He gave Charles a
play called "Surrender." It was put on in Boston. The original idea in
Thomas's mind was to write a satire on the war plays that had been so
successful, like "Shenandoah" and "Held by the Enemy." "Surrender"
began as a farce, but Charles Frohman and Eugene Presbrey, who produced
it, wanted to make it serious.

The cast was a very notable one, including Clement Bainbridge, E. M.
Holland, Burr McIntosh, Harry Woodruff, H. D. Blackmore, Louis Aldrich,
Maude Bancks, Miriam O'Leary, Jessie Busley, and Rose Eytinge.

The rehearsals of "Surrender" were marked by many amusing episodes.
Maude Bancks, for example, who was playing the part of a Northern girl
in a Southern town, had to wear a red sash to indicate her Northern
proclivities. This she refused to put on at the dress rehearsal because
it did not match her costume. Bainbridge, an actor who played a Southern
general, had a speech that he regarded as treason to his adopted
country, and quit. But all these troubles were bridged over and the play
was produced with some artistic success. It lasted sixteen weeks on the
road.

After he had closed "Surrender" Frohman was telling a friend in New York
that he had lost twenty-eight thousand dollars on this piece.

"But why did you permit yourself to lose so much money on a play that
seemed bound to fail?"

"I believe in Gus Thomas. That is the reason," replied Frohman.

* * *

Although immersed in a multitude of enterprises, Frohman's activities
now took a new and significant tack. Through all these crowded years his
friendship for William Harris had been growing. Harris, who had
graduated from minstrelsy to theatrical management and was the partner
of Isaac B. Rich in the conduct of the Howard Athenaeum and the Hollis
Street Theater in Boston, now added the Columbia Theater in that city to
his string of houses. Charles at once secured an interest in this lease,
and it was his first out-of-town theater. Quick to capitalize the
opportunity, he put one of the "Jane" road companies in it for a run and
called it the Charles Frohman Boston Stock Company.

VII

JOHN DREW AND THE EMPIRE THEATER

The year 1892 not only found Charles Frohman established as an important
play-producing manager, but in addition he was reaching out for
widespread theater management. It was to register a memorable epoch in
the life of Charles and to record, through him, a significant era in the
history of the American thea