Materials related to rehearsal and performance, including a published copy (Berlin: Eduard Bloch, n.d.; fifth edition), which has been annotated as a prompt-book; and 3 handwritten role books, for the following parts: Charlotte Heinmüller, Wäscherin; Gottlieb Wirschebitzki, Landwehrmann; and Rademacher, Gastwirth. (The play has a fourth character: ein Schusterjunge.) All of the items have been labeled by hand as the property of Theodor Bloch, who was active in German-language theater in Philadelphia from around 1873 until at least the mid 1890s, first as an actor and later as a prompter, and who also ran a theater lending library. On the title page of the published copy, music is attributed to A. Conradi. (No music is included here.) The book has been bound into a homemade cardboard cover cut from a placard advertising a concert on 14 April 1878, apparently at Maennerchor Hall, Philadelphia. Among the names of cast members noted on the covers of role books, two that are discernible (Frau Dauzmann and Herr Hagemann) would suggest that the role books date from earlier, perhaps having been used for a performance around 1875. Other names are not legible or could not be placed, but seem to reflect at least two other, later casts. (The collection's holdings of theater newspapers and playbills contain no reference to this play.)
