"Shenandoah" is a play of pictorial effects and swiftly changing
sentiment. Were there a national repertory, this would be included
among the plays, not because of its literary quality, but because of
the spirit to be drawn from its situations, framed expressly for
the stage, and because of its pictures, dependent wholly upon stage
accessory. It is an actable play, and most of our prominent actors,
coming out of the period of the late 80's, had training in it.




THE AMERICAN DRAMA

by

BRONSON HOWARD


In considering the present standing of the American drama, compared
with the time when there was little or nothing worthy of the name,
the one significant fact has been the gradual growth of a body of men
engaged in writing plays. Up to the time I started in 1870, American
plays had been written only sporadically here and there by men and
women who never met each other, who had no personal acquaintance of
any kind, no sympathies, no exchange of views; in fact, no means of
building up such a body of thought in connection with their art as is
necessary to form what is called a school.

In what we now style Broadway productions the late Augustin Daly stood