program, students were encouraged to regularly attend the Irving Place Theater. In 1901, sponsored by Yale's German Department, Conried's company performed Lessing's Minna von Barheim in New Haven. In 1903, after being manager at the Irving Place for ten years, Conried took directorship of the Metropolitan Opera but would still continue as director of the Irving place until he fell ill and resigned in 1908. The Irving Place Theater like other German Theaters were undermined by their commitment to produce classic German drama and their desire to give in to mainstream American demands by merely producing German versions of popular American theater. The German theater's audience was also torn by first and second generation Germans.The type of repertory offered by theaters was a critical factor in determining the type of audience. The first generation sought to watch traditional or classic repertory and the Americanized second generation preferred popular farces. Because first generation and second generation sought to watch different things, Conried devised varied program at Irving Place where he included both high-end classics and popular farces in order to diversify and expand his audience. In theory, however, Conried had envisioned a theater solely dedicated to serious drama, connecting back to German roots. In his 1898 speech, celebrating his twenty-fifth anniversary of his theatrical career, Conried expresses that German theater should be “a reflection of the dramatic literature of the old fatherland, and in that way to be the first and most powerful pillar for the cultivation and maintenance of German culture in America”. Nonetheless, the German theater was constantly divided since first and second generation immigrants sought different repertories. Peter Conolly-Smith examines the German theater's demise in a study, conveying that the German theater's collapse in American culture had little to do with the animosities against German immigrants produced by World War I and more to do with German theater's assimilation into American culture. Actor Rudolf Christians took over of Irving Place Theater in 1913 as director of the company alongside two other manager-directors until 1918 when the company disbanded. Christian's vision similarly aligned with that of Conried's. They both sought to present great modern plays and the classics. Under Christians, for the first time in the U.S, George Bernard Shaw's Pygmalion was presented in German. Both Christians and Conried desired to attract non-German speakers as their audience though at the core of their audience were German immigrants. Under Christians,