Price, Stephen

Price, Stephen (1783–1840), American theatre manager, who in 1808 bought a share in the management of the Park Theatre, New York, and gradually assumed complete control. He inaugurated the pernicious policy of importing famous European actors, beginning with G. F. Cooke in 1810–11, which by 1840 had wrecked the old resident companies of the larger American towns. He spent a good deal of time in London between 1820 and 1839, engaging English and Continental actors and singers for America, and demonstrating his love of spectacular and freakish effects—real horses and tigers on stage, for example—during his tenancy of Drury Lane from 1826 to 1830. Price, whose whole theatrical career was closely bound up with that of the Park Theatre, died opportunely just as its fortunes were beginning to decline: he was the first notable American manager who was not also an actor or playwright.