The rehearsals of "Surrender" were marked by many amusing episodes. Maude Bancks, for example, who was playing the part of a Northern girl in a Southern town, had to wear a red sash to indicate her Northern proclivities. This she refused to put on at the dress rehearsal because it did not match her costume. Bainbridge, an actor who played a Southern general, had a speech that he regarded as treason to his adopted country, and quit. But all these troubles were bridged over and the play was produced with some artistic success. It lasted sixteen weeks on the road. After he had closed "Surrender" Frohman was telling a friend in New York that he had lost twenty-eight thousand dollars on this piece. "But why did you permit yourself to lose so much money on a play that seemed bound to fail?" "I believe in Gus Thomas. That is the reason," replied Frohman. * * * Although immersed in a multitude of enterprises, Frohman's activities now took a new and significant tack. Through all these crowded years his friendship for William Harris had been growing. Harris, who had graduated from minstrelsy to theatrical management and was the partner of Isaac B. Rich in the conduct of the Howard Athenaeum and the Hollis Street Theater in Boston, now added the Columbia Theater in that city to his string of houses. Charles at once secured an interest in this lease, and it was his first out-of-town theater. Quick to capitalize the opportunity, he put one of the "Jane" road companies in it for a run and called it the Charles Frohman Boston Stock Company. VII JOHN DREW AND THE EMPIRE THEATER The year 1892 not only found Charles Frohman established as an important play-producing manager, but in addition he was reaching out for widespread theater management. It was to register a memorable epoch in the life of Charles and to record, through him, a significant era in the history of the American theater. From this time on his life-story was to be the narrative of the larger development of the drama and its people. With the acquisition of his first big star, John Drew, he laid the corner-stone of what is the so-called modern starring system, which brought about a revolution in theatrical conduct. The story of Charles's conquest in securing the management of Drew, with all its attendant dramatic and sensational features, illustrates the resource and vision of the one-time minstrel manager who now began to come into his own as a real Napoleon of the stage. Charles always attached importance and value to big names. He had paid dearly in the past for this proclivity with the Lester Wallack Company. Undaunted, he now turned to another investment in name that was to be more successful.