The Romance of the American Theatre

This is taken from the above book which is dated 1940.

Maude Adams was born November 11, 1872, in Salt Lake City, where her

ther was leading woman of a stock company, and first appeared on the stage in children's parts. At sixteen, she played with E.H. Sothern in New York. Subsequently she was leading lady in various companies and supported John Drew for five years. Here career as a "star" began in 1897 when she achieved very great success as Lady Babbie in "The Little Minister," the author himself having chosen her for this part. She also created the role of Peter Pan in Barrie's play of that name, so becoming not only the

st successful but the

st beloved American actress known to playgoers of our day. Her elfish harm particularly lent itself to Barrie's parts.

It was, however, "Joan of Arc," which Frohman staged at the Harvard Stadium, June 22, 1909, which marked the crowning artistic success of Miss Adam's career. The text used was Schiller's "Jungfrau von Orleans," the music Beethoven's "Eroica." No one of the fifteen thousand persons present that night will ever forget the beauty of the production, with the haunting melody of the sheep's bells as the Maid's flock wandered about the huge stage, nibbling at the grass which, with a proper regard for realism, had been grown especially for them, the exquisite lighting, and above all the superb acting of Maude Adams. This performance netted fifteen thousand dollars for the building fund of the Germanic Museum at Harvard University, and Charles Frohman, having had a complete photographic record made of the production (which had attracted great attention in Germany), saw to it that the resulting volume was magnificently bound in vellum and presented to the German Kaiser. The unconscious irony of all this is very striking in view of the fact that it was the Germans who were responsible for Frohman's death, May 7, 1915, on the ill-fated Lusitania.

---