Nelson Waldron, Master Stage Machinist of the Nineteenth-Century Theatre

Always on the margin of the nineteenth-century theatre is the stagehand. Nameless to history, they follow orders of influential producers like Lester Wallack; they follow theatre dreams of artists like Steele MacKaye. Yet researching this last artist, one stagehand name repeatedly appears. Doing so he takes on a personality and a history. The man was Nelson Waldron (1839–1917). At times he was noted as stage machinist, later on a master …