Chapter Seventeen Off Broadway

“In giving freedom to the slave, we assure freedom to the free.”

 —Abraham Lincoln

"I desired to find an entrance to the palace”

      —Victor Hugo in Ruy Blas

At 10:00 a.m. Saturday morning November 22, 1879, a light-skinned young woman bought two tickets for that afternoon's matinee at the Grand Opera House in New York City.1

The afternoon performance of Victor Hugo’s Ruy Blas featured Edwin Booth, brother of infamous John Wilkes Booth. A few months earlier, a madman had attempted to shoot Booth during a performance of Richard II. Because of the publicity of the...

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