ABSTRACT
A Lively little group of five itinerant players known as Salsbury’s Troubadours, newly arrived from Chicago, St. Louis, and other western points, brought a trifle called The Brook to New York on May 12, 1879. To the patrons of the San Francisco Opera House, The Brook constituted nothing more than a pleasant way of passing a spring evening in the theatre occupied throughout the winter by the popular San Francisco Minstrels. To us, gifted with hindsight, The Brook—despite its tiny budget and its brief engagement of two weeks—was one of the most important productions of its time, outweighing from the historian’s viewpoint such costly offerings as the Kiralfys’ Around the World in Eighty Days or Fox’s Humpty Dumpty.
