BOOKS | Staging Ground

Front cover of "Staging Ground: An American Theater and Its Ghosts" by Leslie Stainton
 

Staging Ground

An American Theater and Its Ghosts

In this poignant and personal history of one of America’s oldest theaters, Leslie Stainton tells the story not just of an extraordinary building but of a nation’s struggle to invent itself. Built on the walls of an 18th-century jail where the last Conestoga Indians perished and where enslaved African Americans once languished, Pennsylvania’s Fulton Theatre is uniquely ghosted. Interweaving past and present, Staging Ground explores this emblematic space and its role in the making of America.

“This is a fascinating, candid, entertaining journey, with frequent reflections on crucial issues in our history. Stainton’s book makes an important addition to the literature on American theater and culture.” 

—Don B. Wilmeth, editor of Cambridge Studies in American Theatre and Drama

 

“This book is great theater—immediate, engrossing, cathartic.”

—Helen Sheehy, author of Just Willa