Sex, death, Dickens, and the early American musical

This article argues that the stage version of Dickens’s The Old Curiosity Shop, adapted by John Brougham as Little Nell and the Marchioness, may be the first American book musical. Its enduring success was largely attributed to the performance of Lotta Crabtree in the dual roles from 1866 onwards. If the status of the play is justified, then it may require some scholarly re-visioning of the early history of the American musical. Laurence Senelick is Fletcher Professor of Drama and Oratory at Tufts University and a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. His translation of the letters of Konstantin Stanislavsky is about to be published by Routledge.