Robert Barnet, Queen Isabella
Dorchester Illustration 2633
This scan of a photograph was published in The Extravaganza King by Anne Alison Barnet who tells the story of her ancestor, Robert Barnet.
The following is from the book jacket:
“This is the entertaining tale of Robert Barnet (1853-1933), a prosperous Boston sugar merchant, and the enormously popular musical theatricals he wrote and produced for the First Corps of Cadets, a volunteer militia of young upper-class Boston businessmen. He and his family lived at 27 Carruth St. for a number of years.
“Barnet had already made a name for himself in local amateur theater circles when the Corps hired the middle-aged father of five to stage fund-raisers to erect the armory, known today as the Park Plaza Castle. Barnet himself starred as Queen Isabella of Spain in 1492, his most famous work. Donning dresses and wigs for the female parts, the hefty, muscular leading ladies raised laugher rather than eyebrows from the audiences of prominent Bostonians who attended the shows.”