Anna Cora Mowatt and Henry Spicer’s “Witch-Wife”
Originally posted Oct. 19, 2020 For the next two weeks, I’ve planned to write about a drama written expressly as a starring vehicle for...
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Jul 4, 202314 min read
Anna Cora Mowatt and the London Critics
Originally Posted Oct. 12, 2020 Actors say, “I never read reviews.” This declaration is almost never literally true. What they actually...
Jul 4, 202313 min read
The Unsinkable Mrs. Warner
Originally published October 5, 2020 The year 1850 began so well for Mary Warner and Walter Watts. Their careers seemed to be right on...
Jul 4, 202312 min read
Mr. and Mrs. Warner and Unromantic Loose Ends
Originally published Sept. 28, 2020 After more than a month of extending and vamping, I am going to return to what was supposed to have...
Jul 3, 202311 min read
Mr. Watts and the Extortionists
Originally posted Sept. 21, 2020 When I said that Walter Watts had a relatively good reputation for London theatrical manager of the...
Jul 3, 20237 min read
The Fall of Walter Watts
Originally published Sept. 7, 2020 Doubtlessly, I have given you the impression that the Watts Scandal blew up and broke quickly in the...
Jul 3, 202310 min read
Mr. Warner and Mr. Watts
Originally posted on August 31, 2020 Last week, I ended with a bit of a cliffhanger. I informed you that Robert Warner, husband of...
Jul 3, 202310 min read
Mr. and Mrs. Warner
Originally published August 24, 2023 [Just a quick note before I begin — In order to accommodate the amount of new information that I...
Jul 3, 20239 min read
Warner/Macready and “Hamlet” at the Marylebone
Originally published August 17, 2020 As you may intuit from the title of this week’s blog, I am not yet ready to wrap up my series on...
Jul 3, 202310 min read
Mary Warner of the Marylebone
Originally published Aug. 11, 2020 One doesn’t expect to get breaking news on a story that’s one hundred and seventy years old, but late...
Jul 3, 202310 min read
Anna Cora Mowatt and Mary Warner, Grand Dame of the Marylebone
Originally published August 3, 2020 If the Watts Scandal were a musical or a movie, I would want to play Mary Warner. She may not fit our...
Jul 3, 202310 min read
Anna Cora Mowatt and The Rag-Picker of Paris
Originally published July 27, 2020 I want to start today’s entry with a complaint about standard volumes of nineteenth century theater...
Jul 2, 20237 min read
Anna Cora Mowatt and the Cynical Mr. Stirling
Originally Posted on July 17, 2020 If I had written the story of the Watts Scandal as a melodrama and wished to cast it from the pool of...
Jul 2, 202313 min read
Anna Cora Mowatt and Walter Watts’ Irish Engagement
Originally posted July 6, 2020 This week I’m going to take a little break from a narrow focus on Anna Cora Mowatt and talk about the one...
Jul 2, 20236 min read
Anna Cora Mowatt and the Art of Crisis Communication
Originally posted May 16, 2020 As he lay dying, James Mowatt gave his wife three sealed letters. One contained detailed instructions on...
Jul 2, 20233 min read
Anna Cora Mowatt and the Silver Vase
Originally published May 4, 2020 I haven’t devoted a blog to the Watts scandal for some time now. It has not left my thoughts, though....
Jul 2, 20235 min read
Anna Cora Mowatt and the Ill-Starred Lovers
Part I - Gustavus V. Brooke Originally published March 16, 2020 In keeping with the celebration of St. Patrick’s Day, I want to come back...
Jul 2, 20238 min read
Anna Cora Mowatt and the Luck of the Irish
Originally published March 9, 2020 Although he’s been dead for almost one hundred and seventy years now, Walter Watts does not cease to...
Jul 1, 20237 min read
Anna Cora Mowatt and Princess Zuela – Part III
Originally published Feb. 17, 2020 December 22, 1849 marked the beginning of a truly awful fourteen month period filled with tragedy,...
Jul 1, 20236 min read
Anna Cora Mowatt and Princess Zuela — Part II
Originally posted Feb. 10, 2020 Last week, I know that I said that I thought Anna Cora Mowatt had used “Harlequin Fairy-land,” a...
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