Steele MacKaye (June 6, 1842–February 25, 1894) was a playwright, actor, theater manager, and inventor who has been called the closest approximation to a Renaissance man produced by the United States in the 19th century. He was elected to The Lambs in 1879 as a charter member. He would go on to serve as Boy (vice president) from 1880-1881, and from 1886-1889.
On June 6, 1842, was born to James and Emily Steele MacKaye, a son named James Steele MacKaye. Known later by his stage name, Steele MacKaye, he is likely the greatest unknown theater inventor, playwright, designer, teacher, innovator and impresario ever. By many authorities of the stage, he was called the “Father of Modern Acting.”
In his youth he studied painting with Hunt, Inness, and Troyon. He then went overseas.
In 1869 Steele was persuaded by his father to join him in Paris. In France, he became the disciple of François Delsarte, a great teacher in what was called applied aesthetic art, a naturalistic style of theatre integrating speech, movement and gesture. Delsarte studied and recorded aspects of human gesture in everyday life, recording thousands of gestures, each identified with specific descriptions of their time, motion, space and meaning. The Delsarte method sought to develop control, grace, and poise in order to enhance physical expression of emotions in connection with speech and thought.
MacKaye spent many months studying with the great master and then came back to this country fired with the spirit of a crusader to spread the ideals and philosophy of this great Frenchman.
A pupil of Delsarte and Régnier, he was the first American to act Hamlet in London (1873).
At Harvard, Cornell, and elsewhere he lectured on the philosophy of aesthetics. In New York City he founded the St. James, Madison Square, and Lyceum theaters.
This young man of only 29 years, by his enthusiasm and charming personality so convinced many of the great educators and actors of the day that he had a message, that he was requested in earnest, and urged to lecture on the subject. His first lecture in Boston was such a smashing success that he became famous overnight. He did several more in Boston then went back to New York to continue to lecture. MacKaye’s Boston fame preceded his arrival, he became instantly celebrated and was hailed by men of the arts, literature, science, education and drama as well as lauded by all of the critics. He founded a ‘school of expression’ in New York where he promoted the Delsartean method with his lectures. One cause of it being received so enthusiastically was no doubt the almost universal dissatisfaction with the mechanical method of acting. Teachers were eager for anything that might give promise of a philosophical basis for a better method.
MacKaye wrote 30 plays, including Hazel Kirke, performed many thousands of times. He wrote Hazel Kirke expressly for the new Madison Square Theatre. In both writing and performance the play was an attempt to move to the principles he was espousing. It became an astonishing success running 486 performances, a record against which future productions were measured for the next fifty years. Within five years the play had been staged in New York at various theaters over thirty-five hundred times, and on many days it was shown three times a day to clamoring audiences. Utilizing Steele Mackaye’s revolutionary concept of multiple companies, it inspired 14 road companies, along with dozens of pirated versions.
He organized the first school of acting in the U.S, which later became the American Academy of Dramatic Art.
MacKaye was also an inventor:
*Initiated overhead stage lighting (1874);
*Invented the first moving “double stage” (1879);
*Invented the elevated stage and elevated orchestra pit;
*Invented folding theatre seats.
In all, he patented over 100 theatrical inventions.
Among Steele’s childhood friends was his cousin Winslow Homer, later considered by many to be the greatest American painter ever. At the age of fourteen, Steele MacKaye ran away from Roe’s Military Academy, studied art under William Hunt at Newport (1858-59), at Paris in the Ecole des Beau Arts, and later under Ge’rome, Troyon, Couture, and Rousseau.
In 1862 he returned home and enlisted in New York’s Seventh Regiment in the Civil War. He served 18 months, chiefly in the 7th Regiment and in Col. Burney’s regiment, being a Major in the latter. He retired due to Rheumatic fever. MacKaye was the model for the 7th Regiment Memorial that is in Central Park, by sculptor John Quincy Adams Ward, on a pedestal by architect Richard Morris Hunt. It is not far from another Lamb sculpture, Victor Herbert.
Around 1885, MacKaye was looking for another challenge when he met fellow Lamb Nate Salsbury, the business partner of William F. Cody – “Buffalo Bill.” The Wild West show was a sketchy hodgepodge reenactment of various Indian battles including Custer’s Last Stand, valiant soldiers and cowboys, frightened settlers and miners. Looking for a success but not wanting to succumb to a circus like atmosphere Cody and Salsbury hired MacKaye to stage the performance with the best theatrical coordination. MacKaye chose the only venue large enough to house the show, Madison Square Garden then located on Twenty-Sixth Street. MacKaye reorganized the Wild West show for the indoor season during the winter 1886/1887. MacKaye created a show titled “The Drama of Civilization.” He invented elaborate special effects to transform the indoor arena into the windswept plains of the West, complete with a tornado.
For the Chicago World’s Fair of 1893, MacKaye projected the world’s largest theater, his Spectatorium (seating 12,000, with 25 moving stages), revolutionizing stage production and anticipating motion pictures. Financial difficulties prevented completion of the theater, but a scale model was later successfully demonstrated.
Having worked non-stop with little sleep and less food for almost two years, he died February 25, 1894 at the age of 51. He was aboard a railroad car from Chicago to the West Coast when he passed. A postmortem showed that he died of stomach cancer. The funeral of Steele MacKaye was held on the World’s Fair. There Lamb Henry Irving, his friend, sent this greeting to a fellow Hamlet: “Good night, sweet prince.”
His remains were brought back to New York, and he was interred in a simple grave in Woodlawn Cemetery, The Bronx. His epitaph:
Artist-Dramatist-Inventor