Abel Seyler was a Hamburg merchant and banker originally from Switzerland who became "the leading patron of German theatre" in his lifetime.

It originally comprised around 60 members, including an orchestra, a ballet, house dramatists and set designers.

When Anna Amalia succeeded in engaging the Seyler Company, this was "an extremely fortunate coup.

For example, the play Sturm und Drang (which gave its name to the Sturm und Drang period) was written originally for the company by Friedrich Maximilian Klinger (Goethe's childhood friend), then employed as its playwright, and first performed in 1777.

[3] Threatened by bankruptcy in 1770, the company was saved by Seyler's brother-in-law, Johann Gerhard Reinhard Andreae.