The Company Theatre's Special Events Series Presents Banned in Boston

The award-winning Company Theatre Center for the Performing Arts 2015 Special Events series presents Banned in Boston, with author Neil Miller discussing his book chronicling Boston’s infamous crusade against books, burlesque, movies and other “social evils”, on Tuesday, May 19, at 7:30 pm, at The Company Theatre, 30 Accord Park Drive, Norwell.

In Banned in Boston’s spectacular romp through the Puritan City, Miller relates the scintillating story of how a powerful band of Brahmin moral crusaders helped make Boston the most straitlaced city in America, forever linked with the infamous catchphrase “Banned in Boston.”

Bankrolled by society’s upper crust, the New England Watch and Ward Society acted as a quasi-vigilante police force and notorious literary censor for over eighty years. Often going over the heads of local authorities, it orchestrated the mass censorship of books and plays, raided gambling dens and brothels, and utilized spies to entrap prostitutes and their patrons.

Miller deftly traces the growth of the Watch and Ward, from its formation in 1878 to its waning days in the 1950s. During its heyday, the society and its imitators banished modern classics by Hemingway, Faulkner, and Sinclair Lewis and went to war with publishing and literary giants such as Alfred A. Knopf and The Atlantic Monthly. Some faced extinction or tried to barter their way onto bookshelves, like Walt Whitman, who hesitantly removed lines from Leaves of Grass under watchful eye. As the Great Depression unfolded, the society shifted its focus from bookstores to burlesque, successfully shuttering the Old Howard, the city’s legendary theater that attracted patrons from T. S. Eliot to John F. Kennedy.

Tickets for Banned in Boston are $15. To order tickets, or for more information, visit www.companytheatre.com, call the box office at 781-871-2787, or email boxoffice@companytheatre.com. The box office is open Monday to Friday from 11 am to 6 pm, and during all performances. Free parking is available on site, and the theatre is handicap-accessible. For the latest information on programs and performances, please follow The Company Theatre Centre for the Arts on Facebook.