where Bonstelle played various roles and became an established leading lady. She was the leading lady of Philadelphia's Standard Stock Company during the 1898–99 season. Stuart died in 1911; Bonstelle would never remarry. Bonstelle performed in three productions on Broadway, including Elizabeth Jordan's The Lady from Oklahoma, which Bonstelle herself produced in 1913. Her acting received mixed or poor reception from New York Times critics, and according to some she "lacked creative depth". In 1899, while playing with the Biancke Sisters, Bonstelle produced Heimat by Hermann Sudermann. This was its first performance in the United States, and only the second in English. Later she received a letter from Sudermann in which he thanked her for performing his work. Her career as a manager and director began around 1900 when Jacob J. Shubert offered her the management of a stock company in Rochester. This company, the Lyceum stock company, based at Rochester's Lyceum Theater, included some prominent actors and future stars, such as Orrin Johnson, Margaret Wycherly and Charles Hutchison. She spent the next five years managing, directing and acting there, but also appeared from time to time in Philadelphia and toured at least once in Canada. Moreover, she occasionally directed for the Shuberts in New York, and was associated with Frederick Freeman Proctor's 125th Street Theater in Harlem. Bonstelle said that her dedication was partly inspired by the death of Janauschek in 1904, realizing that what she did for the theater was lasting. From 1906 she managed stock companies at the Star Theater in Buffalo, and from 1910 also at Detroit's Garrick Theater, moving weekly between the two cities. She usually put on plays which had recently been successful on Broadway, but not those which she saw as immoral. The most popular production she directed was an adaptation of Louisa May Alcott's Little Women by Marian de Forest. Bonstelle researched the play herself, traveling to Boston to view personal papers provided by Alcott's family and talking to her friends. The production toured nationally in 1911, with four companies performing in different places at the same time, and had a "successful and lengthy run" on Broadway in 1912. It was also performed in London after World War I. From 1912 to 1917 she was a director at the Northampton Municipal Theater in Massachusetts. Bonstelle sold her stake in the Garrick Theater in 1924. She and her company founded the Bonstelle Playhouse