Our American Cousin - Crimson Masque - Monmouth College Press Release

News Release

March 19, 2009

MC theatre group to perform 'Our American Cousin' at Orpheum

MONMOUTH, Ill. —While most of the nation celebrates the 200th anniversary of the birth of Abraham Lincoln, Monmouth College is taking a slightly different approach. The college’s theatre group is busy recreating the last thing that Lincoln saw.

Monmouth’s Crimson Masque will present “Our American Cousin” at Galesburg’s Orpheum Theatre. It’s the play that Lincoln was watching at Ford’s Theatre in Washington, D.C., when he was assassinated by John Wilkes Booth on April 14, 1865.

In addition to individual public performances on April 4 at 7:30 p.m. and April 5 at 2 p.m., there will be two free shows for area schoolchildren on April 3. Tickets for the public performances can be purchased in advance at The Orpheum Box Office, 250 E. Main St., by phone at 309-342-2299 or online at theorpheum.org.

“We’re going to try to help the audience understand what a performance would have been like at that time,” said the play’s director, theatre professor Bill Wallace, referring to technical elements, costumes and acting styles. “We want it to be as historically accurate as possible as we recreate for the audience what it would have been like in 1865.”

Part of that accuracy will come from specific elements of the play as it was performed on the fateful spring evening, Wallace explained.

“In reality, the Lincolns were late that night. We have a pit band that our music director, Steve Richter, has been kind enough to put together for us, and we will stop the production while they play ‘Hail to the Chief’ as the president enters.”

Wallace said that MC students will play the roles of the President and Mrs. Lincoln, as well as their guests that evening, Maj. Henry Rathbone and his fiancée, Clara Harris.

Accuracy will also come from the set itself. Theatre professor Doug Rankin, the production’s designer and technical director, and about a dozen of his students are recovering and repainting about 20 original stage flats dating to The Orpheum’s 1916 opening in a further attempt “to replicate as much of the feel as we can.”

“The flats are amazing,” said Rankin of the scene sections, which are 16-feet long and 5-feet, 9-inches wide. “We could not build them today. You can’t buy lumber that long and straight.”

“Dick Blick Art Materials (of Galesburg) has been extremely generous to help with the materials we’re using for the restoration of the flats,” said Rankin. The supplies include more than 100 yards of canvas, stencil materials and paint.

While performing at The Orpheum, Wallace said that the college’s Crimson Masque will be treated like any other visiting ensemble.

“We’re touring,” he said. “The Orpheum is handling the promotion and the ticket sales and helping us pay for the production.”

As for the three-act play itself, Wallace called “Our American Cousin,” which was written by Englishman Tom Taylor, a “very broad comedy and farce, making fun of the British aristocracy,” some of whom believe that typical Americans are “17 feet tall, dressed in buckskin, hunting buffalo.”

Wallace said the “American cousin,” Asa Trenchard, is somewhat “a bull in a China shop.” He claims to be the heir to a wealthy English estate, then falls in love with the granddaughter of one of his aristocratic relatives.

On the night of Lincoln’s assassination, “Our American Cousin” was taking the stage for its 1,000th night. The play helped launch the careers of Laura Keene, Joseph Jefferson and E.A. Sothern, who played the roles of Florence Trenchard, Asa Trenchard and Lord Dundreary. In the Crimson Masque production, those roles will be played by, respectively, junior Kate Drost of Naperville, freshman Michael T. Coates II of Chicago and freshman Brett Di Joseph of Naperville. They are part of a cast of 17, not including the presidential party, which features junior Kyle Tuor of Peoria as Abraham Lincoln.

“This is an excellent learning opportunity for our students – not just the ones involved in the production, but also our history and political science students,” said Wallace. “We think it’s a win-win all the way around … for our department, the college, The Orpheum and the general audience. I think it will also be valuable as an educational outreach to the community.”

Lincoln-related memorabilia from the Warren County Public Library’s Abraham Lincoln collection will be on display in The Orpheum’s lobby, and the educational element will also include a series of talks by MC faculty members, titled “And How Was the Play, Mrs. Lincoln?”

To be presented from 2 to 4:30 p.m. at The Orpheum prior to the April 4 performance, the talks will examine “West Central Illinois Participants in the Civil War” by Tom Best and “Conspiracy Theories Surrounding the Assassination of Abraham Lincoln” by William Urban. Stacy Cordery, bibliographer at the National First Ladies Library, will speak on “The Life of Mary Todd Lincoln,” and Wallace will give “A Production History of ‘Our American Cousin.’”

“We’re hoping that those who come on Saturday will make a day of it,” said Wallace. “They can come to the talks in the afternoon, then go out to dinner and come back for the evening performance.”

Released by the Office of College Communications
Barry McNamara, Associate Director of College Communications
Phone: 309-457-2117
Fax: 309-457-2330