Actorviews (1923)

Lynne Overman’s Long Rehearsal 267 “But I wanted to be an actor, and mother staked me to the trip to New York and to two trunks — full name on each trunk ; one marked ‘theater,’ one marked ‘hotel’ ; oh, I went right ! I had a hall room, 4 by 16, where I had to stand my trunks one on top of the other, and my landlady, Mrs. Fitzpatrick, used to say, ‘My boy’s an actor, too, and never has a cent, either’ “I got a job,” Mr. Overman amazingly went on, “as stage manager of a stock company at New Haven. It was an awful stock company and I learned a thousand things that ought not to be done, and I learned how not to do a few of them. Then I had thirty-four unforgettable weeks with the Gardner & Vincent Repertory Company without leaving trie State of Pennsylvania. We were quartered in boarding houses and even our laundry bills paid for by the show. If we wanted a pair of shoes, we had to get an order from the manager. But that isn’t why that thirtyfour-week engagement is unforgettable. Gardner and Vincent owed me — they still owe me — four hundred and twenty-seven dollars. That’s the correct figure. It’s graven on my soul.” “But didn’t you get four hundred and twentyseven dollars’ worth of exnerience as an actor?” "I was engaged as leading juvenile man and never got a beard off my face! I didn’t know, when I took the job, that the juvenile man in a repertory company always wears the beards and plays Charles, his friend, or the sheriff, because the leading man plays all the juvenile parts. That’s where I left repertory flat on its spine for three long thirsty years while I did 30,000 miles of travel with number two or number ten companies.” “Leading man?”