"A producer of plays, assuming that he is a man of experience, never feels comfortable after a great reception has been given his play on a first night. He knows that the reception in the theater does not always correspond to the feelings of future audiences. Every thinking manager knows that his play, in order to succeed, must send its audience away possessed of some distinct feeling. A successful play is a play that _reflects_, whatever the feeling it reflects. "The great successes of the stage are plays that are played outside of the theater: over the breakfast-table; in a man's office; to his business associates; in a club, as one member tells the thrilling story of the previous night's experience to another. Great successes upon the stage are plays of such a sort that one audience can play them over to another prospective audience, and so make an endless chain of attendance at the theater. "I have never in all my experience felt a success on the opening night. I have only felt my failures. "I invariably leave the theater after a first-night performance knowing full well that neither my friends nor I know anything at all as to the ultimate fortune of the play we have seen." It is a matter of record that Frohman always viewed his first nights with great nervousness. Although he attached but little importance, save on very rare occasions, to tumultuous applause on first nights, he was sometimes deceived by the reception that was given his productions. He never tired of telling of one experience. He had left the theater on the first night, as he expressed it, "with the other mourners." He returned to his office immediately to cast a new play for the company. Yet he lived to see this play run successfully for a whole season. This led him to say: "There's nothing more deluding to the player and the manager than enthusiastic applause. The fine, inspired work of a star actor often makes an audience enthusiastic to such a boisterous extent that one forgets that it is an individual and not the play that has succeeded." Here, as elsewhere in the Frohman outlook on life and work, one finds clear-headed logic and reason behind the bubbling optimism. XV PLAYS AND PLAYERS One day not long before he sailed on the voyage that was to take him to his death, Charles was talking with a celebrated English playwright in his office at the Empire Theater. The conversation suddenly turned to a discussion of life achievement. "What do you consider the biggest thing that you have done?" asked the visitor. Frohman rose and pointed with his stick at the rows of book-shelves about him that held the bound copies of the plays he had produced. Then he said with a smile: "That is what I have done. Don't you think it is a pretty good life's work?"