THE GHOSTS is a surreal drama with dialogue ripped straight from the headlines. On the night before his resignation, Nixon ponders his rise and fall, as the shadows themself seem to come alive and he is confronted by the spirits of Presidents past! Check out www.blackboxtheatrepublishing.com for other great plays!!!

April 14, 1865. A famous actor pulls a trigger in the presidential balcony, leaps to the stage and escapes, as the president lies fatally wounded. In the panic that follows, forty-six terrified people scatter in and around Ford’s Theater as soldiers take up stations by the doors and the audience surges into the streets chanting, “Burn the place down!” This is the untold story of Lincoln’s assassination: the forty-six stage hands, actors, and theater workers on hand for the bewildering events in the theater that night, and what each of them witnessed in the chaos-streaked hours before John Wilkes Booth was discovered to be the culprit. In Backstage at the Lincoln Assassination, historian Thomas A. Bogar delves into previously unpublished sources to tell the story of Lincoln’s assassination from behind the curtain, and the tale is shocking. Police rounded up and arrested dozens of innocent people, wasting time that allowed the real culprit to get further away. Some closely connected to John Wilkes Booth were not even questioned, while innocent witnesses were relentlessly pursued. Booth was more connected with the production than you might have known—learn how he knew each member of the cast and crew, which was a hotbed of secessionist resentment. Backstage at the Lincoln Assassination also tells the story of what happened to each of these witnesses to history, after the investigation was over—how each one lived their lives after seeing one of America’s greatest presidents shot dead without warning. Backstage at the Lincoln Assassination is an exquisitely detailed look at this famous event from an entirely new angle. It is must reading for anyone fascinated with the saga of Lincoln’s life and the Civil War era.

Playbook

Over the past two years Mark Peterson has photographed American presidential candidates as they lead rallies, meet with voters and plead for votes. He started shortly before the government shutdown in 2013 at a Tea Party rally at the US Capitol, when politicians were railing against President Obama and the Affordable Care Act--a show to get a sound bite into the next news cycle. Since then Peterson has followed the political spin as it approaches the November 2016 election. Donald Trump's entrance into the race--taking control of TV talking heads and making the media his press agent--is true political theatre. In a similar gesture, Bernie Sanders raised an arm in a power salute to waiting photographers after giving a speech in New Hampshire. Peterson pulls back the curtain on such performances to show these politicians as they really are. Although they are in plain sight, they hide behind words and carefully arranged imagery to project their vision of America. Peterson cuts through such staging and reveals the cold, naked ambition for power.