Kirke La Shelle

Kirke La Shelle (September 23, 1862 – May 16, 1905) was an American journalist, playwright and theatrical producer. He was known for his association with such successful productions as The Wizard of the Nile, The Princess Chic, Beside the Bonnie Brier Bush, Arizona, The Earl of Pawtucket, The Virginian, The Education of Mr. Pipp and The Heir to the Hoorah. La Shelle's career as a playwright and producer was relatively brief due to an illness that led to his demise at the age of forty-two.

Early life Milton Kirk LaShells was born at Wyoming, Illinois the son of Sarah Williams and James Ralph LaShells. His father, the son of a prominent Philadelphia lawyer, settled in Stark County around 1844 where he farmed and later worked as a tradesman. James LaShells later relocated to Biggs, California where he died in 1888 at the age of 80.

In his early teens La Shelle began his newspaper career as a printer's apprentice with the Wyoming Post Herald. where he continued working on Chicago papers and at some point composed poetry that appeared in The Ladies Home Journal. In 1891 La Shelle left the dramatic desk of The Chicago Mail to join the English actor E. S. Willard as his business manager and advance man for an upcoming American tour.

Theatre From 1892 to 1895 La Shelle served as general manager and director of the Bostonians, a theatrical troupe previously known as the Boston Ideal Opera Company. It was during this period that La Shelle first met with success as a producer when the Bostonians presented the comic opera Robin Hood. a comic operetta by Victor Herbert and Harry B. Smith, proved to be a huge success that earned its producers a fortune. La Shelle and Clarke followed with Daniels’ successful productions of the comic operas The Idol's Eye (1897), by Smith and Herbert, The Ameer (1899), written by La Shelle in collaboration with Frederic Ranken,

In 1899 La Shelle directed a touring company headed by Wilton Lackaye that presented a stage adaptation of the Charles Lever novel, Charles O'Malley, the Irish Dragoon. The Princess Chic sheet music featuring Marguerita Sylva, c. 1901 That same year La Shelle wrote the book and lyrics for The Princess Chic, a comic opera composed by Julian Edwards. The Princess Chic premiered on New Year's Day 1900 at the Lafayette Square Opera House in Washington D. C. with Minnie Methot in the title role. It then toured to the Columbia Theatre in Boston where it opened on January 16, 1900. During its Boston run, Christie MacDonald replaced Methot as Princess Chic due to a nagging injury in early February 1900. She continued to play the role for its Broadway premier at the Casino Theatre some three weeks later. After closing early in March 1900 The Princess Chic embarked on a road tour that, over the next several seasons, would see the Princess Chic of Normandy played by MacDonald, Marguerite Sylva, Maude Lillian Berrl and Vera Michelena.

In 1899 La Shelle produced the successful Augustus Thomas drama Arizona and, in 1901, The Bonnie Brier Bush, a drama adapted by playwright James MacArthur from the novel Beside the Bonnie Brier Bush by Ian Maclaren. With Rupert Hughes, Joseph W. Herbert, and Paul West he co-authored the book to the 1902 musical Tommy Rot. He produced Augustus Thomas' 1903 hit comedy The Earl of Pawtucket, and the following year he produced Checkers, a comedy by Henry Blossom.

La Shelle produced and shared the writing credits with Owen Wister on their successful 1903 stage adaptation of the author's popular novel The Virginian. In 1905 he produced The Education of Mr. Pipp, a comedy Augustus Thomas based on a series of drawings by Charles Dana Gibson and, what would prove to be his final project, The Heir to the Hoorah, a comedy by Paul Armstrong.

La Shelle was laid to rest at a small cemetery near his summer home in Bellport. Serving as his pallbearers were Frank Vanderlip, theatre manager Harry Hamlin, artist Lawrence Mazzanovich, author Henry L. Wilson, Digby Bell, author Ray Brown, writer William Eugene Lewis and friend J. Louis White. Not long after her husband's death Mazie La Shelle, as president, and J. Louis White, as secretary, formed the Kirke La Shelle Co. to continue to produce and protect his intellectual properties. On June 8, 1908 she married the noted architect Richard Howland Hunt at Frank Vanderlip's country estate in Scarborough, New York.

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