Bite-Sized History: Lewd Amusements and Lyceum Lectures
The short video series, Bite-Sized History, continues with two new chapters on the history of theater and music in Portsmouth, leading up to The Music Hall as we know it today.
This video project comes to us from J. Dennis Robinson and filmmaker Jay Childs and serves as the perfect companion to the definitive Music Hall history book authored by Robinson, Music Hall: How a City Built a Theater and a Theater Shaped a City.
Chapter 2: Lewd Amusements
A Puritanical ban on theaters couldn’t stifle people’s need to be entertained in Colonial Era Portsmouth. Check out all the lewd amusements that they got up to in their spare time. Plus, see Monte juggle (poorly).
Chapter 3: Those Lively Lyceum Lectures
Chapter 3 focuses on the early 1800s Lyceum Lecture circuit and we get a hint at that young upstart The Music Hall.