American playbrokers – agents of playwrights – added another layer of mediation to the theatrical landscape in the second half of the nineteenth century and the first decades of the twentieth century. Recent theatre scholarship has highlighted the role that pioneering theatrical agents like Alice Kauser played in developing transatlantic business.1 Playbrokers also shaped industry bargaining and contractual standards in the United States. The brokers, like the first mediating publishers, sought control over various processes and objects in the space between the author and audience. Such objects included printed and published dramatic scripts, rehearsal prompt scripts, advanced royalty notices, and accounting processes. Further, these brokers, like French and his associates, influenced the production process by forming personal relationships of trust with other mediating stakeholders in the industry.