Sydney Rosenfeld

Biography

Rosenfeld was born in Richmond, Virginia in 1855, and came to New York during the American Civil War. He began producing plays in 1874, starting with a burlesque of Rose Michel called Rosemy Shell. He began writing boy's stories at age 15. He served as the first editor of the English edition of Puck magazine as well as writing for The Sun and the New York World, but left journalism by age 19.

According to The Chronology of American Literature (2004), Rosenfeld was a "prolific adapter of foreign plays, often accused of plagiarism, who had nearly fifty plays reach Broadway during his career." In 1890, the New York Times stated that Rosenfeld's "habit is to try to dash off an epoch making comedy between breakfast and luncheon," though despite "all his evident carelessness, his lack of application, and his frequently misplaced confidence in his own powers, (he) possesses a gift of originality which Belasco and De Mille either lack altogether or rigorously suppress."

Gerald Bordman's American Music Theatre: A Chronicle describes Rosenfeld as "long a colorful, controversial figure on the American theatrical scene"; "he enjoyed some fame with a few hits and considerably more notoriety with his frequently gadfly behavior." By the mid 1910s, his knack of striking some hits ran dry, though he continued to mount plays until 1923. At the time of his death in 1931, since Rosenfeld had been inactive for a number of years, his "importance to an earlier theatrical world was not universally appreciated." He died with meager wealth; his estate was only reported to be worth $100.

Selected plays