Effie Hinckley Ober Kline (1843 – February 15, 1927) was an American opera manager and booking agent. She founded the

Boston Ideal Opera Company The Boston Ideal Opera Company, later The Bostonians, was a comic opera acting company based in Boston from 1878 through 1905.Bordman, Gerald & Thomas S. HischakThe Oxford Companion to American Theatre p. 87 (3d ed 2004) History Effie Hinckley O ...

(later known as "The Bostonians") in 1879.

Early life

Effie Hinckley Ober was born in Sedgwick, Maine, and brought up in Blue Hill, the daughter of Samuel Ober and Mary Peters Hinckley Ober. Through her mother she was descended from Joseph Wood, co-founder of Blue Hill, and was herself a co-founder of Blue Hill's summer colony.

Career

Ober was a secretary at a lecture bureau in Boston as a young woman. In time, she owned a theatrical agency, the Roberts Lyceum Bureau. She founded the Boston Ideal Opera Company (later known as "The Bostonians") in 1879, with Adelaide Phillipps and

Myron W. Whitney Myron William Whitney (5 September 1836, Ashby, Massachusetts - 18 September 1910, Sandwich, Massachusetts) was an American bass opera singer. Whitney went to Boston at the age of 16 and made his first appearance there in 1858 at a Christmas p ...

among the cast members. Her company presented American operettas, popular operas such as '' The Bohemian Girl'' and ''

The Marriage of Figaro ''The Marriage of Figaro'' ( it, Le nozze di Figaro, links=no, ), K. 492, is a ''commedia per musica'' (opera buffa) in four acts composed in 1786 by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, with an Italian libretto written by Lorenzo Da Ponte. It premie ...

'', and the

Gilbert and Sullivan Gilbert and Sullivan was a Victorian era, Victorian-era theatrical partnership of the dramatist W. S. Gilbert (1836–1911) and the composer Arthur Sullivan (1842–1900), who jointly created fourteen comic operas between 1871 and 1896, of which ...

favorite '' H.M.S. Pinafore''. Ober traveled with the company as its manager until she resigned in 1885. "For five years I have given my undivided attention to the affairs of the company, and I can assure you that the work is of the most wearing character," she explained. "I will retire from the field entirely satisfied with the result." Journalist Nellie Bly called Effie Ober "A Plucky Woman" in an 1885 profile. The company continued after her tenure. In 1887 she assisted her old company in resolving an internal dispute: "Miss Ober is here to give us her advice as to our course next season." Kline later served on the Board of Managers of Cleveland's Lakeside Hospital, and chaired the board's library committee.

Personal life

Effie H. Ober married Cleveland-based lawyer Virgil P. Kline, the father of suffragist

Minerva Kline Brooks Minerva Cozens Kline Brooks (1883 – May 5, 1929) was a supporter of the women's suffrage movement in the United States and was active in the arts scene in Cleveland, helping to form the Cleveland Play House in 1915. She taught dance at the Noy ...

, in 1888. Her husband was personal attorney of John D. Rockefeller, and worked for Standard Oil Company for many years, before he died in 1917. She died in 1927, in Boston; her grave is with her husband's, in Cleveland. Effie Ober Kline's scrapbooks are preserved at

Parker House Parker may refer to: Persons * Parker (given name) * Parker (surname) Places Place names in the United States *Parker, Arizona *Parker, Colorado * Parker, Florida * Parker, Idaho *Parker, Kansas * Parker, Missouri * Parker, North Carolina *Parke ...

, a historical site in Blue Hill, Maine. Another of her homes in Maine is now known as Barncastle, and houses a restaurant and inn.

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Kline, Effie Hinckley Ober 1843 births 1927 deaths People from Sedgwick, Maine American theatre managers and producers Women theatre managers and producers