According to Robert Grau, the firm of Stair and Havlin, which booked melodramas on its circuit of up to 168 theatres, was "one of the largest and most successful in the world" (1910, 173). John H. Havlin and E. D. Stair formed their association in the 1890s and expanded rapidly by focusing on popular-priced melodramas, which retained their popularity on the road into the early 1900s.
The Historical Dictionary of the American Theater. James Fisher.