[1] Adams's personality appealed to a large audience and helped her become the most successful and highest-paid performer of her day, with a yearly income of more than $1 million during her peak.

At the age of 16, she made her Broadway debut, and under Charles Frohman's management, she became a popular player alongside leading man John Drew Jr. in the early 1890s.

Beginning in 1897, Adams starred in plays by J. M. Barrie, including The Little Minister, Quality Street, What Every Woman Knows and Peter Pan.

[7] Adams appeared on stage at two months old in the play The Lost Baby at the Salt Lake City Brigham Young Theatre.

[4] At the age of five, Adams starred in a San Francisco theater as "Little Schneider" in Fritz, Our German Cousin and as "Adrienne Renaud" in A Celebrated Case.

[9] Later in life, Adams took long sabbaticals in Catholic convents, and in 1922 she donated her estates in Lake Ronkonkoma, New York, to the Sisters of the Cenacle for use as a novitiate and retreat house.

"[6] Adams also later wrote the short essay "The One I Knew Least", where she described her difficulty in discovering her personality because of playing so many theatrical roles as a child.

The New York Times wrote that Adams, "not John Drew, has made the success of The Masked Ball at Palmer's, and is the star of the comedy.

The tipsy scene started Adams on her path to being a favorite among New York audiences and led to an eighteen-month run for the play.

A comedy about the elopement of a young couple, sheltered for the night by an older man (Drew), the play received critical praise and box office success.

On a trip to New York in 1896, Barrie attended a performance of Rosemary and at once decided that Adams was the actress to play Lady Babbie.

[16] The play opened in 1897 at the Empire Theatre and was a tremendous success, running for 300 performances in New York (289 of which were standing room only) and setting a new all-time box office record of $370,000; it made Adams a star.

[20] Adams starred in other works by Barrie, including Quality Street (1901), What Every Woman Knows (1908), The Legend of Leonora (1914) and A Kiss for Cinderella (1916).

The critic Alan Dale, reviewing her debut in the role at the Empire Theatre, called her Elizabethan English "grotesque at times" and commented that Adams had performed with "pretty purring", not classical.

[23][24] The June 24, 1909 edition of the Paducah Evening Sun (Kentucky) contains the following excerpt: Joan at Harvard, Schiller's Play reproduced on Gigantic scale.

The experiment of producing Schiller's Maid of Orleans beneath starry skies … was carried out [by] Adams and a company numbering about two thousand persons ... at the Harvard Stadium.

... A special electric light plant was installed ... a great cathedral was erected, background constructed and a realistic forest created.

[29] After 13 years away from the stage, she returned to acting, appearing occasionally in regional productions of Shakespeare plays, including as Portia in The Merchant of Venice in Ohio, in 1931, and as Maria in Twelfth Night in 1934 in Maine.

[30] Her retiring lifestyle, including the absence of any relationships with men, contributed to the virtuous and innocent public image promoted by Frohman and was reflected in her most successful roles.

[29] Once, while she was touring, a theater owner significantly raised the price of tickets, knowing Adams's name meant a sold-out house.

The closest she came to accepting was in 1938, when producer David O. Selznick persuaded her to do a screen test (with Janet Gaynor, who later played the female lead) for the role of Miss Fortune in the film The Young in Heart.