The Shubert Organization history

Sensing a growing threat from the Shuberts, the Syndicate decided in 1903 to break them by denying them theaters and performers.

Nevertheless, by the summer of 1904 they owned, leased, or booked the acts of some 50 theaters.

By the fall of 1910 the Shuberts owned 73 theaters outright, held booking contracts with many more, and possessed at least 50 dramatic and musical companies.

The Shubert Theatrical Corp. was founded in 1924 as a public company taking over the business of earlier Shubert enterprises.

The brothers found it necessary to sell some of their theaters--including their half-interest in five London ones acquired in 1925--and to reduce substantially the number of shows they produced.

In 1931 the Shubert Theatrical Corp. and eight other Shubert companies in one way or another affiliated with the parent--including script, music publishing, scenery, and costume companies--fell into bankruptcy.

Lee Shubert, however, was named co-receiver, and in 1933 he bought back the company's assets for $400,000--some ten cents on the dollar--renaming it Select Theatres Corp.

In the fall of 1941, Maurice H. Bailey took over the theatre and for the next 35 years continued to enhance the Shubert’s enviable reputation as a preeminent house.

Lee and J. J. Shubert had established the Shubert Foundation in 1945 to lighten their income tax load and, eventually, their estate taxes.

As a result, in a 1956 consent agreement Select Theatres agreed to halt its booking activities for 25 years.

The worth of the brothers' holdings was estimated in 1963 at $50 million and included 17 theaters in New York, two each in Chicago, Cincinnati, and Philadelphia, and one in Boston.

The Shubert Organization was a cluster of 23 corporations when its board fired Lawrence in 1972 and hired company executives Gerald Schoenfeld and Bernard Jacobs--who were serving on the board&mdashø run the enterprise.

The Shubert closed in 1976 and was threatened with destruction. (The last performance of a play was on November 13, 1976, the try-out of the comedy, Something Old, Something New.) Through the efforts of many, over a period of seven years, the theater was saved.

The Shubert Organization, which had been the first theatrical business to accept personal checks, telephone reservations, and credit cards, launched its own computerized system for selling theater tickets in 1979.

The Shubert, New Haven re-opened in December 1983.

That year it owned 16 Broadway theaters and the land beneath them. It also was leasing the Shubert Theater in Los Angeles and managing the National Theatre in Washington, D.C. The Shubert Theater in Chicago was sold to the Nederlander Organization in 1991.