''Hazel Kirke'' is a play in four acts written by American actor and dramatist Steele MacKaye.

Overview

The play was written between 1878 and 1879 in the town of

Dublin, New Hampshire Dublin is a town in Cheshire County, New Hampshire, United States. The population was 1,532 at the 2020 census. It is home to Dublin School and ''Yankee'' magazine. History In 1749, the Masonian proprietors granted the town as "Monadnock No. ...

.Quinn, p. 497 MacKaye meant it to be expressly for

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Madison Square Theatre ''The Madison Square Theatre'' was a Broadway theatre in Manhattan, on the south side of 24th Street between Sixth Avenue and Broadway (which intersects Fifth Avenue near that point.) It was built in 1863, operated as a theater from 1865 to 1908, ...

, which MacKaye had recently renovated and completely remodeled. Originally titled ''An Iron Will'', the play toured Philadelphia, Baltimore and Washington until renovations on the Madison Square Theatre were complete. It premiered there on February 4, 1880, and the original production became immensely successful; it starred actress

Effie Ellsler Euphemia "Effie" Ellsler (September 17, 1855 – October 8, 1942) was an American actress of stage and screen whose career had its beginnings when she was a child and lasted well into the 1930s. She was best remembered over her early career for ...

in the title role and ran for 486 consecutive performances, the record of its time. before closing May 31, 1881. Because MacKaye revolutionized the concept of multiple companies performing the same production simultaneously, by 1883 the play had been performed more than two thousand times.

Legacy

By the mid-1910s the play had been produced in England, Australia, Japan, and elsewhere. In 1916 it was adapted into a film starring

Pearl White Pearl Fay White (March 4, 1889 – August 4, 1938) was an American stage and film actress. She began her career on the stage at the age of six, and later moved on to silent films appearing in a number of popular serials. Dubbed the "Queen of ...

and produced at the Whartons Studio in

Ithaca, New York Ithaca is a city in the Finger Lakes region of New York, United States. Situated on the southern shore of Cayuga Lake, Ithaca is the seat of Tompkins County and the largest community in the Ithaca metropolitan statistical area. It is named ...

.Hazel Kirke (1916)
. IMDb. Retrieved on August 29, 2008. In 1987, a revamped version of ''Hazel Kirke'' by Mark Houston which added a musical score debuted at the Lake George Opera Festival. The ''New York Times'' called the result "like watching a B movie; its kitschy charm wears thin after a short while."Kimmelman, Michael (14 August 1987)
Opera: 'Hazel Kirke'
''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid d ...

Original cast

... Hazel Kirke * Gabrielle Du Sauld ... Dolly Dutton (also later played by Georgia Cayvan) * Mrs. Cecil Rush ... Emily Carringford (Lady Travers) *

Blanche Whiffen Blanche Galton Whiffen, known on stage as Mrs. Thomas Whiffen, (1845–1936) was an American actress born in London. She was educated in France; made her stage début at the Royalty Theatre, London, in 1865; came to America in 1868; and toured ...

... Mercy Kirke * Annie Ellsler ... Clara, a maid * Eben Plympton ... Arthur Carringford (Lord Travers) * Charles Walter (C.W.) Couldock ... Dunstan Kirke * Dominick Murray ... Aaron Rodney * Thomas Whiffen ... Pittacus Green * Joseph Frankau ... Methuselah Miggins * Edward Coleman ... Barney O'Flynn, a valet * Fred P. Barton ... Joe, a miller * George Grey ... Dan, a miller * Henry Jones ... Thomas, a servant.Hazel Kirke: A Domestic Comedy Drama in Four Acts
(c. 1922) (original cast listing)

Notes

References

*Murphy, Brenda. 1987. ''American Realism and American Drama, 1880–1940: 1880–1940''. Cambridge University Press. *

External links

''Hazel Kirke: A Domestic Comedy Drama in Four Acts''
(1880), via archive. org
Program for 250th performance
(October 8, 1880), via archive.org {{s-end Plays by Steele MacKaye American plays adapted into films 1879 plays