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Future Interactive Exhibits
Proposed Exhibits for the Boston Tea Part Ships & Museum
The all-new Boston museum will be located in the middle of the Fort Point Channel and will include interactive exhibits; fascinating videos, living history programs, three dimensional displays and authentic memorabilia that will transport guests back to that night in December 1773.
The entire complex is meant to be a multilayered experience that will involve many areas of opportunity for reenacted interpretation of the Boston Tea Party in the context of Colonial America.
The Layered Experience
The experience at the Boston Tea Party Ships & Museum begins with a re-enactor on the sidewalk passing out copies of the original handbill from November 29th 1773 calling the citizens of Boston to a meeting at Faneuil Hall. Selected guests will be provided with an identity of an actual Tea Party participant and certain facts regarding historical events that they will be invited to share as participants in the following reenactment.
The Meeting House
The Meeting House will be the first reenactment opportunity where guests will hear the background historical events that brought the patriots to the momentous evening of December 16, 1773. This creates a context for all the events that followed. Upon the fateful words of Sam Adams, “There is no more we can do to save the government”. The entire audience will be given their “Mohawk” disguises and march in unison down to Griffin’s Wharf to “Dump the tea into the sea”.
The Tea Party Ships
The audience will come aboard either the Beaver or the Eleanor (the Dartmouth will be built later in 2012). These two ships have been recreated to be faithful representations of what the Beaver and the Eleanor were in 1773. On the ships guests will have the opportunity to actually throw the tea crates overboard as their act of defiance of King George III’s “Taxation without representation”, after which the guests will be invited to explore the ships to see what life aboard an 18th century vessel was like. There will be several interpretive exhibits including the crew’s quarters in the fo’c’sle where they will be able to hear conversations between the crew and see how they lived. Guests will be able to go through the holds of the ships and see some of the other cargo that was aboard that fateful night. At the stern of the ship, guests will come into the day cabin of the captain who will be making entries into his log which will be heard by the audience. Once the guests have explored the ship and taken their photographs, they will be invited to move on to the next part of their experience as Griffin’s Wharf.
Griffin’s Wharf
Griffin’s Wharf will have several opportunities for people to have their photos taken behind cutout figures of men, women and children in Colonial garb. At a signal from one of the docents, an appropriately sized group will then enter the museum foyer and a re-enactor will talk about the tension in the city and the events of the Tea Party in retrospect.
Boston Museum
The re-enactor from Griffin’s Wharf will join the guests as another “Tea Party participant” to guide them through the entire interactive museum experience. The Boston Museum foyer will have two audio presentations as they enter the foyer of the museum where outraged British soldiers are haranguing the entering “patriots” at bayonet point to move along which brings the mood of the audience to the realization of what they did the night before. The guests will enter on to a Boston streetscape where they will be treated to a debate between a Tory woman and a patriot woman expressing the viewpoints of women of the time. The presentation will be done on a state-of-the-art Musion screen that will represent the women in holographic projection.
Robinson Half Chest
This will be an audio presentation of the story of John Robinson, a young apprentice who probably participated in the Tea Party event the night before, who finds the Half Chest in the sand just off Dorchester Heights. The story of the incredible journey of the tea crate and its unlikely salvation and eventual return to Boston will be told in a compelling manner using narration and representation of the articles of provenance in the possession of the museum. This is one of only two know tea crates salvaged from December 16th, 1773.
The Debate Between King George III and Sam Adams
While they never met, there was great enmity between the King and the traitorous rebel, Sam Adams. This exhibit features a fantastic debate that may have taken place had they met. Their portraits will come alive and they will discuss the viewpoints of the King and the leader and planner of the Boston Tea Party as to why it occurred in the first place and the violent reaction by Parliament and the King and the effect on Boston and its people.
The Minuteman Theatre
After the debate between King George III and Sam Adams, the re-enactor who has accompanied the audience through the museum will now lead them into the Minuteman Theatre. Upon entry, the guests will be greeted by a life-sized bronze statue of Captain John Parker who led the Lexington militia that fateful morning of April 19, 1775. Guests will hear actual quotes spoken by contemporary leaders in the colony about the state of affairs between Great Britain and the colonies, in particular Boston. Once the audience is seated, a film presentation will begin and recount the participants and events that came to a crescendo on April 18, 1775 and progressed to a point of confrontation on Lexington Green the next morning where the, “Shot heard round the world” was fired and the Revolution was begun.
