A History of Equestrian Drama in the United States

Introduction

This book is about “equestrian drama,” which is also known as “hippodrama,” and occasionally as “horse drama.” These are all acceptable descriptive terms that can be used to name the type of theatre examined in this book. I use equestrian drama because it is the term used in most of the extant written scripts from these plays, as well as most of the contemporary announcements, advertisements, written accounts, reviews, and reports of performance from the time period in which they were produced. Earlier scholars have used both hippodrama and equestrian drama, and have defined these plays in their own words. The most significant usages and definitions of each term come from Clet Anthony Giraud and Arthur H. Saxon, both of whom wrote ...