Written by Steele MacKaye First performance 4 February 1880 | Original language English Playwright Steele MacKaye | |
 | ||
Date premiered February 4, 1880 (1880-02-04) Place premiered Madison Square Theatre, New York City Places premiered Madison Square Theatre, New York City Similar Summer and Smoke, The Bear, Our Town, Kiss Me - Kate, The Merry Wives of Windsor | ||
Hazel Kirke is a play in four acts written by American actor and dramatist Steele MacKaye.
Contents
Overview
The play was written between 1878 and 1879 in the town of Dublin, New Hampshire. MacKaye meant it to be expressly for New York City's Madison Square Theatre, which MacKaye had recently renovated and completely remodeled. Originally titled An Iron Will, the play toured Philadelphia, Baltimore and Washington until renovations on the Madison Square Theatre were complete. It premiered there on February 4, 1880, and the original production became immensely successful; it starred actress Effie Ellsler in the title role and ran for 486 consecutive performances, the record of its time. before closing May 31, 1881.
Because MacKaye revolutionized the concept of multiple companies performing the same production simultaneously, by 1883 the play had been performed more than two thousand times.
Legacy
By the mid-1910s the play had been produced in England, Australia, Japan, and elsewhere. In 1916 it was adapted into a film starring Pearl White and produced at the Whartons Studio in Ithaca, New York.
In 1987, a revamped version of Hazel Kirke by Mark Houston which added a musical score debuted at the Lake George Opera Festival. The New York Times called the result "like watching a B movie; its kitschy charm wears thin after a short while."