The play was first published in 1873. The file contains materials related to rehearsal and performance, including a published copy (Berlin, Eduard Bloch, n.d.) which has been annotated as a prompt-book; and 7 handwritten role books, for the following parts (the complete character list): Sterbel, Registrator; Karoline, seine Frau; Kulike; Drillhase; Frau Neumann, Hauswirthin (a male role in the text); Jette, Dienstmädchen; and ein Lehrjunge. The published copy, which probably dates from around 1873, attributes music to A. Conradi, who is titled "königl. Musikdirektor." (No music is included here.) The page with the character list gives the cast of the play as performed at Wallner-Theater, Berlin. The role books are labeled by hand as the property of Theodor Bloch, who was active in German-language theater in Philadelphia from at least the early 1870s until the mid 1890s, first as an actor and later as a prompter, and who ran a theater lending library. (The published copy, which is bound into a homemade cover, appears also to have belonged to Bloch, but the printed label with his name that was once affixed to it is no longer extant.) The role books all have a similar appearance and seem to form a set that was prepared by Bloch, or at his direction. The role book for Sterbel bears on the front cover a handwritten note from Alexander Kost to (Herr) Arenz, the actor assigned to play the role. On the back cover is a note from Arenz to Kost. (Kost, an actor, began appearing in casts of German-language plays in Philadelphia in 1878, after moving from Chicago. He directed plays at Germania Theater in 1879-1880, and at the Concordia Operetten-Theater in 1880-1881. He was manager and head director of Germania Theater from around 1882 to 1885, and of Thalia Theater in 1885-1886.) Two other role books also bear names of cast members. (The collection's holdings of theater newspapers and playbills contain no reference to this play.)
