Confessions of a Theatrical Manager
Daniel Frohman, the famous theater manager, discusses the high-stakes gamble of producing stage plays in the late 19th century.
The story, cleaned up
A cleaned-up reading of the newspaper page: spelling and layout repaired, one story lifted off a crowded page. It follows the original closely but it is not a transcription. The original page is below; read it if a detail matters.
Daniel Frohman, who is here with his Lyceum Theater company of New York, is one of the leading theatrical managers and musical directors in America. He is a firm believer in stock companies, and he spoke freely on theatrical matters. Viewed commercially, there is no business in which the risk is so great as in the theatrical, and its most difficult branch is that of the stock company. A manager must please a multitude of varied tastes, or the box office will not smile with wealth and the enterprise will have to be abandoned as unprofitable. Two thirds of a play may be excellent and the remaining third condemn the whole. Many of the plays which have failed, and which failure fairly competent judges have been puzzled to account for, have met their Waterloo on account of a weak last act, which has destroyed all the good effects of an otherwise strong and interesting play.
“Viewed commercially, there is no business in which the risk is so great as in the theatrical.”
Frohman’s struggle to balance 'high art' with commercial viability is a tale as old as the theater itself. The challenge of sustaining a permanent stock company in a transient, booming city like 1893 Seattle mirrors the modern struggle to keep local, brick-and-mortar arts venues alive in a high-cost environment.
From readers
No comments yet. If you know something about this story — a correction, a family memory, a source — it belongs here.