"The costumes are great because they are so visual. We have a staged set as part of the exhibit where people can do a character activity and read a couple of lines on stage if they want to. We've also built huge stage sets behind several of the display cases to illuminate some of the themes of the show. For example, there is a large section about Abraham Lincoln and the Booth family. Of course, John Wilkes Booth, Lincoln's assassin, is there but his brother Edwin and his whole family were also Shakespearean actors. They came out to California to perform Shakespeare's plays in the mining camps during the gold rush. Edwin's granddaughter, Edwina, lived up in Northridge so CSUN has some of the family archives. Through them, we were able to get the recording of Edwin Booth reading a speech from OTHELLO. You can hear that in the Lincoln section where we have a big backdrop of Ford's Theatre. We also have a Pioneer Theater in another section, and Arden, which was the home of Helena Modjeska, the great Polish actress who settled in Orange County. I could go on and on."
Broadway World