page_title: Kate Santley
section_title: Theatre management
hierarchical_section_title: Kate Santley / Theatre management
caption_attribution_description: Commencing Monday, 21st November. Miss Kate Santley. &#39;Indiana&#39;. Caption: &#39;Miss Kate Santley as Indiana&#39;. Printed by David Allen &amp; Sons, Belfast, London &amp; Melbourne.
context_page_description: Evangeline Estelle Gazina, better known under her stage name, Kate Santley, was a German-born actress, singer and comedian. After spending her childhood in the US, she came to England in 1861, where she had a successful career, later also becoming a theatre manager.
context_section_description: In 1876, Santley managed Gilbert and Sullivan's revival of their one-act hit Trial by Jury at the Opera Comique.  Richard D'Oyly Carte joined forces with Santley in January 1877 at the Royalty to present Lischen and Fritzen, Offenbach's Orpheus in the Underworld and Happy Hampstead by Carte (under the pseudonym Mark Lynne) and his secretary, Frank Desprez.
  In 1877, Santley became the manager of the Royalty Theatre, an association lasting some thirty years.  She later seems to have acquired the head lease. Also in 1877, the First Chief Officer of the London Fire Brigade strongly recommended to the Metropolitan Board of Works the immediate closure of the theatre.  Santley, however, had it reconstructed to designs of architect Thomas Verity, whose plans, providing improved means of egress, were approved in 1882.
  Many of the productions at the Royalty were opera-bouffes adapted from the French.  M. L. Mayer, formerly of the Gaiety Theatre, staged twice-yearly seasons of plays in French. The Coquelins and other luminaries of the Comédie-Française appeared here in the 1880s, when the Royalty was 'the recognised home of the Parisian drama.'  There was further reconstruction of the theatre in 1883, and Santley was praised for the theatre's renovations then and in the later 1905 renovation. The opening of Shaftesbury Avenue and of new theatres in that neighbourhood, including the Lyric Theatre and the Apollo Theatre, drew audiences away from the little Royalty theatre in Dean Street, and in the 1890s the Royalty was not prospering.  This led to her providing an occasional home for the Independent Theatre Society, who produced plays on a subscription-only basis – hence evading the censorship of the Lord Chamberlain's Office. The London première's of Henrik Ibsen's Ghosts (on 13 March 1891) and Émile Zola's Thérèse Raquin (on 9 October 1891), led to a storm of protest, with some critics calling for the withdrawal of Santley's licence. George Bernard Shaw's first play, Widowers' Houses, premièred for the Society at the theatre on 9 December 1892. When the theatre finally had a great success, with Brandon Thomas's play, Charley's Aunt, its popularity led to its transference after only a month to the larger Globe Theatre.
  In 1895–96 the Royalty's manager was Arthur Bourchier, and the theatre underwent another renovation.  He produced, among other plays, The Chili Widow, an adaptation of his own that ran for over 300 nights.  In 1899, the first production of the Incorporated Stage Society took place with the first performance of George Bernard Shaw's You Never Can Tell.  In 1900–01 Mrs. Patrick Campbell hired the theatre and staged a succession of contemporary plays in which she starred, and in 1903–04 Hans Andresen and Max Behrend presented a successful season of German theatre.  Also in 1904, the newly founded Irish National Theatre Society gave plays by W. B. Yeats and, in 1905, it presented an early performance of Synge's first play, The Shadow of the Glen.  In addition, Philip Carr's Mermaid Society produced Elizabethan and Jacobean plays.
caption: Santley in Indiana at Royal Lyceum Theatre, Edinburgh
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