A Failed Attempt at World Domination: "Advanced Vaudeville," Financial Panic, and the Dream of a World Trust

In February 1907, the once-distinct worlds of vaudeville and the legitimate theatre collided when Marc Klaw and Abraham Erlanger, the two most vilified members of the Theatrical Syndicate, announced plans to enter the vaudeville arena.¹ Joining forces with their former rivals E. D. Stair and J. H. Havlin, who owned and controlled a national chain of lower-priced theatres, Klaw & Erlanger declared their goal of uplifting vaudeville from its lowbrow associations by presenting only the finest, "high class" acts.² "Advanced Vaudeville," they claimed, would bring to vaudeville the kind of cultural legitimacy that leading vaudeville impresario B. F. Keith had been struggling to achieve for years.³

Klaw & Erlanger's vaudeville declaration was big news on Broadway. As members of the Syndicate, an organization formed in 1896 by six prominent theatre owners and managers in an attempt to streamline booking processes, the duo dominated legitimate theatrical production in North America. By 1907 the Syndicate directly owned or leased well over eighty theatres and controlled the booking of five hundred theatres across the continent.⁴ But it was Klaw & Erlanger's dual status as producers and booking agents that gave them the greatest competitive advantage over their rivals; through their centralized booking office, they secured the best routes for their own touring productions while reserving the worst for their rivals. Those who opted not to book with the Syndicate soon found themselves shut out of most first-class theatres in North America with little option but to play in second-rate houses or other alternative venues.⁵

By 1907, however, the Syndicate was beginning to lose ground to the Shubert brothers from Syracuse, New York, who had begun an aggressive theatre-building campaign in most major cities throughout the United States. Like Klaw & Erlanger, the Shuberts also produced plays and musical comedies, but their approach to booking was markedly different. Rather than insist on an exclusive booking arrangement, the Shuberts adopted an "open door" policy, whereby they agreed to allow any and all other managers to use their theatres if they were available. This policy quickly won the Shuberts a number of influential friends, including the independent manager David Belasco, the publisher and manager Harrison Grey Fiske, and Fiske's actress wife, Minnie Maddern Fiske. Together, these allies launched a formal attack against the Syndicate, accusing them of trust-building and other criminal activities.

Ironically, it was the attempt on the part of vaudeville impresario B. F. Keith to establish his own Syndicate-like monopoly over vaudeville booking processes that presented the ideal opening for Klaw & Erlanger's vaudeville venture. In early February, Keith and fellow vaudeville entrepreneur F. F. Proctor finalized a merger with Willie Hammerstein and Percy Williams, two independent vaudeville managers who had formerly booked their acts through talent agent William Morris. Although initially hesitant to work with Keith, Williams and Hammerstein were enticed by the prospect of sharing profits with Keith's newly formed United Booking Office (UBO). At Keith's insistence they agreed to abandon Morris and book their acts exclusively through the UBO.⁶ Blindsided by the merger, Morris turned to Klaw & Erlanger for help. In less than a week, plans for a new vaudeville combine were under way, prompting journalistic speculations of impending "vaudeville war."⁷

Theatre historians have offered numerous theories to explain why Klaw & Erlanger agreed to help Morris and enter the vaudeville playing field. Writing in 1909, Robert Grau argued that the duo had little actual interest in remaining in vaudeville but wanted to ensure that Keith and Albee stayed out of the legitimate theatre. By entering the vaudeville arena they effectively forced Keith and Albee to buy them out, which they eventually did in November 1907.⁸ Grau's contemporary M. B. Leavitt offered a different interpretation, suggesting that Klaw & Erlanger gave little thought to their vaudeville venture, assuming that they would be able to challenge Keith for dominance with relative ease, thereby securing a monopoly over both vaudeville and legitimate theatre production.⁹ Arthur Frank Wertheim echoes Leavitt in his 2006 book, Vaudeville...