Rich came down next day, and the final details were concluded for the building of the Empire. Frank Sanger came in as a partner; thus the builders were Al Hayman, Frank Sanger, and William Harris. Without the formality of a contract they turned it over to Charles Frohman with the injunction that he could do with it as he pleased.
Frohman was in his element. He could now embark on another one of the favorite dream-enterprises.
He was like a child during the building of the theater. Every moment that he could spare from his desk he would walk up the street and watch the demolition of the old houses that were to make way for this structure. Often he would get Belasco and take him up the street to note the progress. One night as they stood before the skeleton of the theater that stood gaunt and gray in the gloom Charles said to his friend:
"David, just think; the great dream is coming true, and yet it's only a few years since we sat at 'Beefsteak John's' with only forty-two cents between us."
Naturally, Frohman turned to Belasco for the play to open the Empire. His old friend was then at work on "The Heart of Maryland" for Mrs. Leslie Carter. He explained the situation to Frohman. As soon as Mrs. Carter heard of it she went to Frohman and told him that she would waive her appearance and that Belasco must go ahead on the Empire play, which he did.
Just what kind of play to produce was the problem. Frohman still clung to the mascot of war. The blue coat and brass buttons had turned the tide for him with "Shenandoah," and he was superstitious in wanting another stirring and martial piece. Belasco had become interested in Indians, but he also wanted to introduce the evening-clothes feature. Hence came the inspiration of a ball at an army post in the far West during the Indian-fighting days. This episode proved to be the big dramatic situation of the new piece.
Then came the night when Belasco read the play to Frohman, who walked up and down the floor. When the author finished, Frohman rushed up to him with a brilliant smile on his face and said:
"David, you've done the whole business! You've got pepper and salt, soup, entrée, roast, salad, dessert, coffee; it's a real play, and I know it will be a success."
Having finished the work, which Belasco wrote in collaboration with Franklin Fyles, then dramatic editor of the New York Sun, they needed a striking name. So they sent the manuscript to Daniel, down at the Lyceum, for Charles always declared he had been happy in the selection of play titles. Back came the manuscript with his approval of the work, and with the title "The Girl I Left Behind Me." This they eagerly adopted.
Long before "The Girl I Left Behind Me" manuscript was ready to leave Belasco's hands, Frohman was assembling his company. Instead of having a star, he decided to have an all-round stock company. The success of this kind of institution had been amply proved at Daly's, Wallack's, the Madison Square, and the Lyceum. Hence the Charles Frohman Stock Company, which had scored so heavily with "Men and Women" and "The Lost Paradise" at Proctor's Twenty-third Street Theater, now became the famous Empire Theater Stock Company and incidentally the greatest of all star factories. William Morris was retained as the first leading man, and the company included Orrin Johnson, Cyril Scott, W. H. Thompson, Theodore Roberts, Sydney Armstrong, Odette Tyler, and Edna Wallace. The child in the play was a precocious youngster called "Wally" Eddinger, who is the familiar Wallace Eddinger of the present-day stage.