Klaw and Erlanger was an entertainment management and production partnership of Marc Klaw and Abraham Lincoln Erlanger based in New York City from 1888 through 1919 . While running their own considerable and multi-faceted theatrical businesses on Broadway , they were key figures in the Theatrical Syndicate , the lucrative booking monopoly for first-class legitimate theaters nationwide . Klaw and Erlanger joined in partnership in 1888 . Starting from the purchase of an existing booking agency , the partners gradually gained control of the southern territory , anchored in New Orleans . They ran allied businesses , produced Broadway shows , and owned a number of theaters . They were part owners of the new Iroquois Theater in Chicago , which suffered a catastrophic fire in 1903 that resulted in more than 600 deaths and brought Klaw & Erlanger bitter criticism . In the same year they opened their flagship New Amsterdam Theater in New York , where the Aerial Gardens became the longtime stage for the Ziegfeld Follies . From 1896 , Klaw and Erlanger joined with others to form the Theatrical Syndicate which held an effective monopoly over the booking of stage performers into first-class legitimate theaters across the United States . Its control of the theater market was brief . As the Syndicate attempted to bring vaudeville from its " lowbrow associations by presenting only the finest , class acts " , pressure from the independent Shubert family and accusations of trust building forced the Syndicate to lose much of its market power in 1910 . After 1910 , Klaw and Erlanger continued to play a role in the syndicate , which still sparred with the Shuberts for market share for years . Klaw and Erlanger also ran their own productions , experimented with vaudeville , and embarked on film production from 1913 to 1916 . They dissolved their partnership in 1919 , remaining independently active afterward
Iroquois Theater
Iroquois Theatre fire
Klaw and Erlanger