Amy Hughes, "An Actor's Tale: Theater, Culture, and Everyday Life in the Nineteenth-Century United States" (U Michigan Press, 2025)

Nov 24, 2025

Dr. Amy Hughes, a U-Michigan theater professor and author of An Actor's Tale, delves into the life of 19th-century actor Harry Watkins, exploring his mediocrity and the myths of meritocracy. She reveals how ordinary performers shaped theater, linking their struggles to contemporary issues like celebrity culture and systemic inequalities. Amy discusses the significance of casting practices, how personal relationships influenced careers, and the overlooked narratives of marginalized artists in theatrical history.

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INSIGHT

Ordinary Lives Reveal Big Histories

Dr. Amy Hughes argues that ordinary lives can be historically valuable sources, not just famous figures.
She chose Harry Watkins precisely because his ordinariness reveals broader theatrical culture and omissions in scholarship.

INSIGHT

Early Roots Of Industry Conservatism

Hughes connects 19th-century theatre conservatism to modern industry dynamics of profit and risk-aversion.
She shows how performers marketed a semblance of excellence to succeed commercially despite uneven talent.

INSIGHT

How Merit Myths Protect Privilege

The book uses the concept of white mediocrity to explain differential expectations of excellence by race and gender.
Hughes links merit myths to systemic advantages that lower standards for dominant groups.

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Harry Watkins was no one special. During a career that spanned four decades, this nineteenth-century actor yearned for fame but merely skirted the edges of it. He performed alongside the brightest stars, wrote scores of plays, and toured the United States and England, but he never became a household name. Inspired by this average performer’s life and labor, An Actor's Tale: Theater, Culture, and Everyday Life in the Nineteenth-Century United States (University of Michigan Press, 2025) by Dr. Amy Hughes offers an alternative history of nineteenth-century theater, focusing on the daily rhythms and routines of theatrical life rather than the celebrated people, plays, and exceptional events that tend to dominate histories of US theater and performance. In the process, Dr. Hughes asks uncomfortable questions about the existence, predominance, and erasure of White male mediocrity in US culture, both in the past and present.

When historians focus only on performers and plays with artistic “merit,” what communities, perspectives, and cultural trends remain invisible? How did men like Watkins advance themselves professionally, despite their mediocrity? Why did men like Watkins embrace and perpetuate myths like the American Dream, the “self-made man,” and meritocracy, and how have these ideals shaped casting, producing, and celebrity worship in today’s US entertainment industry?

Ultimately, Dr. Hughes reveals how this actor’s tale illuminates the widespread tendency to ignore, deny, and forgive White male mediocrity in US culture, and how a deeper understanding of people like Watkins can transform our understanding of the past—and our understanding of ourselves.

This interview was conducted by Dr. Miranda Melcher whose book focuses on post-conflict military integration, understanding treaty negotiation and implementation in civil war contexts, with qualitative analysis of the Angolan and Mozambican civil wars. You can find Miranda’s interviews on New Books with Miranda Melcher, wherever you get your podcasts.

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