ABSTRACT
The new year began as Harrigan had predicted on the day of the fire. The company was housed uptown in Hyde and Behman’s New Park Theatre, Museum, and Menagerie at Broadway and thirty-fifth Street, and rehearsals for McAllister’s Legacy continued for the scheduled January 5, 1885, opening. Braham had been busy redrafting the songs that had been lost in the fire, reorchestrating the score, and rehearsing the orchestra in the new space. The cast and orchestra continued rehearsing until opening night, finally abandoning the stage as the sound of an audience waiting to get in grew louder and louder. Outside, the crowd began to assemble at 7:00 p.m., every horsecar on the Broadway and Sixth Avenue lines stopping in front of the theater over the course of nearly an hour. The performance was completely sold out, and the ticket scalpers who were familiar appendages to the openings of Braham and Harrigan plays were particularly well rewarded for their efforts. Everyone wanted to see the first performance after the fire, and most people were willing to pay premium prices for the opportunity. More than two hundred members of the Seventh Regiment, wanting to demonstrate their appreciation to Harrigan for kindnesses he had shown them in the past, bought tickets in a block at the front of the parquet, while the private boxes were crowded with the famous and the infamous.
