Some say that there were no great English plays written in the period between Richard Sheridan and Oscar Wilde. Yet playwright Dion Boucicault's London Assurance was a success at a time when melodrama, minstrel shows and musical revues dominated English-language theatre. Co-Artistic Director of the St. Lawrence Shakespeare Festival James Wallis moderates this conversation with Marlis Schweitzer, professor at York University, and Allan Pero, associate professor at the University of Western Ontario, as they consider this unique era in theatre.