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The America Play
''The America Play'' is a two-act play that was written by Suzan-Lori Parks in 1993. The play follows an African-American gravedigger who loves and resembles Abraham Lincoln, so much so that he also works as a Lincoln impersonator. For this reason he is referred to throughout the play as the "Foundling Father." As an impersonator he charges his customers a penny to take part in a reenactment of Lincoln's assassination. Productions ''The America Play'' ran at Yale Repertory Theatre in January 1994, directed by Liz Diamond, with Reggie Montgomery as The Foundling Father. The play was then produced Off-Broadway at the Public Theater from February 22, 1994, to March 27, 1994. The play was directed by Liz Diamond, and featured Reggie Montgomery as The Founding Father. ''The America Play'' was produced at the Theater@Boston Court from October 14, 2006, to November 19, 2006. The play was directed by Nancy Keystone and featured Harold Surratt as The Foundling Father. Characters The ...
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Suzan-Lori Parks
Suzan-Lori Parks (born May 10, 1963) is an American playwright, screenwriter, musician and novelist. Her 2001 play ''Topdog/Underdog'' won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 2002; Parks was the first African-American woman to receive the award for drama. Early life and education Parks was born in Fort Knox, Kentucky. She grew up with two siblings in a military family. Parks enjoyed writing poems and songs and created a newspaper with her brother, called the "Daily Daily." Parks was raised Catholic and attended high school in West Germany, where her father, a career officer in the United States Army, was stationed. The experience showed her "what it feels like to be neither white nor black, but simply foreign". After returning to the U.S., Parks's family relocated frequently and she attended school in Kentucky, Texas, California, North Carolina, Maryland, and Vermont. She graduated high school from The John Carroll School in 1981 while her father was stationed in Aberdeen Proving Gro ...
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Repetition (rhetorical Device)
Repetition is the simple repeating of a word, within a short space of words (including in a poem), with no particular placement of the words to secure emphasis. It is a multilinguistic written or spoken device, frequently used in English and several other languages, such as Hindi and Chinese, and so rarely termed a figure of speech. Its forms, many of which are listed below, have varying resonances to listing (forms of enumeration, such as "Firstly, Secondly, Thirdly and lastly..."), as a matter of trite logic often similar in effect. Types * Antimetabole is the repetition of words in successive clauses, but in transposed order. : "I know what I like, and I like what I know." * Tautology is superfluous and simple repetition of the same sense in different words. : "The children gathered in a round circle." * Antanaclasis is the repetition of a word or phrase to effect a different meaning. : "We must all hang together, or assuredly we shall all hang separately." (Benjamin Frank ...
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Edwin Stanton
Edwin McMasters Stanton (December 19, 1814December 24, 1869) was an American lawyer and politician who served as U.S. Secretary of War under the Lincoln Administration during most of the American Civil War. Stanton's management helped organize the massive military resources of the North and guide the Union to victory. However, he was criticized by many Union generals, who perceived him as overcautious and micromanaging. He also organized the manhunt for Abraham Lincoln's assassin, John Wilkes Booth. After Lincoln's assassination, Stanton remained as the Secretary of War under the new US president, Andrew Johnson, during the first years of Reconstruction Era, Reconstruction. He opposed the lenient policies of Johnson towards the former Confederate States. Johnson's attempt to dismiss Stanton ultimately led to impeachment of Andrew Johnson, Johnson being impeached by the Radical Republicans in the House of Representatives. Stanton returned to law after he retired as Secretary of Wa ...
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Our American Cousin
''Our American Cousin'' is a three-act play by English playwright Tom Taylor. It is a farce featuring awkward, boorish American Asa Trenchard, who is introduced to his aristocratic English relatives when he goes to England to claim the family estate. The play premiered with great success at Laura Keene's Theatre in New York City in 1858, with Keene in the cast, the title character played by Joseph Jefferson, and Edward Askew Sothern playing Lord Dundreary. The play's long-running London production in 1861 was also successful. The play achieved great renown during its first few years and remained very popular throughout the second half of the 19th century. It is best known in modern times as the play that U.S. President Abraham Lincoln was attending in Ford's Theatre in Washington, D.C., when he was assassinated by John Wilkes Booth at the end of the American Civil War. Theatrical acclaim and "Lord Dundreary" Among ''Our American Cousins cast was British actor Edward Askew ...
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Mary Todd Lincoln
Mary Ann Todd Lincoln (December 13, 1818July 16, 1882) served as First Lady of the United States from 1861 until the assassination of her husband, President Abraham Lincoln in 1865. Mary Lincoln was a member of a large and wealthy, slave-owning Kentucky family. She was well educated. Born Mary Ann Todd, she dropped the name Ann after her younger sister, Ann Todd (later Clark), was born. After finishing school during her teens, she moved to Springfield, Illinois, where she lived with her married sister Elizabeth Edwards. Before she married Abraham Lincoln, she was courted by his long-time political opponent Stephen A. Douglas. The Lincolns had four sons of whom only the eldest, Robert, survived both parents. Their family home and neighborhood in Springfield is preserved at the Lincoln Home National Historic Site. Mary Lincoln staunchly supported her husband throughout his presidency and was active in keeping national morale high during the Civil War. She acted as the White Hous ...
