Location
Stephen F Austin State University, Baker Pattillo Student Center Theater and Twilight Ballroom
Start Date
15-4-2025 4:00 PM
End Date
15-4-2025 7:00 PM
Description
In Terrell, Texas, five different opera houses operated from 1878 to 1910. Sources paint the earlier opera houses with rowdy audiences and scandalous performances, a reflection of early pioneer mentality. Later opera houses, all owned by the elite and well-known businessmen of Terrell, may have offered more popular and professional productions, but the most prominent of these were minstrel shows. With evidence of minstrelsy's fierce continuation in Terrell's society up until the 1950s, the study of the opera houses not only illuminates the growing racial tensions and complexities but also the normalization of minstrel shows and blackface for decades after the closing of the last opera house.
The Harsh Realities of Opera Houses and the Continual Popularity of Minstrelsy in Terrell, Texas
Stephen F Austin State University, Baker Pattillo Student Center Theater and Twilight Ballroom
In Terrell, Texas, five different opera houses operated from 1878 to 1910. Sources paint the earlier opera houses with rowdy audiences and scandalous performances, a reflection of early pioneer mentality. Later opera houses, all owned by the elite and well-known businessmen of Terrell, may have offered more popular and professional productions, but the most prominent of these were minstrel shows. With evidence of minstrelsy's fierce continuation in Terrell's society up until the 1950s, the study of the opera houses not only illuminates the growing racial tensions and complexities but also the normalization of minstrel shows and blackface for decades after the closing of the last opera house.
Comments
Faculty Sponsor: Courtney Carney (Department of History)