 For example, in 1895, the Burt Theatre in Toledo, Ohio offered popular melodramas for up to thirty cents a seat and saw an average audience of 45,000 people per month at 488 performances of 64 different plays.On average 250-300 shows, many originating in New York, crisscrossed the country each year between 1880 and 1910.Meanwhile, owners of successful theatres began to expand their reach, like the theatrical empire of B.F. Keith and Edward F. Albee that spanned over seven hundred theatres, including the Palace in New York.