Omaha daily bee., 1910-02-13

~ EFORE an audience composed O oman etllebs ouhalo
hunters and the pioneer folk of Nebraska's early days, John
Templeton "heroed" his way through the Chamber of
Death" on an improvsed stage erected in the first court
house. That was in the later sos, when Omaha saw its first
theatrical performance. Theatrcals, by their very rarity, were not
in those days events to be missed, and, according to the hazy C.
counts that history gives, TempIeton played to packed houses for
three nights in succession. That Omahas first theatrical perform
ance drew a crowd to standing room only way back there more
than fifty years ago bespeaks quite a bit OF enthusiasm 0 m n part
of the pioneers. At any rate there is assurance that the first chapter
in the history of omahas stage did not begin with a onenight stand.
Viewed in the light of Omaha and the west of today, that visit
of the John Templeton company was a striking bit {of adventure.
The steam whistle had not yet stirred up the echoes in the seven
hills OF what the early Omaha oil styled gateway Cny'm
Stages ran almost all the way from Chicago to Omaha. when the
going was good. Facing such conditions as this, the John Tempeton
company set out to explore and carry their arts into the western
plains. They played Davenport, proceeding under difficulties to Iowa
City and the then farthest west metropolis Council Bluffs.
The Oldest 1nhabiant has it that John Templeton, the leader
of the company, a lad hardly out of his teens, was attracted to
Omaha when he saw the splendor of the brave new tin roof of the
old court house flashing in the sun across the river. The members
of his company urged the young man that they had seen all that
they cared for of the untamed west. but he pushed on across the
river to Omaha for his threenight performance. when N renects
that there was not a little of homegrown tragedy hereabouts in
those days it took not a little temerity TO attempt to interest and
amuse with such gloomy scenes as those Of the Chamber of Death
The panors OF the Hernden house, which long since was OBJ
liberated by the erection of the Union Pacific headquarters. were
used as a show house occasionally in the early SOS. 1t was in the
earliest performance there that Julia Dean Hayne appeared in the
leading role of a production the name of which has not survived the
of a romance that ended in the marriage of Colonel John Y. Chopper
to a sister of Julia Dean Hayne. They lived in Omaha for several
years following the close of the civil war.
That performance at the Hernden house must have been staged
with as little attention to precision in scenic effect as on the stage
of the early Ehzabethian period some centuries before A istorians
account remarks that the leading lady manufactured the curtains
and drops from a bolt of muslin borrowed at Tootle 6 Jacksons
store. the great dry goods emporium of early Omaha
1t was probably ten years after the visit of John Templeton that
omaha's first playhouse, the Academy of Music. was erected. This
first temple of the knights of the buskin," as the writer's of the day
insisted that it should be designated, was built on the south side
of Douglas street between Thirteenth and Fourteenth streets. 1t was
opened in the winter of 1867. The Academy of Music was then
the property of Colonel J. G. Chopper and S. S. Caldwell Accounts
found in musty piles of old papers ave that this building was the
last word in architectural msgnhcence. The writer of those praising
paragraphs in the free and easy days of the middle SOS little
imagined that twenty-five years later the house would become the
headquarters of the prohibition party organization in Omaha.
The Academy Of Music opened under the management of Henri
Corr, an English actor, who himself headed what was then declared
the best stock company in the west. 1t is to be surmised that the
west was not particularly overworked by stock companies in those
days. Henri Corrfs management was followed by the transformation
of the Academy of Music into a variety house, during the ownership
of John l. Redick. Corri went back TO the east and for a time
appeared under the management of one Ben DeBars. CORR died at
q home for aged actors in Philadelphia in 1888, after a prosperous
career which had neted him but little Of ultimate profit
The one theatrical joke OF the early days was the opening of
the Redick theater at the northwest corner of Sixteenth and Farnam
streets in 1870, by Mary A. Livermore. 1t seems to have been a real
frosty first night Mrs. Lvermores train was two hours late, so the
audience sat in a darkened room, with the gas lights turned eco
nomicaiy low waiting her arrival. When that lady of lecture fame
strobe onto the stage the lights refused to come up. The footights
were finally lighted, while the rest of the house remained dark, with
aVo big and useless tin rehedors swinging from the roof.
Whether 1t was Mrs. Livermore's theme or the gloomy house
thnt depressed the crowd on that first night history does not record,
but, anyway 1t was n Ill omen and the Redick theater was useful
mostly to give tone" to the surrounding real estate territory. The
title to the building was passed to j NJ. Pattee Of lottery fame. He
soon after rented the structure to the city. which established there a
council chamber and several city Offices. In 1889 the somewhat un-
popular old playhouse was torn down to give space TO the CONNER
cl National bank and F L. Ames buildings and the hoodoo of Mary
\ A. Livermores opening night was drowned in business prosperity.
The Redick thater. however, saw the visits of some real celebrl
ties to Omaha. For instance, a s a bit Of variation from Mrs. Liver
mores plea for womans suffrage was the exhibition of Jm Mace
the English prize fighter, who, with bare fists. dsdaining gloves. held
Rrh against six Of the most lusty and brawny amateurs OF the
Vicinity. On this occasion Pooley Mace, a cousin of the famous
fighter, his trainer, and Billy Edwards, who was the real American