Project Abstract: A Fabolous Era

"A Fabulous Era" involves the production of three half-hour radio programs--"Frank Coitman, trouper from Tidioute," "Michael V. Ball, passionate playgoer in Warren," and "T.H. Lloyd, manager of St. Petersburg's opera house"-- in a projected series of fifteen programs.
Most evidently our bias is regional, but it is our thesis that the story of theatre in Pennsylvania's Oil Region is substantively the story of the great American road,1875-1915. To make our point we examine the local opera house as a national Institution even as we consider its manager, audiences, and those attractions, appearing for One Night Only!, that reflected the prejudices, predilections, and preconceptions of Americans at large in the period under consideration.