Your essay must be well organized and well developed; you must provide the reader with clearly appropriate details to support your thesis or illustrate your ideas. Your writing should show, throughout the essay, that you're comfortable expressing complex ideas in the English language. You should also use a variety of grammatical structures (clauses, tenses, etc.) | W2 Of course. How do you think the early settlers entertained themselves Gee Anyways there was a drawback to this form of entertainment because throughout the 18th century there was widespread opposition to theatrical performances. For example in the puritanical climate of the time especially in the North the theater was considered a highway to hell. Laws forbidding the performing of plays were passed tn Massachusetts in 1750 and in Rhode Island in 1761 and they were banned in most states during the American Revolutionary War at the urging of the Continental Congress. W1. Certainty you are kidding. W2 Certainly I am not. Anyways by the early 19th century theater became more common in the United States and many celebrity actors from Europe toured the United States. The Walnut Theater is the oldest urn continuously-operating theater in America located in Philadelphia. Pennsylvania. It was built in 1809. M You mean Philadelphia was the only city In America with a theater at that time W2 Oh no. But most cities only had a single theater. Productions were much more rudimentary then and sometimes plays would be staged in barns or dining rooms when no theater was available. Provincial theaters frequently lacked heat and even minimal props and scenery. Kind of basic really. Anyways as the Westward Expansion of the country progressed some entrepreneurs staged um floating theaters on boats which would travel from town to town. Eventually towns grew to the size that they could afford long runs of a production and. in 1841. a single play was shown in New York City for an unprecedented three weeks. W1 What kind of plays did they perform W2 Well. ah. Shakespeare was the most commonly performed playwright along with other European authors. American plays of the period were mostly melodramas often weaving in local themes or characters such as the heroic but ill-fated Indian. The most enduring melodrama of this period was. um. you rjuossnd It. L nc o Tam s Cabin. M Other than the .
