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434 Building Theatre Patronage
man is called the manager, the director of publicity, or the sales-promotion expert makes no difference. New names do not change old facts. Call the barber a tonsorialist, and he is still a barber; call the chauffeur an automotive engineer, and he is still a chauffeur; call the real estate agent a realtor, and he sells the same thing; call the camera man a cinematographer, and he is still the same; call the undertaker a mortician, and by any other name he would still do the same important work. The theatre which is conducted by principles of sound management, and showing a profit because someone there knows how to sell entertainment, need not be bothered about the titles on letterheads.
Here is a business to which has been applied the expression, "The showman must be born and not made." This involves, of course, the birthright which carries a knowledge of all the details of operation which the capable manager supervises— projection, lighting, advertising, market analysis, copy writing, layout, stagecraft, ventilation, equipment maintenance, display, color, and all the other really technical details of local operation.
Strange to say, the "showman" who operated one of the first nickelodeons in New York thirty years ago is now in a Texas village operating a "shoot-' em-up" ten-cent store show. Perhaps that is his preference. But at any rate here is a business in which the God-given birthright supposedly limited to God's favorite showmen does not eliminate the possibility of success by hard work and hard thinking.
There is no single text-book for the show business — unless it be life itself. The business develops so rapidly and people's preferences are so fickle that a machine-made routine which might be successful to-day, may be a failure to-morrow. However, there are some fixed principles which will always apply as long as business is business, and as long as human beings are human.
Fortunately, this business has up-to-the-minute helps in the form of trade papers. These trade papers are not appreciated as they should be. They are a service to the industry. In any issue, anyone who is striving for perfection will find an idea which, when applied, will more than pay for the subscription