The last New York performance of Klaw and Erlanger's Mr. Bluebeard was at the Knickerbocker Theater on Broadway and 38th the night of May 16, 1903. It had opened on January 19th that year and played 135 performances.

One hundred seven days later, the massive company opened in Pittsburgh. Promotion throughout the tour proclaimed it was almost the same cast that had appeared on Broadway. In actuality, slightly less than half the thirty-five principals had appeared in New York. The number of people reported to be in the road company varied from 185 to 400.  This page discusses the road schedule and a few principals.

Mr. Bluebeard road company Manager, Edwin Price

Edwin H. Price (1848–1929), Toronto native, was sometimes referred to as the manager for the Mr. Bluebeard Company and sometimes as manager for Klaw & Erlanger of their operations in the western U.S.

He had "stepped out of the building for a minute" just before the fire started and as he returned saw people fleeing the theater.  He helped performers escape from the stage and saw to finding cabs to take Chicago-based chorus girls to their homes.  He remarked upon the cool and disciplined departure from the theater of one of the girls, Viola McDonald, saying that she had remained in her dressing room to switch from her costume to street clothes, then carried her costume out with her.   Another newspaper referenced Viola as "one of the most beautiful chorus girls on the stage." See below.

Price married, cheated on and divorced actress Katie Baker, threw her over to marry celebrity actress Fanny Lily Gypsy Davenport (1850–1898), who after ten years cheated on and divorced him.  So he married a Clara Baker who may have been his first wife, Katie Baker.

In 1905 Price managed another Klaw & Erlanger production, Humpty Dumpty.

Viola McDonald's (1882–1968)

Violet's escape from the Iroquois Theater drew more publicity than anything she did on the stage.  Her career lasted from around 1902 to 1926.

1904 newspaper stories described Viola as the "last to leave the theater," a hooey claim.  Things were happening in split seconds and in extreme chaos with thousands of audience members, first responders, anxious relatives and looky loos on the streets surrounding the theater.  People fled from over a dozen doorways and multiple coal chutes and no one was keeping track of who exited first or last.  Newspapers were more addicted to superlatives in 1904 than they are today.  Iroquois stories abound with "most," "last," and "first" embroidery.

Viola was at the back of the stage when the fire broke out and ran to basement dressing rooms to put on her street clothes.  When she tried to go back upstairs, carrying her costume, the stairwell was blocked with flames and smoke.  She returned to the basement and like many other chorus girls, crawled out a coal chute that opened onto the sidewalk in front of the theater.  Firemen helped them climb out of the hole.  In the first two weeks of January, 1904 the story was picked up by newspapers around the country.

Her first role subsequent to Mr. Bluebeard was in the road company for Only a Shop Girl.

She  got out of the chorus the first time in the 1905-6 role of Jane in Tomboy Girl. In 1906 she married a fellow cast member of Tomboy, Leo J. Doherty (1883–1960) and the pair performed in a vaudeville comedy act in the mid 1920s.  A fellow Bluebeard chorus performer, Frank Holland, then described Viola's role at the Iroquois as that of a hero who led twenty chorus girls to safety through the coal chute.  Nothing of the kind was recorded in 1904.

Many other performers are discussed in separate pages of the website, including one featuring other chorus girls, the Pony Ballet and octet that was performing when the fire started.

1903 Mr. Bluebeard road company performance schedule:

Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania ran for two weeks September 28 to October 10, 1903.

Performed at the Alvin Theater, a 2,200-seat facility at 115 Sixth Avenue built in 1891.  It was operated by the theater syndicate beginning in 1897.  Campstools were set up to accommodate the theater crowd at Mr. Bluebeard on its first night at the Alvin.

Cleveland, Ohio ran for two weeks October 12 to October 24, 1903.

Performed at the Euclid Avenue Opera House on Euclid and East 4th.  A small stage fire in Cleveland on October 24, 1903 involving a malfunctioning stage light became important in the coroner's trial after the Iroquois fire.  The theater had been rebuilt following a fire there nine years earlier.

The cast left Cleveland on route to Indianapolis on Big Four train No. 29 with baggage and scenery on a second train, No. 11, consisting of seven cars.

Indianapolis, Indiana ran for five nights October 26 to October 30, 1903.

Performed at the English Opera House.

There was a new employee at the theater. A month prior twenty-four-year-old Tommy J. Flanagan had left his job as a locomotive machinist to become a lighting man on the stage at the English theater. When the Mr. Bluebeard company left town for St. Louis, Tommy and his wife of two years, Lottie, joined them. Two months later, he died at the Iroquois.

Opened in 1880, English's Opera House was the leading theater in Indianapolis. Seating 2,500, it offered the largest stage in the city, the only one that could accommodate Mr. Bluebeard's huge cast and extensive scenery. A year earlier, it had offered Ben Hur with a chariot race that included eight live horses running on treadmills.

St. Louis, Missouri ran for two weeks November 1 to November 15, 1903

Performed at the Century Theater. In a newspaper interview, a manager at the theater, Sam Harrison, said it took one hundred carpenters to put the show together.  It might have been an extra challenging job.  By most accounts, the stage at the Century was too small for the crazy large production.  The St. Louis Republic newspaper reporter ended his review with, "You wouldn't care to see Mr. Bluebeard more than once, but it is worth seeing that once."

A Wabash railway train made up of four sixty-foot cars, and one fifty-footer for stage carpenters, scene shifters, etc. transported scenery, costumes, and property from St. Louis to Chicago, and two 1200-Series coaches on train No. 14, brought the cast, arriving in Chicago the afternoon of Sunday, November 15, 1903.

Chicago, Illinois ran from November 23, 1903 to Dececember 30, 1903

Performed at the Iroquois Theater

Management made the decision to close Bluebeard early due to lackluster ticket sales and replace it with Ben Hur.

At an afternoon matinee on December 30, 1903 nearly 600 people lost their lives in the worst theater fire in America's history.

1904 stops cancelled: Buffalo, NY

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