He also produced spectacular musicals, variety shows and serious plays by authors such as Henrik Ibsen and Maxim Gorky.
[6] Archibald Selwyn partnered with the Shubert Brothers and William A. Brady in building the Princess Theatre, a small 299-seat auditorium on 39th street that opened in 1913.
The reaction was generally favorable, and Comstock recognized that a small house like the Princess could provide a venue for a musical comedy that was more intimate and friendly than a larger theater.
[8] Comstock formed the Marbury-Comstock Company with Elizabeth Marbury, and commissioned a second musical comedy from Kern, Very Good Eddie.
The show, by Kern, Guy Bolton and P. G. Wodehouse, starred the young Marion Davies, Justine Johnstone, Tom Powers and Edna May Oliver.
[13] In 1916 the F. Ray Comstock Photoplay Company released The Lottery Man, a silent feature based on the play of the same name by Rida Johnson Young.
[14] Leave It to Jane, co-produced with William Elliot, opened at the Longacre Theatre on 28 August 1917 and ran for 167 performances.
[12] In 1917 Comstock and Morris Gest began rehearsals for a Broadway production of the hit British musical extravaganza Chu Chin Chow at the Manhattan Opera House.
[15] Chu Chin Chow, staged by Gest, William Elliott and Comstock was a "musical tale of the East".
[16] On 31 December 1917 William Elliott, Comstock, and Gest announced that they had leased the Century Theatre and would transfer Chu Chin Chow there in January 1918.
They subsequently used the Manhattan Opera House for melodramatic spectacles, while the Century would be devoted exclusively to "the highest class musical productions".
[17] In January 1922 Comstock and Gest announced that they had engaged the Chauve-Souris company from the Art Theatre, Moscow.
This was a 35-person company directed by Nikita Balieff that performed one-act plays, comedies, tragedies, songs, dances and musical numbers.