out human players for long periods every year, theater managers have to bow to it more and more.
It remained for the Shuberts, however, to give the theatrical business a most original twist. They made it a real estate speculation. Readers of this article may recall that recently they have read that in their own or a neighboring city the Shuberts are going to build one or two theaters. In one city, the announcement was made that two theaters were to be built. That particular city happens to need almost everything else but theaters. However it cannot get anything else it needs, and there is no doubt it will get the theaters.
The Shuberts learned this trick when they were supposed to be “bucking the Trust.” They went after any building they could get, and because of the public enmity to the Trust, they got better terms than otherwise could have been possible. An old riding school in New York became the Winter Garden. The great Hippodrome, the materialized dream of a non-Jew, Frederick Thompson, was taken over by the Shuberts. It soon dawned on the Shuberts that there was more money in theatrical real estate than in theatrical art.
Today, the Shuberts, while nominally theatrical managers, are really dealers in theatrical leases and buildings where theatrical productions are made. A theater, as a real estate proposition, pays amazingly well. Figure up the amount of space you occupy as a show, the length of time you occupy it, and the price you pay for it. It is rent raised to the nth degree; then the offices which make the bulk of the structure, and the stores in front. Really, “the show business” is the minor consideration.
What does it cost the Shuberts? Very little but the use of their name. When it is the matter of a new theater, outside capital supplies three-fourths of the money, but the lease and the control are vested in the Shuberts. That is a rather handsome arrangement.
In the matter of producing plays, the same arrangement is often followed—the author, the star, or their backers supplying the larger part, sometimes all of the capital, while the Shuberts lend their name to the management and take their share of the booking fees and the rental of the theaters where the show is produced.
