The Theater Business and the Local Economy in Mexico City, 1820s-30s

This paper examines the local dynamics of the theater business in 1820s and 1830s Mexico City. Through a close reading of little used municipal records, court transcripts, account books, and correspondence, the paper analyzes theater’s importance to the local economy. It shows how managers employed a host of auxiliary personnel—stagehands, ushers, doormen, carpenters, tailors, accountants, scribes, and musicians to name a few—to stage productions and manage the theater’s day-to-day operations. The paper also shows how local industries profited, from printers who provided invitations, playbills, and posters to the shopkeepers who rented out furniture for staging to nearby café owners who saw business spike before and after performances. However, when business was bad, managers resigned, or disease outbreaks struck the capital forcing the temporary closure of theaters, their lives and those of their families hung in a precarious balance.

In addition to showing the theater business’s deep integration in the local economy, the paper explores the strategies individuals deployed to secure their subsistence. Individuals pleaded with managers when salaries went unpaid for weeks and months. If that proved ineffective, they took their complaints directly to the vice president. Some took theater managers to court, demanding pay for services rendered. An analysis of the language of their pleas and corresponding state action (or inaction) reveal everyday Mexicans’ understandings of contractual obligations, financial responsibility, and economic justice during the early years of the republic.