Elocutionist George Waldron steps on stage to welcome the audience. He explains that he and Julia Dean Hayne have recently returned from a tour of the mining camps. He describes the difficulties of that tour, the rustic conditions in which they had to perform, and the coarse and wild nature of the audiences.

Only one force was capable of "quieting the beasts and appeasing their hunger," he explains, "that being the beauty and grace of the fair and brilliant Julia Dean Hayne," who he then introduces to the audience.

Julia concurs that the tour was arduous and the condition were terrifying, but although the audiences were frightening in their countenance and rude in their manner, they did share a common passion: William Shakespeare. To her astonishment, his plays were the most popular entertainments in the Gold Rush mining camps...