Seattle High Society Takes the Stage
A sold-out, star-studded burlesque production at the Seattle Theater featuring an all-male cast and local socialites creates a sensation.
The story, cleaned up
A cleaned-up reading of the newspaper page: spelling and layout repaired, one story lifted off a crowded page. It follows the original closely but it is not a transcription. The original page is below; read it if a detail matters.
The managers of the Seattle Athletic Club demonstrated their knack for success in staging the operatic travesty 'Romeo and Juliet' at the Seattle Theater last evening. Every seat was sold long before the doors opened. It was a thoroughly fashionable audience, with all the beauty, talent, and wealth of Seattle represented, including contingents from Tacoma and other neighboring cities. The ease of the performers and the smoothness of the production placed them above the amateur order. Joe Schlumpf made the hit of the evening with his characteristic personation of James Hamilton Lewis, giving a burlesque speech that brought down the house. Eight young men, clean-shaved and dressed as young ladies in yellow and black, performed a skirt dance with artistic precision. Ed L. Sanford captured the house with his turn as Juliet, displaying a strong, rich baritone voice that caused much amusement. The chorus was composed of many prominent local gentlemen. Taken as a whole, the performance gave general satisfaction and sent everybody home in the best of humor.
“I never knew Mr. Sanford was such a handsome man.”
The Seattle Athletic Club’s turn-of-the-century theatricals highlight a time when 'high society' was a tight-knit, performative, and very local ecosystem. Today’s Seattle theater scene has grown far beyond the private clubs, but the appetite for local celebrity satire remains a constant of the civic diet.
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