Marbury, Elisabeth

(1856-1933)

   America's first playwrights' agent as well as a producer, Elisabeth Marbury was born into a well-established New York City family. Educated in the classics, in bookkeeping, and in social skills, she defied the expectations of her fashionable upbringing to undertake her own business enterprises. She was drawn to theatre through her charitable work on benefit performances in the mid-1880s, the success of which led to Daniel Frohman's recommendation that she make a career in theatre management. It was also through a charity event that she met actress Elsie de Wolfe, with whom she maintained a liaison for more than 40 years.

   Marbury's first professional venture in theatre was the management of Frances Hodgson Burnett's Little LordFauntleroy in 1888. She was in Paris to arrange the French production of it when she offered to manage the American productions of plays by the commercially successful playwright Victorien Sardou. That association led to her becoming in 1890 the only English-language representative for all French playwrights. From her head office in the Empire Theatre Building (where she channeled a steady stream of international plays to Charles Frohman in offices a floor below hers), Marbury opened play-brokering offices in Berlin, London, Madrid, Moscow, and Paris. Among her many other ventures were The American Play Company (1914), the Castle House ballroom dancing school, the intimate-scale Princess Theatre musicals she produced (19151918), war relief activities, and various offices in the Democratic Party. Marbury's partner de Wolfe retired from acting, and, with Marbury's encouragement, became a fashion leader and interior designer, often designing scenery for plays produced by Marbury. Marbury published her autobiography My Crystal Ball in 1923.

   See also foreign plays adapted to the american stage.