Contributing to an intercultural understanding of American and European theatre in the post-war era, this essay explores the significance of the Swedish publisher and producer Lars Schmidt for the introduction and spread of U.S. plays and musicals on his side of the Atlantic. Schmidt’s innovative publishing strategies and production methods in addition to his skills as a cultural translator made works like The Glass Menagerie, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof and My Fair Lady commercially viable and intelligible to audiences in various national contexts. In the process, he was largely responsible for the emergence of the individual producer in Europe, a position that was perceived as foreign and at times vehemently dismissed as too commercial and too American.