Handwritten materials related to rehearsal and performance, including a (handwritten) transcription of the text in a hard-covered notebook; 2 versions of a scenario; a separate list of props; and 17 role books, for the following parts: Adolf Schönfeldt, Besitzer einer Tapetenfabrik; Helene, seine Frau; Herrmann Fuchs, sein Compagnon; Gottfried Bergmann, Gutsbesitzer; Cäsar Schulze; Raufer, genannt Fürst Kanonendonner; Dr. Krümmel, erster Gast; Cornelius, Maler, zweiter Gast; Friedrich, Kleistermann, Pinte, and Kobalsky (Arbeiter in der Fabrik von Schönfeldt); Marie, Rätherin, Friedrichs Verlobte; Heinrich, Kellner; Pech, Executor; ein Droschkekutscher; and Tanzmaitre. (The text shows a few additional roles: Herr von Bomberinsky; Leimsieder, Arbeiter in der Fabrik von Schönfeldt; Rosalie, Büffetdame; Vogel, Executor; Wilhelm, Lehrbursche; and ein Schutzmann.) In the transcription of the text, music is attributed to A. Lang. Music is included as follows (see folders 665-667): published music with lyrics (Berlin: Ed. Bote & C. Bock, n.d.), with a full-page cover illustration; a homemade booklet of handwritten musical scores with lyrics for 13 songs, with an accompanying overview ("Musikzettel"); and individual sheets bearing handwritten musical scores for instruments including violin, flute, bass, clarinet, and cornet. Among the instrumental scores are a set of leaves that are all signed at the top "G. Adolphi," indicating evidently the composer of what might be supplemental music or a particular arrangement. Presumably the author is the same Gustav Adolphi who appears in the casts of German-language plays around 1890. The notebook containing the text is labeled as the property of Theodor Bloch, who was an actor and later a prompter in German-language theater in Philadelphia from around 1873, and formally operated a theater lending library from around 1880 until the mid 1890s; evidently Bloch was assembling theater materials as early as 1873, the year when these role books seem to have first been used. Almost all of the role books have a uniform appearance; are written out in the same hand, including a note on the front cover labeling them as the property of Bloch; and are signed on the last page by the copyist, "Otto Volkland," who was also an actor in German-language theater in Philadelphia at that time. On the inside front cover of the notebook containing the text a playbill clipping from a German-language newspaper advertisement is pasted, which announces a performance of the play on 25 Dec. [1873]; the ad describes the play as "new" and having its first performance in America. The names of the cast members from that performance are also evident on the role books. Additional names written on the role books reflect about four other different casts, dating from the late 1870s until the early 1890s. See the index in the collection's register for details about 6 theater newspapers (in drawer 35) and 1 playbill (in folder 681), documenting performances in Philadelphia in 1878, 1880, 1884, 1889 and 1893.
