What's New with our Traveling Theater

'07 Spring-Summer Writing Seaston ~~

                 Fall-Winter Season Takes Shape

We're not taking bookings for the Spring and Summer ('07) so that Terry can work on Cinema Before Film, but the Fall '07 season is building fast.  October is almost chock-a-block with Halloween Shows, early November is full, and late November looks to find us in the deep South for the start of the Christmas season.  There are still some openings in December (for our Christmas Show) and in February for Valentines, so give a call now at 860-345-2574 to book before things jam up.

 

How Many Magic-Lantern Shows in 1895?

We’ve known for years that in the 1890s there were a lot of traveling theater magic-lantern shows -- or “stereopticon” shows as they were also called – but how many is “a lot”? As part of the research for our book, Cinema Before Film, we’ve just finished a study of newspaper reports about shows in our home county of Middlesex, CT. For the first three months of 1895, we found about three a week. Most of these shows were not the entertainment mix of story, song, and comedy that we do, but “moral entertainment – lectures illustrated with spectacular lantern pictures and special effects like the swirling colors created by chromatropes. Many of the shows were in large venues of 500-1,000 seats. They were, in effect, the Nova, and History Channel of the time. If we extrapolate from our local sample out to the rest of the year and the rest of the country – admittedly a stretch – we come up with a conservatively calculated guestimate of between 130,000 and 200,000 lantern shows a year. Now that’s entertainment!

New Kiddie Magic-Lantern Show for Young Children

Our shows at The Singapore International Children's Festival were advertised for ages 2 and up, so we unexpectedly found ourselves with audiences that were much younger than those we usually perform for. Making a virtue of necessity, on the spot we created a new version of our Sea Show for very young children. We performed it twice a day for a week, to enthusiastic applause. Building on that success, we now offer a new Kiddie Show, especially for ages 3-5. It features such classic Victorian stories for young children as "Alice in Wonderland," "Peter Pan," and "Beauty and the Beast," plus songs like "Old McDonald" and "Row, Row Your Boat," and, of course, lots of hilarious animated comics.

Patriotic History Show Fills a Need

AMLT gave its Patriotic History Show at the grand re-opening of the Albany Institute of History and Art in Albany, NY, less than two weeks after the attacks in New York and Washington. The hall was jammed for all three performances, and the show's emphasis -- on our history of seeking justice and freedom for all, combined with flag-waving patriotism, soaring song, and high spirited fun -- obviously filled a need and still does. The show is our most popular school show because of its tight connection to the curriculum. For more information, click here.

 Funding Now Available

We're pleased to announce that our traveling theater has been accepted to The Artist Roster of the Connecticut Commission on the Arts which makes us available for Commission funding in the state, and consequently for funding throughout New England through The New England Foundation on the Arts. We really appreciate the support of these organizations! If you're not in New England we may be able to help with Humanities Council funding elsewhere. Call or email.

 Draft Completed on Cinema Before Film Book

Terry has finally completed a rough draft of a major book, Cinema Before Film: Victorian Magic Lantern Shows and America's First Great Screen Artist, Joseph Boggs Beale. The book, which should be completed in another two years, will show the continuity of cinema art, from the magic-lantern to the movies, with special emphasis on the work of Beale, whose slides are featured in our shows. The book is written for anyone interested in the movies, using a lively style that draws upon our experiences giving shows as well as 19th century material. But it also contains extensive notes for scholars, since much that it discusses has not been written about before. To request information on publication, click here. Now available as an illustrated lecture.

 More Film-Festival Shows

As more people gain an understanding of the critical role of magic-lantern shows in the early history of cinema, we are getting more and more attention from organizations interested in film. Bookings in the past, or coming up include:

• Lincoln Center, Reel to Real Series, New York, NY
• American Society of Cinephiles -- Hollywood, CA
• Maryland Film Festival -- Baltimore, MD
• Egyptian Theatre, American Cinematheque -- Hollywood, CA
• Cleveland Cinematheque, Cleveland, OH
• Getty Museum, Los Angeles, CA
• Domitor Early Film Conference, Montreal, Canada
• Catamont Film Center, St. Johnsbury, VT
• Coolidge Theater, Boston, MA
• Jacob Burns Film Center, Pleasantville, NY

For some of these performances we simply do one of our shows, with a little additional commentary. For others we add our illustrated lecture, Cinema Before Film, based on the book of that title that Terry is working on.   Request book ordering information.