Giant Hoax: The Musical

By: Erin Richardson, Curator

No, that title is NOT a hoax.  There is, indeed, a musical about the Cardiff Giant coming to Proctor's Theater in Schenectady, NY, in November.  I was fortunate enough to see a staged reading of the show last year, and thought it was great!  A few weeks ago, the cast came to have some publicity photos with the Giant.  You can see the final product above.  Here are a few members of the cast and the musical's director during the middle of their photo shoot:

I can't wait to go!

Here is some more information about the show:

The World Premiere of THE GIANT HOAX

Classic Theater Guild presents

"The Giant Hoax"

an original musical by Kit Goldstein

based on the true story of the Cardiff Giant
the 'petrified prehistoric man' currently on display in Cooperstown, NY

Directed by Criss Macaione
Music Directed by Rebecca Benjamin

In this charming family musical, a young girl's belief in wonderful things is challenged when she joins the traveling exhibition of New York's famous Cardiff Giant and gets a behind-the-scenes look at the truth behind the marvel.

Friday, Nov. 5 - 7:30 pm
Saturday, Nov. 6 - 7:30 pm
Sunday, Nov. 7 - 2 pm
Friday, Nov. 12 - 7:30 pm
Saturday, Nov. 13 - 7:30 pm
Sunday, Nov. 14 - 2 pm


Proctors Theater, Fenimore Gallery
432 State Street
Schenectady, NY

For additional information and/or tickets:
http://www.proctors.org/events/5859
or call (518) 346-6204

Invite your Facebook friends!

The cast features:

Bernard K. Allanson

Bill Palmer

Cassandra Wright

David Michael Benjamin Jr.

Doré Schmidt

Jacqueline Ravida

Jo Quinn

Joe Phillips

Kacie Rea

Kate Peterson

Margot Phillips

Mark David

Mary Durocher

Mary Kirsten

Omar Williams

Rebecca Civic

Sadie Buerker

Sarah Durocher

Seana Munson

Sheila O'Shea

Suzanne Baker

Another 15 minutes of fame for the Cardiff Giant

By: Erin Crissman, Curator

Last week, the Cardiff Giant received yet another opportunity for fame and stardom. A production crew from Optomem Productions came to film the Giant and to stage a reenactment of his burial and unearthing. They are producing a show for the Travel Channel called Mysteries of the Museum.  Ok, so the Giant isn't really a mystery any more, but he still makes a great story!

It was quite a full day. The crew arrived at about 9am. We undressed the Giant (well, not really since he is already undressed) by removing all of his exhibition props, labels, fencing bunting, banner and exhibition labels.  Then, we wheeled him out into the center of the entry area for some overhead shots.   

The crew spent the morning filming the Giant from a variety of angles and in a variety of dramatic lighting environments.

During the entire morning, it was quite pleasant outside.  Thankfully, it started raining for the afternoon's planned outside filming. (Don't things always work out that way?)

The guys made a mock-up of the Giant and some of our interpretive staff pretended to bury him. 

Ted Shuart, Patrick McGreggor and Rick Aborn were valiant and brave as they prepared to perpetrate one of the greatest hoaxes in American history.

Well, they stood in the rain for a few hours awaiting direction, but they did risk colds.

We're all excited to see the final show. The series will begin airing on the Travel Channel either late this year, or early in 2011. We will keep you posted.

Curious to find out who else will be featured?  Here's a great story about the crew filming at the Lizzy Borden House in Fall River, MA.

The Cardiff Giant sings - or does he?

By: Erin Crissman, Curator

A few weeks ago, I mentioned that the Cardiff Giant would be starring in a play (The Night The Cardiff Giant sang Rossini on the Lawn) at the Woodstock Fringe Festival. Kajsa and I went to see it on Sunday and I participated in a talk-back at the end of the performance with playwright, Charlie Traeger. It was a fun day and the play was quite thought-provoking. Traeger, like others who've been inspired by the Cardiff Giant over the years, used Giant-creator George Hull, and the Giant himself, to talk about the larger idea of hoax in America. The play is set in Cooperstown, NY in the present day. For the first few minutes, I thought it was interesting to watch a play set in the town where I live. Since Traeger lived in nearby Springfield for a brief time, his depiction was quite accurate!

Once I got past the setting, I could focus more on the ideas Traeger was presenting in relation to hoax. Each of the characters in the play struggle with accepting big changes in their lives and with the idea that the Giant may or may not rise at night and sing Rossini on the lawn of The Farmers' Museum. What I took away from the performance is how complicated the process of "coming to believe" really is. The play's characters sometimes feel crazy; they try to check their beliefs with each other for validation. During the talk-back afterword, I thought about those ideas in relation to both how the Giant came to reside at the Farmers Museum, and how people in the 1860s and 1870s struggled with believing, or not believing, that the Giant once roamed the earth.

