Cinema Before Film, The Raven, and The Star-Spangled Banner

Screening: Sunday, April 30, Noon, Maryland Historical Society (www.mdhs.org)

Synopsis: Heralded as the precursor to modern movies, magic-lantern shows mesmerized Victorian-era audiences. Instead of a movie projector, an antique brass and mahogany magic-lantern displayed elaborate glass slides (many with moving parts) before eager audiences. The skilled magic-lantern operator narrated the show while rapidly projecting a series of antique hand-painted images to illustrate popular songs and stories-programs were often accompanied by live music and sound-effects provided by the audience.

Enjoy the rare experience of a live magic-lantern program. Terry Borton, director of The American Magic-Lantern Theater-the only touring program of its kind-hosts a program called Cinema Before Film, a lecture that showcases the history and techniques of the magic-lantern. The program features two segments especially designed with the local audience in mind including a presentation of Edgar Allen Poe's The Raven, and a performance of The Star-Spangled Banner, featuring slides of the British attack on Baltimore's Fort McHenry during the War of 1812.

Tidbit: "My great-grandfather had an 1869 kerosene magic-lantern. My father had vivid memories of his neighborhood shows at the turn of the century. When I was a kid, my father used that same lantern to put on shows for us, telling the old stories in great-grandpa's dramatic style-the style I use in our shows now." -Terry Borton

Bio: Terry Borton, producer of the American Magic-Lantern Theater, and its lead performer, is a fourth-generation lanternist who grew up watching magic-lantern shows as a child. Before devoting full-time to the magic lantern, Borton had a wide background in the modern media. For fifteen years he was Editor-in-Chief of the children's newspaper, Weekly Reader, which, with a circulation at that time of eight million, was the largest newspaper in the world. He is the author of two books and hundreds of articles, is the lead performer on two records of poetry readings. Borton holds a doctorate in education from Harvard, and is currently working on a book on the magic-lantern and America's foremost magic-lantern artist, Joseph Boggs Beale, whose slides are featured in today's show.