The Play Must Go West essays

The Play Must Go West essays Soon after the American Revolution, Americans began their expansion to the west. It was our Manifest Destiny to tame the wilds of the west and expand our nation from coast to coast. Families from all over would load up their belongings and travel to the newly purchased lands. People from New York, Philadelphia, Boston and all parts of the new nation brought with them their language, culture and belief systems. Along with this they also brought the theater. It was not long after people would begin to live in an area that the theater would take root. The progress of the theater in the United States can be traced along the same routes as the settlement of the west. Beginning on the east coast with early colonies the theater was carried with our ancestors to their new homes in the west. From St. Louise to Kansas City, from Kansas City to California and all parts in between. Horace Greeley said "Go west young man" and the theater followed. In 1492 Christopher Columbus left Azones on a trip to discover a western sea route to the Orient. Seventy days later Columbus made land fall on what he thought was an outlying portion of Asia. Columbus would go to his death believing he had landed in Asia, he was wrong. Although he did open up a new world for Europeans to expand their culture into.(Billington 15) Thought many early attempts where made to settle this new land. Most ended in disaster. In 1620 however, 128 years after Columbus made his brave but mistaken discovery of the new world, the pilgrims set out to make a permanent settlement in America. They put a shore in what is now called Massachusetts and formed a thriving, self governed colony.(Billington 57) 10 years later, John Wintrope brings 1000 colonist and founds the city of Boston. Wintropes British settlement had not been in the new world long, in fact less than a year, when they discovered that the Dutch had formed their own nearby settlement. The Dutch called...