 After the Civil War, the American stage was dominated by melodramas, minstrel shows, comedies, farces, circuses, vaudevilles, burleques, operas, operettas, musicals, musical revues, medicine shows, amusement arcades, and Wild West shows.Many American playwrights and theatre workers lamented the "failure of the American playwright", including Augustin Daly, Edward Harrigan, Dion Boucicault, and Bronson Howard.However, as cities and urban areas boomed from immigration in the late nineteenth century, the social upheaval and innovation in technology, communication and transportation had a profound effect on the American theatre.