Kirke La Shelle

Kirke La Shelle (September 23, 1862 – May 16, 1905) was an American journalist, playwright, theatrical producer, and composer whose Broadway credits include The Ameer, The Princess Pat, The Virginian, and the musical Tommy Rot. Born Milton Kirk LaShells in Wyoming, Illinois, he was the son of Sarah Williams and James Ralph LaShells. His father, whose own father had been a prominent Philadelphia lawyer, settled in Stark County around 1844 and worked as both a farmer and tradesman. La Shelle lost his mother to tuberculosis when he was seven years old. His father later relocated to Biggs, California, where he died in 1888 at the age of eighty.

La Shelle entered the newspaper trade in his early teens as a printer's apprentice at the Wyoming Post Herald. He subsequently joined the printing department of the Chicago Telegraph and advanced to a foreman's position in the same division at the Chicago Morning News. He transitioned into reporting and criticism during the 1880s, holding editorial and reporting positions at several Chicago-area newspapers. In the early part of that decade he spent time in Bismarck, Dakota Territory, serving as editor of the Bismarck Tribune and as the founding editor of an evening paper called the Daily Advertiser. After returning to Chicago by 1884, he continued his newspaper work and contributed poetry to The Ladies Home Journal. In 1891 he departed the dramatic desk of The Chicago Mail to work as business manager and advance man for the English actor E. S. Willard on an American tour.

Between 1892 and 1895, La Shelle served as general manager and director of the Bostonians, a theatrical troupe previously known as the Boston Ideal Opera Company. During that tenure he achieved his first producing success when the Bostonians presented the comic opera Robin Hood. In 1895 he partnered with Arthur F. Clarke, the Bostonians' former business manager, to back the Frank Daniels' Comic Opera Company. Their inaugural production, The Wizard of the Nile — a comic operetta by Victor Herbert and Harry B. Smith — proved financially lucrative for both producers. La Shelle and Clarke followed with Daniels' productions of The Idol's Eye in 1897, by Smith and Herbert, and Miss Simplicity in 1901, with a book by R. A. Barnet and Harry Lawson Heartz.

In 1899 La Shelle directed a touring company headed by Wilton Lackaye in a stage adaptation of Charles Lever's novel Charles O'Malley, the Irish Dragoon. That same year he wrote the book and lyrics for The Princess Chic, a comic opera with music by Julian Edwards. The production premiered on New Year's Day 1900 at the Lafayette Square Opera House in Washington, D.C., with Minnie Methot in the title role, before moving to the Columbia Theatre in Boston, where it opened on January 16, 1900. Christie MacDonald replaced Methot during the Boston run due to injury and continued in the role for the Broadway premiere at the Casino Theatre several weeks later. Following its early March 1900 closing, The Princess Chic toured over subsequent seasons with the title role performed at various times by MacDonald, Marguerite Sylva, Maude Lillian Berrl, and Vera Michelena.

Also in 1899, La Shelle produced the Augustus Thomas drama Arizona. In 1901 he produced The Bonnie Brier Bush, a drama adapted by James MacArthur from Ian Maclaren's novel Beside the Bonnie Brier Bush. The following year he co-authored the book to the musical Tommy Rot alongside Rupert Hughes, Joseph W. Herbert, and Paul West. He also wrote the book for The Ameer in collaboration with Frederic Ranken. In 1903 La Shelle both produced and shared writing credits with Owen Wister on a stage adaptation of Wister's novel The Virginian. That same year he produced Augustus Thomas' comedy The Earl of Pawtucket, and in 1904 he produced Checkers, a comedy by Henry Blossom. His final two productions were The Education of Mr. Pipp in 1905 — an Augustus Thomas comedy based on drawings by Charles Dana Gibson — and The Heir to the Hoorah, a comedy by Paul Armstrong.

On June 15, 1893, La Shelle married Mazie Elizabeth Nodine of Illinois in Chicago. The couple had two children, Mazie Maria and Kirke, born between 1898 and 1901. His health began to deteriorate in 1904, and he was eventually diagnosed with diabetes. In early May 1905, while at his summer residence in Bellport, Long Island, he suffered a badly cut foot from a lawn mower and serious burns to his face while attempting to repair a hot water pipe. The physical stress from both accidents was believed to have worsened his diabetic condition, and he died on May 16, 1905, at the age of forty-two. He was buried at a small cemetery near his Bellport home. His pallbearers included Frank Vanderlip, theatre manager Harry Hamlin, artist Lawrence Mazzanovich, author Henry L. Wilson, Digby Bell, author Ray Brown, writer William Eugene Lewis, and J. Louis White. Following his death, his widow Mazie La Shelle, serving as president, and J. Louis White, as secretary, established the Kirke La Shelle Co. to continue producing and protecting his intellectual properties. Mazie La Shelle subsequently married architect Richard Howland Hunt on June 8, 1908, at Frank Vanderlip's country estate in Scarborough, New York.