Stephen Price (theatre manager)

Price began purchasing shares in the Park Theatre in 1808, taking advantage of the theatre's financial difficulties to gradually attain a controlling interest.^[4] Upon taking over management of the theatre, Price became the first American theatre manager who was not also an actor or playwright, focusing solely on management.^[4][9]

He managed the Park Theatre for 31 years, during which time he initiated the decline of the theatrical resident company by bringing foreign celebrities to New York, leading to an emphasis on stars over a traditional stock company.^[10][11] Price began importing stars in 1810, beginning with George Frederick Cooke.^[9] He also began to abandon the practice of staging productions in repertory,^[10] and favored attracting audiences with visually spectacular shows.^[4]

Assisted by stage manager and operating manager Edmund Simpson, Price was able to keep the theatre open during the War of 1812, after which he traveled regularly to London in search of talented players such as Mary Greenhill Barnes, Clara Fisher, Edmund Kean, Charles Mathews, and Henry Wallack.^[11][12] After a fire in May 1820, the Park Theater was rebuilt, and reopened in September 1821.^[13]: 382

From 1826 to 1830, Price left New York to manage the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane in London,^[1][9] securing for himself a steady supply and near-monopoly on English stage stars for American tours at the Park Theatre and venues in other cities, which he organized into a circuit.^[11][12][14]

The Park began to decline during the 1830s, and soon after Price resumed his personal management of the theatre, he fell ill and died on January 20, 1840.^[13]

Stephen Price was the oldest of four brothers and one sister. He and two of his younger brothers, Edward and William, attended Columbia College. William M. Price became a lawyer and politician who served as United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York from 1834 to 1838.^[13]

Price's youngest brother, Benjamin, became a grocer in Rhinebeck, New York.^[15] In May 1816, Benjamin was killed in a duel at Weehawken by a British army officer, who then returned to England.^[15] Several years later, Stephen Price learned that a different British officer, during a visit to New York, had boasted of being "instrumental" in goading his fellow officer into the 1816 duel.^[15] As a result, despite suffering from gout, Price promptly challenged the visiting officer and killed him in a duel at Bedloe's Island.^[15]