Frohman, Charles (1860–1915), producer. The youngest of three brothers who made names for themselves in the theatrical arena, he was born in Sandusky, Ohio, the son of an itinerant peddler. At the age of twelve he came to New York and took work first with the Tribune and later with the Daily Graphic. But having long loved theatre, Frohman took an evening job selling tickets at Hooley's Theatre in Brooklyn. By 1877 he was serving as advance agent for traveling shows, including Haverly's Minstrels. Steele MacKaye invited Charles and his brothers, Gustave and Daniel Frohman, to help manage the Madison Square Theatre, and in sending out complete duplicate road companies of the theatre's hits they are credited with inaugurating a policy that was to change the nature of provincial theatre. In 1888 he was an agent for Bronson Howard, whose play Shenandoah had been mounted with only small success at the Boston Museum. Frohman, nevertheless, saw possibilities in it and remounted and produced it the following year in New York, where it was an immediate success and launched Frohman's producing career. In 1890 he took over Proctor's Theatre and organized a stock company there and later moved it to the Empire Theatre, which he built with Al Hayman in 1893. Two years later Frohman met secretly with Hayman, Abe Erlanger, Mark Klaw, and several other men to organize what became known as the Theatrical Syndicate, or Trust. Ostensibly the group's aim was to bring order out of chaos in cross‐country bookings, but it soon controlled all the important theatres in the country and demanded exorbitant fees from producers and performers. Failure to meet its demands often meant a show could not play in a major city. Frohman's precise role in the organization has remained a matter of dispute. His supporters have claimed that he was the idealist in the group, looking the other way at its shady practices because he felt more benefits than harm came from its methods. Others have seen him as manipulating as Erlanger and company. Most likely the truth lies somewhere in between. But the certainty of comfortable bookings allowed him to work with ease, develop a roster of great stars, and present a steady stream of popular plays. Among the many stars who played for years under Frohman's auspices were John Drew, Ethel Barrymore, Maude Adams, and Billie Burke. He was particularly adept at taking relatively unknown actresses and, with his careful nurturing, make them stellar attractions. Detractors have suggested that, as a result of his emphasis on stars, Frohman cared little about the value of his plays, ignoring promising American playwrights and preferring to buy up wholesale the rights to tested European works. Yet he was responsible for the American premieres of many works by such significant and durable playwrights as Oscar Wilde, Sir James Barrie, Arthur Wing Pinero, Somerset Maugham, and Georges Feydeau. Nor did he totally neglect the best American talent, producing several of Clyde Fitch's plays. Moreover, he promoted an international respect for rising American playwrights by presenting their works abroad even when he had not produced the original New York mountings. Frohman was at the height of his career when he died in the sinking of the Lusitania. He has been described as a “little, round, slant‐eyed Buddha.” Biography: Charles Frohman: Manager and Man, Isaac F. Marcosson and Daniel Frohman, 1916.

The Oxford Companion to American Theatre. Copyright © 2004 by Oxford University Press, Inc. All rights reserved.