Hippodramas, now a forgotten novelty of the past, was once a promising new venture for entertaining the masses. The concept started out as an attempt by Philip Astley to evade a bureaucratic quandary. The English government of the 1760s had strict regulations on who could perform dramatic theater, but fewer when it came to lighter entertainment. Performing classical theater was restricted, but not if it was done on horseback. Astley would abandon the hippodrama a few years later after its middling success gave him the resources to create what would become the first modern circus, but imitators ensured that there continued to be a supply to meet demand.

At first, the horses were considered a necessary evil for the human actors, with many stars lamenting the saddle sores they endured when crossing over into hippodrama from standard theater. But during a 1782 performance of Romeo and Juliet, Romeo (played by a young Russ Woodmore) was knocked out by a low-hanging stage prop, forcing his steed, Baker’s Choice, to act out the remainder of his soliloquy in Act 2 Scene 2 through a combination of equine pantomine and whinnies. The performance was so compelling that every playwright working on hippodramas attempted to work something similar into their scripts. From then on, horses were considered actors in their own right, and partnership between them and their riders became a must. Baker’s Choice in particular quickly became the go-to horse actor for lead roles and was briefly the most well-paid actor in England.

The attempt to switch to an all-horse model was due to a bet made between famous showman PT Barnum and his associate, museum magnate Moses Kimball, in 1840. Kimball, looking for an act to match Barnum’s fake mermaid, hit upon the idea of doing a hippodrama with no human actors. The English hippodrama scene learned to train horses how to act, just like you’d train them to race, but they still needed human actors most of the time to fully carry a narrative. Only particularly skilled horses like Baker’s Choice (by then deceased) were good enough to carry a performance all on their own. Kimball would study Baker’s Choice’s acting and use that as the bassis for a system of banners, signs and head motions to allow for nuance to be communicated better across massive audiences by horses. His all-horse As You Like It could not compete with Barnum’s curiosities for that year, causing him to lose the bet, but he would continue to work on it for the next two years. He would reach out to Baker’s Choice’s granddaughter, Hot Cross, for her keen intelligence (for a horse), and reached out to educator Thomas Gallaudet on how to communicate ideas at the rate of speech without using words, due to his role in the creation of American Sign Language. After several false starts, Kimball spearheaded the first all-horse travelling hippodrama (featuring equine signalling) in 1843, with Hot Cross as the star.

The tragic incident in 1845 along with the difficulties in transporting the props and performers made touring an unappealing prospect very quickly. Kimball transitioned to a model where the hippodrama would stay at one venue specifically designed for it, to be built in New York. The Worcester Hippodrome was opened to the public in 1852 and stayed in business for twenty years before it was shut down and the building sold to cover debts. Kimball insisted that the 1845 incident was a freak accident and, besides a thousand dollars given to Philemon Bean’s estate, refused any culpability to his dying day. Hot Cross returned to Britain in 1851 after a protracted contract disagreement with Kimball, and would proceed to have a respectable career in standard hippodramas, even performing alongside Jenny Lind in 1857. Due to her contact with Thomas Gallaudet while helping Kimball with equine signalling, she would spend much of her fortune on pursuing better conditions for the deaf, working closely with the National Institute for Deaf Children of Paris. She never spoke on Philemon’s death, but once, upon being asked about it, she did an impromptu, spirited performance that ended with her on the floor with splayed legs. Scholars still debate to this day what she was alluding to; leading theories suggest that she was performing a scene from the end of Richard III, where the title character is left on the battlefield without a horse. Other theories, after the details concerning Henshaw were revealed to the public, suggest some reference to the Book of Revelations.

The hippodrama would fall out of prominence with the advent of film, but hippodrama performers would remain inspirations for later generations and productions like Ben-Hur (1959) would use hippodramas as examples when instructing equine actors. 1970s racehorse/miracle recipient/actor Jet Lucky would specifically cite Hot Cross as his primary reason for getting into acting, besides the divine incident that allowed him to speak perfect English.