Charles Frohman: Manager and Man

Charles Frohman rose from selling theater programs on the streets of New York to becoming the most powerful manager in American theater, the man who discovered Sarah Bernhardt's greatest rival and shaped the dreams of a generation of playhouse aristocrats. Isaac Frederick Marcosson, a journalist who knew his subject intimately, traces this remarkable ascent through the gaslit boulevards and backstage intrigues of an era when theater was religion and managers were gods. The narrative captures the fierce ambition of a boy enchanted by 'The Black Crook' who refused to leave the footlights until he'd mastered them, building an empire that defined what Broadway could become. But this is no simple success story. Frohman's death aboard the Lusitania in 1915, killed by a German torpedo in waters he had no business crossing, lends the biography an unexpected tragedy. For anyone who wonders how the American theater industry was forged, this intimate portrait offers a front-row seat to the making of modern entertainment.