Leland
Todd Powers (January 28, 1857
– November 27, 1920) was an American performing arts educator,
author, and actor. The founder of the Leland Powers School, he
was once renowned as "the highest paid man in the Lyceum field." Born
in Pultneyville, New York,
Powers attended the Phillips Academy in Andover, Massachusetts and
graduated there in 1875. In 1884, Powers gained popularity for acting all the
roles in plays on his own,and was noted for being "the first man on the
Lyceum platform in America to do this. In 1888, he married his first wife
Louise Nancy Baldwin. They were divorced in 1895 and she travelled to Europe to
have lessons with Alberto Randegger, to whom
she was married in 1897. He eventually traveled across the country and to South
America, and was noted as being the best paid performer on the Lyceum circuit
in America between 1890 and 1900, during which time he was managed by the Redpath Lyceum Bureau. In
1895, he married Carol Hoyt Powers, and they had two children. The family
were Christian Scientists, with
Carol Hoyt Powers serving a three-year term as Second Reader of The Mother Church in Boston. In 1893, it was written
that, "Leland Powers is small and active, and tropical in temperament, and
he dare enact a play with great fidelity." He married Carol Hoyt on Christmas Eve, 24 December 1895 in Somerville, Massachusetts.
In 1904, he founded the Leland Powers School of the Spoken Word in Boston, Massachusetts,
joining his wife and more than a dozen staff members in teaching 140 students
annually. Ten years later, in 1914, Powers had a building constructed in the Fenway next door
to the Girls' Latin School. From
the school Powers sold several books, including Talks on Expression, Fundamentals
of Expression (with Mrs. Powers), and a practice book for learners. Powers'
pedagogy was credited as "offering a more holistic answer to the actor's
problems," similar to his contemporary, Charles Wesley Emerson.