In the fall of 1848 , four army volunteers who came from the East Coast on military duty asked Jack to do plays at his building for pay. "Three local characters were designated as "Tips, Taps, and Tops". "This company gave two minstrel performances in the disused dining room of Jack's building "(Historical Survey 1937) . .
"This was undoubtedly the first effort at minstrelsy on the Pacific Coast".
( Historical Survey 1937).
After the Mexican War was over and Stevenson's regiment of New York Volunteers was disbanded in Los Angeles , three companies came to Monterey. Stevenson's company was one of them. Shortly after that, soldiers set up a theatre exhibition, which was a great success at that time. The managers of the companies were able to persuade Mr. Swan to fix seats , stage and scenery in the dining room of his adobe (Reese, 1975).
Very soon, the large room was transformed into a Theatre. Lumber , scraps, boxes, barrels, and anything else that could be found in town, was used for this purpose. A stage, a foot or more high, was build at the end of the hall. An orchestra pit was fenced by a wood fence. (Reese 1975 ).
The gallery was set up at the far end of the hall. It was made of rough planks resting on large boxes. A row of candles served as footlights, and the auditorium was lighted by whale oil lamps and chandeliers made from pieces of wood put together in a form of an "x" with candles stuck in holes. (Reese, 1975 ) .
According to curator M. L. Bradford, the front curtains for the stage consisted of blankets, two red and two blue sewn together and arranged on ropes and pulleys to come up and down at the required times. As Jack had been smart to build apartments which were separated by hinged partitions that could be swung up and secured to the ceiling, these were later used as curtains and were brought down whenever they needed to change the sets (Reese, 1975).