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Gettysburg Address
The Gettysburg Address is a Public speaking, speech that President of the United States, U.S. President Abraham Lincoln delivered during the American Civil War at the dedication of the Gettysburg National Cemetery, Soldiers' National Cemetery, now known as Gettysburg National Cemetery, in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania on the afternoon of November 19, 1863, four and a half months after the Union (American Civil War), Union armies defeated Confederate States of America, Confederate forces in the Battle of Gettysburg, the Civil War's deadliest battle. It remains one of the best known speeches in history of the United States, American history. Lincoln's carefully-crafted but brief address, which was not even scheduled as the day's primary speech, came to be seen as one of the greatest and most influential statements on the American national purpose. In just 271 words, beginning with the now famous phrase "Four 20 (number), score and seven years ago,"‍ referring to the signing of the U ...
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Assassination Of Abraham Lincoln
On April 14, 1865, Abraham Lincoln, the 16th president of the United States, was assassinated by well-known stage actor John Wilkes Booth, while attending the play ''Our American Cousin'' at Ford's Theatre in Washington, D.C. Shot in the head as he watched the play, Lincoln died the following day at 7:22 am in the Petersen House opposite the theater. He was the first U.S. president to be assassinated, with his funeral and burial marking an extended period of national mourning. Occurring near the end of the American Civil War, Lincoln's assassination was part of a larger conspiracy intended by Booth to revive the Confederate cause by eliminating the three most important officials of the United States government. Conspirators Lewis Powell and David Herold were assigned to kill Secretary of State William H. Seward, and George Atzerodt was tasked with killing Vice President Andrew Johnson. Beyond Lincoln's death, the plot failed: Seward was only wounded, and Johnson's wo ...
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Top Hat
A top hat (also called a high hat, a cylinder hat, or, informally, a topper) is a tall, flat-crowned hat for men traditionally associated with formal wear in Western dress codes, meaning white tie, morning dress, or frock coat. Traditionally made of black silk or sometimes grey, the top hat emerged in Western fashion by the end of the 18th century. Although it declined by the time of the counterculture of the 1960s, it remains a formal fashion accessory. A collapsible variant of a top hat, developed in the 19th century, is known as an opera hat. Perhaps inspired by the Early Modern era capotain, higher crowned dark felt hats with wide brims emerged as a country leisurewear fashion along with the Age of Revolution around the 1770s. Around the 1780s, the justaucorps was replaced by the previously casual frocks and dress coats. At the same time, the tricorne and bicorne hats were replaced by what became known as the top hat. By the 1790s, the directoire style dress coat with top ...
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Jazz
Jazz is a music genre that originated in the African-American communities of New Orleans, Louisiana in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, with its roots in blues and ragtime. Since the 1920s Jazz Age, it has been recognized as a major form of musical expression in traditional and popular music. Jazz is characterized by swing and blue notes, complex chords, call and response vocals, polyrhythms and improvisation. Jazz has roots in European harmony and African rhythmic rituals. As jazz spread around the world, it drew on national, regional, and local musical cultures, which gave rise to different styles. New Orleans jazz began in the early 1910s, combining earlier brass band marches, French quadrilles, biguine, ragtime and blues with collective polyphonic improvisation. But jazz did not begin as a single musical tradition in New Orleans or elsewhere. In the 1930s, arranged dance-oriented swing big bands, Kansas City jazz (a hard-swinging, bluesy, improvisationa ...
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African-American
African Americans (also referred to as Black Americans and Afro-Americans) are an Race and ethnicity in the United States, ethnic group consisting of Americans with partial or total ancestry from sub-Saharan Africa. The term "African American" generally denotes descendants of Slavery in the United States, enslaved Africans who are from the United States. While some Black immigrants or their children may also come to identify as African-American, the majority of first generation immigrants do not, preferring to identify with their nation of origin. African Americans constitute the second largest racial group in the U.S. after White Americans, as well as the third largest ethnic group after Hispanic and Latino Americans. Most African Americans are descendants of enslaved people within the boundaries of the present United States. On average, African Americans are of West Africa, West/Central Africa, Central African with some European descent; some also have Native Americans in th ...
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John Wilkes Booth
John Wilkes Booth (May 10, 1838 – April 26, 1865) was an American stage actor who assassinated United States President Abraham Lincoln at Ford's Theatre in Washington, D.C., on April 14, 1865. A member of the prominent 19th-century Booth theatrical family from Maryland, he was a noted actor who was also a Confederate sympathizer; denouncing President Lincoln, he lamented the recent abolition of slavery in the United States. Originally, Booth and his small group of conspirators had plotted to kidnap Lincoln to aid the Confederate cause. They later decided to murder him, as well as Vice President Andrew Johnson and Secretary of State William H. Seward. Although its Army of Northern Virginia, commanded by General Robert E. Lee, had surrendered to the Union Army four days earlier, Booth believed that the Civil War remained unresolved because the Confederate Army of General Joseph E. Johnston continued fighting. Booth shot President Lincoln once in the back of the head. Lincoln' ...
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