Elizabeth “Bessie” Marbury was a very influential theatrical manager, producer, and developed the “Book Musical” which defined “Broadway” in the 20th century. Her clients ranged (she had hundreds) from Oscar Wilde and George Bernard Shaw to dance team Irene and Vernon Castle. She promoted as well as produced plays, musicals, books, as well as many other shows, as well as those involving dance.

Through her theatrical (rights) management agency, the American Play Company, she represented, licensed and published authors, and other rights-holders, assisting in negotiating deals for film and theatrical licensing.

Ms. Marbury worked for Daniel Frohman and began representing authors and managing their various productions on Broadway in the 1880’s. This included a national tour circuit, and amateur regional productions eventually. Her literary representation list was quite extensive. In 1914, Marbury merged with Selwyn and Company to form The American Play Company. By 1930, the company had acquired the De Mille Company, and the John Rumsey Company.  The company continued producing and managing See America First, Jerome Kern’s, Nobody Home (1915), Very Good, Eddie (1915), and Love O’Mike (1917).

It seemed her energy and accomplishments were boundless. She brought Vernon and Irene Castle back from one of her many European trips and opened a dancing school for them. They had a brief rise to fame through exhibition dancing. She assisted her friend Elsie De Wolfe in creating a career as an interior designer, and in 1903, she helped to organize the first women’s social club, the Colony Club, in New York. She devoted a lot of time during WWI to doing relief work in the hospitals for French and later American soldiers and gave talks to troops. She translated Maurice Barrés’s book, The Faith of France (1918) and wrote her own autobiography My Crystal Ball (1918), as well as a book on etiquette (1888). She was active in the Democratic Party.