While Eastern theaters staged plays depicting Mormons as bloodthirsty polygamists, Brigham Young was building a Drury Lane replica in the Utah desert. It would go on to host Oscar Wilde, the Barrymore family across four generations, and Brigham Young’s own son performing in drag to packed houses. It was the most ambitious act of cultural self-defense in American frontier history, and in 1928, the church tore it down to sell the land to a telephone company. Someone wrote on the demolition boards: BUILT BY A PROPHET AND TORN DOWN FOR PROFIT.
SHOWNOTES:
- Oscar Wilde, Deseret Evening News, April 6, 1882
- Oscar Wilde, Salt Lake Daily Herald, April 6, 1882
- Impressions of America — Oscar Wilde
- Shattering the Vase: The Razing of the Old Salt Lake Theatre — Walker & Starr
- The Romance of an Old Playhouse — George Pyper
- The Salt Lake Theatre: Brigham’s Playhouse — Alford & Freeman
- Theater in Utah — Ann Engar, Utah History Encyclopedia
- Salt Lake Theatre — Ronald Walker, Utah History Encyclopedia
- The Salt Lake Theatre: Brigham Young’s Love Letter to Theater Out West — Intermountain Histories
- The State of the Sunflowers — Oscar Wilde Blog
- Salt Lake Theatre — Wikipedia
- B. Morris Young — Wikipedia
- Salt Lake Theatre, UtahTheaters.info