Category: 19th Century Theatre History

  • Long before Charlie Edwards produced Shakespeare for thousands, the plays had already become part of everyday life on the Great Plains.

    Building Kinsley, Reading Twain and Shakespeare
  • This project sits at the intersection of community theatre, rural cultural history, and queer history. Presented as an open-access, public-facing history, it seeks to recover the forgotten stories, overlooked people, and local artistic movements that helped shape American cultural life.

    Fairies in the Short Grass: The Charlie Edwards Project
  • Preston K Dillenbeck would enroll some of the world’s first film celebrities, and the up-and-coming teenage director from Kinsley, Kansas, Charlie Edwards. Subscribe to Community Arts Uncovered to learn how Dillenbeck’s school of elocution impacted film and theatre in the…

    Ephemeral Mysteries 3: Fulton and Trueblood’s School of Oratory
  • Gilmor Brown’s dramatic work became incredibly consequential, but is still rarely acknowledged in theatre history. More so, Gilmor’s educational efforts would go on to directly impact television and film luminaries, like Rue McClanahan, Leonard Nimoy, Dustin Hoffman, Sally Struthers, and…

    Gilmor Brown: From North Dakota to a Shakespearean impresario
  • 100 years ago today, a prolific and remarkable era in history ended in Kinsley, Kansas. On June 1, 1926, one of Kinsley’s most well-known native sons, Charles Rufus Edwards, passed away; he was only forty-five years old. In his short…

    100 Years Ago Today, an Era Ended in Kinsley, Kansas