Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley door pickup 10am - 7pm 3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
612-822-4611

  • Open Daily: 10am - 10pm
    Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm

    3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
    612-822-4611

Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm
3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
612-822-4611
Power and Greed: Monopolies, Mergers, and Cartels on the American Stage

Power and Greed: Monopolies, Mergers, and Cartels on the American Stage

Waller, Spencer Weber

Hardcover

Broadway & Musicals

Publisher Price: $32.95

PREORDER - Expected ship date October 15, 2026

ISBN10: 1350578096
ISBN13: 9781350578098
Publisher: Methuen Drama
Published: Oct 15 2026
Pages: 296
Weight: 1.00
Height: 1.11 Width: 6.14 Depth: 9.21
Language: English

Since the second half of the 19th century, live entertainment in the United States has been governed by monopolies and powerful business cartels. Through power and greed they controlled who could produce, book, and present live performance and legitimate theatre, affecting audiences in New York City and across North America.

Far from being a historical problem, it took the botched rollout of the 2023 Taylor Swift Eras tour via Live Nation/Ticketmaster for people and Congress to question this established history, and more importantly, ask what could be done to change it via stronger enforcement of the antitrust laws to help prevent high prices and poor service suffered by concert-goers who buy their tickets online.

But how did we get to this point? This is the story of the real battle for Broadway, where the men who controlled the business determined not only who produced for the theatrical and vaudeville stage but also what they produced, who would perform, where the show would play, how much the audience would pay, and how those profits would be divided. Discover how it took the law nearly sixty years to catch up to the illegal anticompetitive strategies of the Barons of the Gilded Age and their successors and why this story matters today.

Including 18 images and newly available archival material, Power and Greed unpacks the shady world of the Syndicate, the Shuberts, the Vaudeville Combine, and their modern-day successors. Combining archival research, lively discussion and historical narrative this is a perfect read for theatre and entertainment fans, history enthusiasts and students of antitrust law that shows us how market competition and competition law can shape, but never eliminate, the worst impulses of those in power and those who seek power over what we see in live entertainment.

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