Helen Potter

Helen Potter was a performer, platform reader, and impersonator closely associated with the Lyceum circuit and the New York Chautauqua in particular. Her performance career with the two institutions spanned the 1870s and 1880s, before she retired in 1890. Potter's impersonations, while preceded by the likes of Fanny Kemble and Mary Scott-Siddons, serves as direct inspiration for actors such as Hal Holbrook and Emlyn Williams.^[1] Potter is most well known for her impersonations "of well-known actors and lecturers, giving extracts from their principal plays or lectures".^[2] famously of Susan B. Anthony, John B. Gough, and Abraham Lincoln.

Potter was noted for her talent of being able to accurately impersonate both men and women, and for the theatrical nature of her impersonations when compared to the less flavorful performances which generally permeated the Lyceum and the Chautauqua circuits.