Order of Moose. By 1903, Cort's Northwestern Theatrical Association controlled 37 theaters in the American West, allowing him to compete with some success against the Eastern entertainment establishment. He signed an agreement with Marcus Klaw and Abraham Erlanger, then the country's leading booking agents of dramatic talent, and his theaters became part of the Klaw and Erlanger Circuit. At this point, he was Seattle's leading theatrical impresario. However, Klaw and Erlanger were more focused on box-office potential than artistic merit, and Cort's position in the market had given him an audience with some critical faculties. If people were being offered badly produced plays, they would skip legitimate theater entirely and go see a vaudeville show. In 1910, Cort helped organize the Independent National Theatre Owner's Association, a group of circuits that tried to break away from the New York-based syndicates. Allied with the independent Shubert Organization, these added up to 1200 theaters nationally. They eventually forced Klaw and Erlanger to allow theaters to book both Klaw/Erlanger productions and others. Still, while the fight was on, Klaw and Erlanger had backed construction of Seattle's new Metropolitan Theatre in the prestigious Metropolitan Tract. Cort, in turn, headed for New York, where he became a notable producer and manager, as well as the founder of New York's Cort, now James Earl Jones, Theatre. In the summers of 1916-1918, Ruby Stevens (the future Barbara Stanwyck), travelled with the show, watching her elder sister Mildred perform. Seattle remnants Cort's Grand Opera House suffered several fires; one of these, in 1917, gutted it, and the building has been a parking garage since 1923. The Moore Theatre, Cort's last Seattle flagship, is still going strong as of 2007. Notes External links American theatre managers and producers Impresarios Businesspeople from New York City Businesspeople from Seattle 1861 births 1929 deaths