In 1889 came the separation between Randall and Frohman. Randall set up an establishment of his own at 1145 Broadway, while Charles, who was now an accredited and established personage in the theatrical world, took a suite at 1127 Broadway, adjoining the old St. James Hotel. In making this change he reached a crucial point in his career, for in these offices he conceived and put into execution the spectacular enterprises that linked his name for the first time with brilliant success.
VI
"SHENANDOAH" AND THE FIRST STOCK COMPANY
W ith his installation in the new offices at 1127 Broadway there began an important epoch in the life of Charles Frohman. The Nemesis which had seemed to pursue his productions now took flight. The plump little man, not yet thirty, who had already lived a lifetime of strenuous and varied endeavor, sat at a desk in a big room on the second floor, dreaming and planning great things that were soon to be realized.
Although staggering under a burden of debt that would have discouraged most people, Frohman, with his optimistic philosophy, felt that the hour had come at last when the tide would turn. And it did. At this time his financial complications were at their worst. Some of them dated back to the disastrous Wallack Company tour; others resulted from his impulsive generosity in indorsing his friends' notes. He was so involved that he could not do business under his own name, and for a period the firm went on as Al Hayman & Company.
WILLIAM GILLETTE
One of the very first enterprises in the new offices cemented the friendship of Charles Frohman and William Gillette. While at the Madison Square Theater he had booked Gillette's plays, "The Professor" and "The Private Secretary." Frohman, with Al Hayman as partner, induced Gillette to make a dramatization of Rider Haggard's "She," which was put on at Niblo's Garden in New York with considerable success. Wilton Lackaye and Loie Fuller were in the cast.
Gillette now tried his hand at a war play called "Held by the Enemy," which Frohman booked on the road. Frohman was strangely interested in "Held by the Enemy." It had all the thrill and tumult of war and it lent itself to more or less spectacular production. When the road tour ended, Frohman, on his own hook, took the piece and the company, which was headed by Gillette, for an engagement at the Baldwin Theater in San Francisco. He transported all the original scenery, which included, among other things, some massive wooden cannon.