1907 tour included future stars Russell and Sybil Thorndike, and Sydney Greenstreet. Examples of prominent actors and plays from this period are listed below. Later years: German and Yiddish theatre and other notable events By 1910 the Garden's location and its relative paucity of hit productions led it to be considered marginal in comparison to the rising "Broadway" theatres in the Times Square area. For the theatre's last 15 years it was used for many purposes in addition to plays and operas, including motion picture exhibition, lectures, trade shows, political rallies and other civic meetings, and even church services. Most notably, a succession of German and Yiddish theatre groups presented plays at the theatre. German theatrical manager and impresario Gustav Amberg took possession of the theatre early in 1911, moving his stock theatre company from the Irving Place Theatre. Amberg's "Neues Deutsches Theatre" presented Ernst Von Possart in Erekmann Chatrian's Freund (Friend) Fritz and Gotthold Ephraim Lessing's Nathan the Wise, and also presented plays such as By the King's Command, Moliere's The Learned Women, Bjornstjerne Bjornson's Das Fallissement (The Failure), Adolf Wilbrandt's The Daughter of Fabricus, and Shakespeare's The Merchant of Venice. John E. Kellerd played Hamlet for 102 performances in 1912–13, arguably breaking the New York theatre record set by Edwin Booth's "100 Nights of Hamlet" at the Winter Garden in 1864–65. John Barrymore overlooked Kellerd's achievement and thought he had set a record with 101 consecutive performances in 1922–23 at the Booth Theatre; John Gielgud set (and still holds) the record in 1937 with 132 at the St. James Theatre. Later in 1913, new manager William R. Coleman bowed to the pressure of the new theatre economy by lowering prices in order to fight competition from movies, intensifying the Garden's fall from the top echelon of New York theatres. German actor-manager Emanuel Reicher leased the theatre in 1915 to run plays in the style of his Modern Stage group, along with a new group called the "American People's Theatre" that provided reduced-price tickets to working-class people who could not otherwise afford them. His daughter Hedwiga Reicher was part of his stock company. Reicher's production of Gerhart Hauptmann's The Weavers ran for 87 performances beginning in December 1915. Lina Coen conducted Carmen at the Garden Theatre in February 1917, reportedly becoming the first woman to conduct an opera in New York City. In April 1917, the Garden was the