The centerpiece of Houghton’s current exhibition, Shakespeare: His Collected Works, is a life-size poster from the 1943 Broadway production of Othello starring Paul Robeson. Paul Robeson was the son of an escaped slave who became his generation’s most outspoken defender of civil liberties. A graduate of Rutgers and Columbia Law School, he was a distinguished athlete,…
Auspicious Debuts: Our Town
Just over seventy-five years ago, Our Town opened at Boston’s Wilbur Theatre, two weeks ahead of its scheduled Broadway premiere. That same day, January 25th 1938, The Boston Post carried a headline linking the new show to a suicide. Rosamond Pinchot, the glamorous starlet once billed as the loveliest woman in America, had taken her own…