A Players Almanac

About the Book

The Players is a private social club founded in 1888 by Edwin Booth, the greatest and most celebrated American actor of his time. Membership today continues to be composed of actors and artists from the stage but now from the “kindred professions” of film and television, the fine and plastic arts, theatre history and education and those from other professions interested in the celebration and promotion of the arts. A Players Almanac comprises five “Acts,” the first with the history and growth of Gramercy Park in 1833 and the mansions built by the famous residents that surround it; the second focuses on the northward movement of commerce and theatre in the 1800s from lower Manhattan to Union Square and New York’s famed Ladies Mile; the third on the early life of Booth as a touring star in 1849 with notes on Edwin’s first marriage, his most influential friends and the design of the first Booth Theatre; the fourth on the founding of The Players in 1888 and Stanford White’s design of The Players’ clubhouse; and the fifth act on the growing ill health and consequent death of Edwin Booth in 1893. Each Act has an extensive gallery that displays, in sequence, photos of Gramercy Park, early theatres in Union Square, the fashions and the buildings that housed the designs and styles created by the most prominent couturiers of the 19th century, of the Booth family, photolithographs of Edwin dressed in the costume of his most recognized characters and the early and later interiors of The Players. The Almanac concludes with an Addendum and a bibliography.

About the Author

John Camera is an actor, director, dramaturg and theatre historian. Experience in film and theatre has lead to Rehearsal and Performance: An Actors Workbook that explores changes in performance styles in six major eras of Western theatre. His dramaturgy includes Gotthold Ephraim Lessing’s Nathan the Wise, Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales, Chekhov’s Uncle Vanya and sixteen of Shakespeare’s plays. A Players Almanac is his first book on theatre history, covering the years from 1833 to 1893; his second, Women of a Certain Age, explores the performances and biographies of famous women actors of the nineteenth century. His has written two plays, Looking for Love in All the Wrong Places, a contemporary version of Arthur Schnitzler’s La Ronde, and Five Friends, a story of loves lost and won in contemporary New York City. Monographs and articles for dramaturgical and literary colloquia and conferences include Feasting with Panthers: The Three Trials of Oscar Wilde, The African-Globe Theatre: African-American Realism, Ballet and the Neoclassical Ideal in the Court of Louis XIV, and has delivered lectures on the works of Shakespeare, Henrik Ibsen, Maurice Maeterlinck, Bertolt Brecht and Robert Wilson. John is a member of The Players, the LMDA, MLA and the NCTE.