LEST WE FORGET LAURA KEENE
(July 20, 1826 - November 4, 1873)
The first powerful female manager in New York
Born Mary Frances Moss in London, she had very little formal education but was a voracious reader. Some say she was trained for the stage by her aunt, the British actress Elizabeth Yates. In her late teens she married a London tavern keeper and bore him two daughters. Her husband, convicted of a felony, was sent to a penal colony in Australia. She was forced to seek a livelihood on the stage. Like Fanny Kemble, her first appearance was Juliet, not at the Covent Garden Theatre, but with a company in Surrey on August 26, 1851. She changed her last name to Keene.
She debuted at the Olympic Theatre in London in Bulwer-Lytton's Lady of Lyons. She was, by all accounts, a beautiful woman, with a slight but graceful body, rich auburn hair and large, expressive eyes. She appeared in The Chain of Events (1852) at the Lyceum, which was then under the managership of the famous Madame Vestris and her husband. Madame Vestris would have a considerable influence on her subsequent career.
It is presumed that James W. Wallack, on one of his 34 Trans-Atlantic trips, saw Laura performing at the Lyceum and engaged her for the company with which he opened Wallack's Theatre in New York City in the fall of 1852. She became the leading lady of the company performing roles in Much Ado About Nothing, The Rivals, The Merchant of Venice, As You Like It and She Stoops to Conquer.
The Albion declared "She will spoil the critics' trade, if she continues thus adding laurels upon laurels to her brow." (Odell, Annals of the New York Stage).
She left New York for Baltimore during the run of The Rivals without alerting Mr. Wallack. There she opened the Charles Street Theatre on December 24, 1853 as manager and star. As to what led to her abrupt departure from Wallack's employment, there is a theory that her acquaintance with John Lutz from a well-to-do mercantile family in Washington D.C. with whom she fell in love was the inspiration.
After a brief stint as manager of the Union Theatre in San Francisco, she was on her way to Australia, in a company that included Edwin Booth, to play in Sydney and Melbourne. By early 1855 she was back in San Francisco as manager of the American Theatre. Meeting with much success she decided to return to New York City and assume a serious, long-term career. She rented, refurbished and rechristened the Metropolitan Theatre Laura Keene's Varieties.
The first season lasted until the summer, 1856, including four premieres of new works. She closed the season performing Lady Teazle in The School For Scandal. She had achieved both artistic and financial success. But the competition was not to be outdone. Because of a legal loophole in her lease, Manager William E. Burton was able to buy the Metropolitan and Keene was homeless.
The Laura Keene Theatre housed the only true stock company in New York. Her stars performed in a varied repertory. She refused to adhere to the prevalent custom of casting to a line of parts which contributed to the development of several notable acting careers including Joseph Jefferson, E. A. Sothern, Rose Eytinge, Agnes Robertson and Dion Boucicault. She fostered native American playwriting talent, presenting premieres of many plays by Boucicault, Oliver Bell Bunce, and J. G. Burnett.
She was concerned with scenery, costume, and stage direction. The New York Times in 1862 credited her with a"wealth of fancy and artistic finish that has never been equalled or even approached at any other New York theatre." Joseph Jefferson reported that even in the plays primarily set indoors, she spared no expense. Such was her managerial ability that she successfully weathered the panic of 1857 (which thrust Burton permanently out of managing and damaged Wallack) by displaying great taste and judgment in making cheap articles look like expensive ones. She also spent more money on advertising than her fellow managers and introduced Wednesday and Saturday matinees so successfully they became standard in theatre practice.
Her executive ability was evident not only in financial management, publicity, settings, costumes, and in training of actors but in directing her company. She was universally known as "the Duchess"--a term of admiration mixed with awe and sometimes with resentment of her autocratic behavior. Although she was not above sewing costumes and painting scenery when necessity demanded, she was inflexible in rehearsal discipline and spared neither herself nor her cast in the preparations for performance.
In 1858, Tom Taylor's Our American Cousin debuted in Laura Keene's Theatre. After seven seasons were over she began a series of farewell performances ultimately ending her career as an actor-manager. She began to tour under her own management and played not only in Washington, D.C., Boston, Philadelphia and New Haven but nearly every other major city east of the Mississippi.
Keene's company were performing Our American Cousin at Ford's Theatre in Washington, D. C. on April 14, 1865. While Abraham Lincoln and First Lady Mary Todd Lincoln were watching the play in the presidential box, actor John Wilkes Booth fatally shot President Lincoln and fled the theatre. Amid the confusion, Laura Keene made her way to the presidential box where Lincoln lay dying and cradled the wounded President's head in her lap. His fatal head wound bled on her dress, staining her cuff. (The cuff was later donated to the National Museum of American History.) She was arrested after the assassination but her husband's political connections in Washington secured her release.
After the death of her beloved husband John Lutz, she tried to establish herself as manager of a standing theatre company and an extensive tour. Her last appearance occurred at Wood's Museum in 1872. In spite of a terminal illness she was engaged in co-editng and published a Fine Arts magazine, toured widely as a lecturer on the fine arts, accompanied by her daughter Clara who contributed soprano solos and shortly before her death appeared in two short comedies.
Words spoken at her funeral: "No braver, steadier, abler soldier ever battled in the ranks of art than Laura Keene. No captain ever planned better or laboured more perseveringly or with more success. Her inflexible energy and perseverance had few equals in any walk of life." (New York Herald, Obituary, December 16, 1873).
Resource: Notable Women in the American Theatre. 1989. Vera Mowry Roberts
Creahan, John. The Life of Laura Keene. 1887
Johnson, Claudia D. American Actresses: Perspective on the Nineteenth Century. 1984
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