| Summary: | "Through both history and personal memoir, examines the role of the Fulton Theatre in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, in the shaping of American identity from colonial times to the present"--Provided by publisher.
"In this poignant and personal history of one of America's oldest theaters, Leslie Stainton captures the story not just of an extraordinary building but of a nation's tumultuous struggle to invent itself. Built in 1852 and in use ever since, the Fulton Theatre in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, is uniquely ghosted. Its foundations were once the walls of a colonial jail that in 1763 witnessed the massacre of the last surviving Conestoga Indians. Those same walls later served to incarcerate fugitive slaves. 'Staging Ground' explores these tragic events and their enduring resonance in a building that later became a town hall, theater, and movie house - the site of minstrel shows, productions of 'Uncle Tom's Cabin', oratory by the likes of Thaddeus Stevens and Mark Twain, performances by Buffalo Bill and his troupe of "Wild Indians," Hollywood Westerns, and twenty-first-century musicals."--
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