One of the most popular plays of the 1890s, "The Great Train Robbery" was billed as a "spectacular melodrama" with "living pictures of western life." A gang of train robbers plan to rob the Wells-Fargo Express of $50,000 but when the conspiracy is discovered, the hero, an innocent man implicated in the scheme, escapes to the wild west. The play opened in Chicago in 1896 and after its New York engagement toured successfully for the next 10 years. Its...