page_title: Percy G. Williams
section_title: Theaters
hierarchical_section_title: Percy G. Williams / Theaters
caption_attribution_description: English: Poster for Breaking into Society (1905), presented by Percy G. Williams and starring the Four Mortons. Cincinnati&#160;; New York&#160;: U.S. Lithograph Co., c1905.
context_page_description: Percy Garnett Williams was an American actor who became a travelling medicine salesman, real estate investor, amusement park operator and vaudeville theater owner and manager. He ran the Greater New York Circuit of first-class venues. Williams was known for giving generous pay and good working conditions to performers. At his death, he endowed his Long Island house as a retirement home for aged and destitute actors.
context_section_description: Williams bought the Brooklyn Music Hall in 1897, later changing its name to the Gotham. He also ran the Novelty in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, sometimes shuttling acts by carriage so they could play both theaters on the same day.
  The Vaudeville Managers Association was formed in 1900 in an attempt to contain the salaries paid to performers.
  Williams refused to join. He believed in paying well and giving the performers good conditions.
  Performers found him a modest and approachable man, and enjoyed working for him.
  Williams' third theatre was the Orpheum in Brooklyn.
  He opened the Orpheum in 1901 on a plot of land he had bought in 1895.
  At the time it was thought to be the most beautiful theater in the world.
  Percy Williams continued to expand his operation, partnering with wealthy and well-connected men who could overcome problems with permits and licenses. He built or leased the Greenpoint, Crescent and Bushwick theaters in Brooklyn, the Bronx Opera House, the Circle and Colonial theaters in Manhattan, the Alhambra in Harlem, a theater in Philadelphia and another in Boston.
  As of 1905 the theater owners who booked through the William Morris Agency seemed likely to become dominant in the vaudeville industry. They included Williams, Frederick Freeman Proctor, Timothy Sullivan and Willie Hammerstein. 
  However, E.F. Albee was building up the Keith-Albee circuit into the largest vaudeville chain east of the Mississippi.
  Albee created the United Booking Office (UBO) to coordinate and regulate vaudeville, and became the UBO general manager.
  Williams resisted joining the UBO, but was eventually persuaded to become the UBO business manager.
  He was pushed into this move by competition from A. L. Erlanger and Lee Shubert.
  The city of New York had "Blue Laws" that banned theatrical performances on Sundays, but did not enforce them strictly. 
  Mayor George B. McClellan ordered their enforcement in 1907. In protest, the theaters closed down until the mayor was forced to ease up. Williams took the city to court over the laws, and won his case before the New York State Supreme Court.
  William's Orpheum Company advertised  "Clean Shows in Clean Houses."
  In 1907  Mae West performed at the Gotham Theater as a child actor in Hal Clarendon's stock theater company.
  Williams looked for acts in Europe, and signed contracts with Vesta Victoria, Vesta Tilley and Marie Lloyd among others. In 1909 Williams joined The Lambs, the famed theatrical club.
  In 1910 Williams staged a production called The Wow-Wows at the Alhambra, Bronx, Orpheum, Greenpoint and Colonial Theatres. Players who appeared in this show included Charlie Chaplin and Stan Laurel.
  In 1910 Williams was managing more vaudeville theaters in New York City than any other. He had two in Manhattan and one each in the Bronx, Brooklyn and Queens. He said that after several trips to the Old World to search for talent he found that all he was looking for was in the USA.
  He said of vaudeville performers, 
  The great thing about vaudeville is that each and every one must depend on his or her own ability. You are not a trained puppet, giving voice to the ideas of a stage manager whose conception may or may not be correct. You do your own staging, the theater gladly furnishing you with anything in the way of props or mechanical effects that will in any way enhance the value of your act, but nowhere in the world can the expression "make good" be more aptly used than in the world of vaudeville.
caption: Poster for Breaking into Society (1905), a musical farce
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