The Independent Theatre Society was a by-subscription-only organisation in London from 1891 to 1897, founded by Dutch drama critic Jacob Grein to give "special performances of plays which have a literary and artistic rather than a commercial value.
[2] A Question of Memory by Michael Field premièred on 27 October 1893;[3] and The Black Cat by Irish playwright, John Todhunter received its only performance, on 8 December 1893, at the Opera Comique.
In 1895, Grein invited Aurélien Lugné-Poe to present a season of productions in French, of Ibsen's Rosmersholm, The Master Builder and Maurice Maeterlinck's symbolist L'Intruse and Pelléas and Mélisande.
If Mr Grein had not taken the dramatic critics of London and put them in a row before Ghosts and The Wild Duck, with a small but inquisitive and influential body of enthusiasts behind them, we should be far less advanced today than we are.
As a result of its small subscription base and its high ambitions, the Society was not financially successful and was wound up in 1897, having presented 22 productions and premières of an additional 26 one-act programmes.