Night Show

Night Show places three mounted performers beneath the darkened sky of Buffalo Bill’s Wild West, a spectacle that increasingly extended into the evening as electric illumination became available. For audiences accustomed to gaslight and kerosene lamps, hundreds of performers and animals suddenly illuminated by powerful electric lights would itself have been remarkable. By the late nineteenth century, lighting had become part of the attraction, and the Wild West eventually traveled with its own generators and electrical equipment. The nighttime setting gives Ross’s scene an additional historical dimension, connecting the spectacle of the Old West with a technology that was startlingly new to many of its audiences.