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Rosier Players Tent Show Script Collection

During the nineteenth century, millions of Americans were entertained by the Toby plays produced by the scores of performing troupes that toured across the country. Featuring "Toby," a red-headed, freckle-faced character actor, the plays were essentially a vaudeville show with a very thin plot supplemented with music, comic gags, and variety acts. Toby shows were particularly popular in the Midwest and South. In 1937, Harold Rosier, an actor famed for playing Toby, bought the Henderson Stock Company, a touring show established in 1898, and renamed it the Rosier Players. Headquartered in Jackson, Michigan, the Rosier Players toured the country but was especially active in Michigan. After Harold's death (on stage as Toby) in 1980, his widow, Waunetta Rosier Oleferchik donated to the Michigan State University Museum a collection of over 125 copies of original scripts owned by the Rosier Players along with Harold's musical saw and his chalk talk box.

Donors and Fieldworkers

Waunetta Rosier Oleferchik

Exhibitions

"The Rosier Players," Michigan State University Museum, East Lansing, c. 1985.

Publications

Christine Birdwell. "America's Last Old Time Tent Theater." Michigan History, Jan/Feb 1986.

Popcorn vending box

Rosier Players Tent Show Script Collection