page_title: Ben Greet
section_title: Actor-manager career
hierarchical_section_title: Ben Greet / Actor-manager career
caption_attribution_description: English: The Ben Greet Players at the White House (1911)
context_page_description: Sir Philip Barling Greet, known professionally as Ben Greet, was a Shakespearean actor, director, impresario and actor-manager.
context_section_description: In 1883 Greet launched his career by first creating The Ben Greet Players, his own company.  They would perform open-air productions of the classic English stage repertory. They first produced tours throughout England, performing in college gardens, the parks of great houses, and village greens. Popularity rose for The Ben Greet Players, and after twenty years of touring with outdoor productions of Shakespeare in England, Ben Greet was traveling with his troupe to tour in America. 
   
  In May of 1914, the "Ben Greet Players" presented two Shakespearean plays on the campus of the College of Industrial Arts, a women's college in Denton Texas. According to a letter dated May 5, 1914 by a student at the college, "...one of them will be given in the afternoon and the other at night.  The "Ben Greet Players" is a traveling company that goes to the various colleges and universities of the country to play." 
  Greet's alfresco productions were the first tours organized to bring professional actors to college campuses in America.  The American tour was even rewarding enough for The Ben Greet Players to perform for President Roosevelt on the White House front lawn.
  Greet returned to England in 1903 for a short time and managed more tours before beginning another American tour in 1904.  They performed plays such as Everyman, Twelfth Night, The Merchant of Venice and The Star of Bethlehem in locations including Boston and New York.  By 1914, the year that Greet returned to England, before the First World War, Greet commenced in the management of the Old Vic Theatre.
caption: The Ben Greet Players at the White House (1911)
exif: {}