Friday 25 November 2011

Willaim Shakespeare, John Wilkes Booth and Mercy Coles, New York City

Today November 25th, 1864, also a Friday, the Booth brothers below put on a benefit performance for one night only, the first and only time they performed together, to raise money for this statue of William Shakespeare in Central Park New York City. (It was April 14, 1865 when John Wilkes Booth assassinated Lincoln.)

On top of that, less than an hour into the performance Confederates set fire to the city and to the house attached to the theatre. The New York Times called it "one of the most fiendish and inhuman acts known in modern times," Read more here

Less than 2 weeks earlier Mercy Coles and her parents were at the same theatre. Just interesting I think, all the connections of one thing to another.

 

Julius Caesar at The Winter Garden Theatre, with John Wilkes Bookth, Edwin Booth and Junium Brutus Booth Jr.

1 comment:

R.B. said...

So sad that such a smart and talented man was so hell bent on doing evil. -Rebekah

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