Abstract

"The Business Organization of Commercial Theatre in the United States from Colonial America to the Second World War"

Anthony Vickery, University of Victoria (avickery@uvic.ca)

The commercial theatre industry in the United States was established prior to the American Revolution as a transplant of the British industry. It grew during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries and is best represented by activity on Broadway in New York City today. Few business histories examine the organization of the commercial theatre in the United States and those that do look at the sector mostly in isolation from larger movements in the general economy. However, since it is a for-profit business and a popular entertainment, it is more open to external economic factors than other parts of the arts economy . For much of its history, changes in the business organization of the theatre have trailed developments in other parts of the economy. However, after the First World War, under pressure from new competitors and following the introduction of new technologies, the commercial theatre industry underwent another transformation in organization which moved it ahead of trends in the general economy. These changes included the unbundling of capabilities from central firms, extensive outsourcing and focusing on core competencies, changes that were not to occur in the rest of the economy of the United States until well after the Second World War. Using managerial correspondence and company histories from the period, this paper analyzes the dominant institutions in the theatrical economy (stock companies, combinations companies and finally the limited partnership vehicle still used on Broadway today) and compares them to examples from the larger economy. By breaking the history of the sector into three general periods, my paper demonstrates how theatre trailed organizational trends in the economy for the first two periods (approximately 1750 to 1920), but leapt ahead of developments in the larger economy from the 1920s on.