Sometimes visitors to the museum, historians, and even museum staff, would like to believe that life in the 19th century was simple. At least it seems simpler than life today. Author and journalist Scott Tribble recently published Collasal Hoax, the story of the Cardiff Giant, and posits that early staff at The Farmers' Museum sought and purchased the Giant from a private owner in the 1940s, partly because it fit within a context of nostalgia and would give visitors a feeling of 19th century New York. I can't personally comment now on why early staff might have made this purchase, but I'm sure their rationale is somewhere in filed correspondence. If I find out more, I'll post it here. Whatever their reasons, I have my own reasons for believing that the Giant was a visionary purchase:

Often, people think of those taken in by the Giant hoax as simple country people, who, without too much education, would believe anything. I disagree. I see the Giant hoax as representative of how complicated and confusing life was in rural New York in the 1870s. Watching the actors on stage in Traeger's play struggle with nearly feeling insane because they weren't sure who to believe, or what was real, or if it was ok to believe something others thought was silly, helped me understand that rural New Yorkers must have been struggling with the same things when they heard about or (or travelled to see) the Cardiff Giant. At the time the Giant was "discovered," there were dozens of new religious groups, new science - it was the dawn of Darwin- and increasing numbers of publications with differing opinions. Who knew what to believe? Nineteenth century New Yorkers may not have had 5 different 24-hour news channels, but they were inundated with different versions of "truth." This was incredibly complicated stuff!

We saw The Night The Cardiff Giant Sang Rossini on the Lawn, at the Byrdcliffe Theater in Woodstock.

Cleaning up after the performance.

Our GIANT Star

By: Erin Crissman, Curator

Our illustrious Cardiff Giant is about to reach new heights of stardom. Although he’s already been on a variety of adventures in his long life, this time he’ll be featured in a play written by Charles Traeger. The Night the Cardiff Giant Sang Rossini on the Lawn opens at the Woodstock Fringe Festival in Woodstock, NY in two weeks. Directed by Wallace Norman, the play is set in Cooperstown where a man named George Hull is arrested for breaking into The Farmers’ Museum. From there, the mystery deepens as Hull claims to have heard the giant singing. (The real George Hull created, buried and then unearthed the Giant in 1869.) A few of us from the Museum will be available on the 16th and 20th of August for after-the-show discussions. I’ll submit a follow-up report from the Fringe Festival and let you know how the show and discussion went. I can’t wait to see what adventures will befall the Giant next.

Giant About Town

By: Kate Betz, Manager of Public Programs

If there was ever an object that deserved to be in a story that was titled “The Many Adventures of…,” the Cardiff Giant is such an object. I recently read an excellent blog post on the early history of the Giant, including his “discovery” and exhibition in the nineteenth century. I thought that our readers might be interested to know that his adventures upon arrival at The Farmers’ Museum in 1948 did not cease, but continued with a vengeance. On May 15, 1948, the Giant arrived at The Farmers’ Museum where he was “laid to rest,” as it were, by a group of workers. The exhibit was opened to the public four days later and crowds began to arrive to once again gawk at the “stupendous stone statue.” All was not wine and roses for the Giant, however. Less than a year after his arrival, the Giant was at the center of new drama when a man by the name of Michael Fitzmaurice sued the museum, stating that his grandfather had created the Cardiff Giant and had loaned him to P.T. Barnum. (Those of you who have been to the museum and seen our most recent display will know that this was, of course, a false claim—P.T. Barnum never owned THE Cardiff Giant, but had created a fake of a fake that he exhibited at the same time that the Giant enjoyed its greatest success). Three years after his arrival, the Giant was done with life in a pit. He determined that life above ground had many more benefits. In 1951, he was moved to an above ground display where he remained for the next fourteen years until, in 1965, he moved to even fancier digs in a covered enclosure at the end of our Main Barn. Again ready for a change of scenery, the Giant moved in 1984 to a new exhibit in what is now the Louis C. Jones Center called the “Museum of Wonders.” There, he joined the ranks of some of the most eclectic items from the collections of museums across New York State including a two-headed calf, dinosaur tracks, and relics of the American Revolution. This exhibit was meant to show museum visitors what the very earliest museums—such as the American Museum created by Mr. P.T. Barnum (yes, he actually did create this one)—looked like. Called cabinets of curiosities, they were treasure troves of oddities, wonders, and other strange objects meant to delight and intrigue the public. Though he enjoyed the company, the Giant eventually tired of sharing the spotlight with the other objects and again sought a relocation—this time to nearly the same spot that he had occupied on his arrival in 1948. He was exhibited in a tent that was meant to recreate the manner in which nineteenth-century spectators would have come upon him. In 2003, Giant and tent were moved to become a part of the museum’s new Country Fair exhibit. While he was somewhat embarrassed by the birthday hat he was forced to wear, the Giant nonetheless appreciated the attention during the celebration of his 134th birthday. Even the most stoic of giants eventually becomes antsy and yearns to roam free. After 58 years of living within the museum’s walls, the Cardiff Giant was allowed off the grounds for a special treat—a central part of the Hall of Fame Game parade held each year in Cooperstown. Harkening back to his earliest years of display, the Giant reveled in the sizeable crowd that came out to see him. He thrilled at the cheers, enjoyed the wind on his skin, but still managed to maintain his modesty. Since his time in the sun, the Giant has recently retired to a quieter location at the entrance to our Main Barn. Make sure to pay him a visit when we open the doors for his 61st season at the museum on April 1st.