Dr. Danielle Rosvally Publishes New Book on William Shakespeare and New York City

Published August 19, 2024

"Theatres of Value," by Danielle Rosvally.

"Theatres of Value," by Danielle Rosvally

Congratulations to Assistant Professor Danielle Rosvally, PhD, on the publication of her most recent book Theatres of Value: Buying and Selling Shakespeare in Nineteenth-Century New York City.

Per SUNY Press, the work “explores the value of Shakespeare for theatrical businesspeople and audiences in nineteenth-century New York City.

“Theatres of Value explores the idea that buying and selling are performative acts and offers a paradigm for deeper study of these acts—'the dramaturgy of value.' Modeling this multifaceted approach, the book explores six case studies to show how and why Shakespeare had value for nineteenth-century New Yorkers. In considering William Brown's African Theater, P. T. Barnum's American Museum and Lecture Hall, Fanny Kemble's American reading career, the Booth family brand, the memorial statue of Shakespeare in Central Park, and an 1888 benefit performance of Hamlet to theatrical impresario Lester Wallack, Theatres of Value traces a history of audience engagement with Shakespearean cultural capital and the myriad ways this engagement was leveraged by theatrical businesspeople."

Rosvally holding her book beneath a statue of Shakespeare.

"I wrote this book in equal parts as a love letter to New York City and as a means of showing what can be done when we push against the boundaries of humanist research methods," Rosvally explained.

"New York City is where I grew up, and it’s a city I have a deep history with. I was interested in what made New York New York, particularly as a theatre person.  As a Shakespearean, I’ve always got an eye on Shakespeare in any time period or geographical location. When I started to think about the time in history when New York was coming into its own as a global and American theatre capitol, I realized that Shakespeare was laced incredibly deeply into this story. And so, my question was: how.

"To answer this question, I set about gathering data. I, of course, did the usual things we do in humanist research: read books, looked at iconography and realia, considered various theory, looked at other adjacent artworks (visual arts, etc.), read playscripts, looked at advertising ephemera, but I also looked at maps, I created databases, I did a series of mathematical calculations about spatial relations in early theatre spaces, I tracked down artist networks, and I thought expansively about what it means to do research in the humanities.

Rosvally in NYC standing before a huge American flag.

I talk about my work on TikTok as a means of demystifying what it means to do research and how humanist research works. It’s an important access step because it allows my work to reach beyond academic libraries and classrooms and into communities who are both interested in history and ready to learn about it. It’s exciting to be in touch with a broader audience, and have all of these folks around the world cheering me on."

Rosvally's tiktok features about the work and Shakespeare can be viewed here:

Rosvally standing with her book on George Washington Bridge.

"In inventing what she calls 'the dramaturgy of value,' Danielle Rosvally examines economic conditions and applies specific business models to both familiar and lesser-known incidents in the creation, marketing, and consumption of nineteenth-century American Shakespearean performance. In doing so, she uncovers layer upon layer of cultural significance, demonstrating how producers, actors, and audiences helped to create America’s emerging sense of nationhood and national identity." — Cary M. Mazer, author of Double Shakespeares: Emotional-Realist Acting and Contemporary Performance

"Theatres of Value takes an interdisciplinary approach that enriches historical analysis and helps readers understand familiar Shakespeare archives in new ways. Rosvally's work is conceptually nuanced yet highly readable—her engaging storytelling unfolds against a theoretical backdrop knit from theatre history, social and economic theory, performance studies, cultural studies, and rhetorical history.” — Elisabeth H. Kinsley, author of Here in This Island We Arrived: Shakespeare and Belonging in Immigrant New York