On February 21, 1863, Edwin Booth took on the management of the Winter Garden Theatre (together with his brother-in-law, John Sleeper Clarke) with the intention of shifting the focus from musicals and burlesques to classical dramas.
The goal of staging Julius Caesar for just one night was to raise funds for the establishment of a statue of William Shakespeare designed by John Quincy Adams Ward in the relatively new Central Park on the northern outskirts (then) of Manhattan [REF].