This alcove of the basement museum will be designed to give visitors the experience of walking through the theatre. The current basement museum makes little reference to the theatre space upstairs. The history of the building and its role in the culture of the city is extremely important to the story of the assassination. For example, the reason doctors decided to remove the President from the building was because a theatre was too crude a place for a president to die, thus leading to their decision to move him across the street to the Petersen Boarding House. Ignoring the purpose of the building means ignoring a significant aspect to this story. By setting up this new exhibition as a theatre, it will stand as a reminder of the purpose of the building and the importance of theatre during the Civil War era. …show more content…
As an active performance space, there are many times when the space is not available to museum visitors because of a rehearsal or event being held. As a result, some visitors to the historic site don’t get to see the section of the building that makes it famous. While a smaller scale reproduction in the basement will never replace the experience of entering the actual theatre space, the visual will at least allow for a sense of the grandeur of a theater from this era. While many changes were made over the years to bring the theatre space up to the modern standards of theatrical technology, the replicated space in the museum will be modeled after the theatre Lincoln would have attended. This ensures that even visitors who have the chance to ender the actual theatre get to see something unique as