San Francisco dramatic review (1899)

THE SAN FRANCISCO DRAMATIC REVIEW June 6, 1908. THE SAN FRANCISCO Dramatic Review Music and Drama CHAS. H. FABRELL, Publisher Issued Every Satunlaj Address allletters and money orders to San F r a n c i sco Dramatic Review, 287 T h i rteenth Street; reached by Mission Street cars. T e 1 e p hone Market 2114 Entered at San Francisco as Second-class Mail Matter. Established 1880. Lelia Fullam Lclia Fullam, whose handsome picture graces the front page this week, has come to the front very rapidly in the past two years. She has been the leading woman of the Elleford Company this season and has given general satisfaction. Her work is characterized by intelligent reading and conscientious effort. I5efore joining the Ellefords, Miss Fullam was a member of the Colonial Stock during the season after the fire, and before that had served her apprenticeship on the road with various companies. Country Theatregoers Want Too Much and Rents Are Too High Recently in his bright and entertaining paper, the Evening News of San Jose, Charley Williams had an article upon the sudden closing of the Barton Opera House in San Jose. In it Mr. Williams observes : There were two reasons for the sudden closing of the Victory. * * • The second and more important reason for the closing of the theatre was that it did not pay; the attendance was not large enough to warrant the bringing of attractions to the theatre. When the Victory Theatre is open every night during the week the expense is probably about $700. With a company like the Ellefords, that being the kind of an organization that would play for a week, the share for the theatre would be one-half of the gross receipts. The company would have to play to $1,400 before the management of the theatre could meet expenses. It takes a good many admissions at 10, 20 and SO cents to aggregate $1,400. The expense to the theatre for a one-night show, such, for instance, as The Ham Tree, is about $230. The theatre on a show of that kind gets, possibly, 25 per cent of the gross receipts, from which it has to pay all local expenses except those of the company giving the entertainment. It will be seen that the receipts would have to be over $1,000 before the management of the theatre would get enough of the money taken in to pay expenses. The regular or occasional patrons of the Victory will recall the fact that the attendance at even the best shows has for a long time been very light. Man-, ager Barton has lost a lot of money at the Victory. He has two other theatres, one each in Bakersfield and Fresno. The latter theatre is said to be the best paying proposition and always makes money. Manager Barton has been conducting that theatre for many years and it is known as the Barton Opera House, located in the Barton block. It is from the profits of the other theatres that he controls that Manager Barton has been keeping the Victory open and he probably got tired of it; decided to close the doors of the Victory, even if it did cost him $15 a day to do so. The rent of the Victory is $450 a month and Manager Barton can better afford to lose that than to keep the theatre open under the conditions that prevailed. It has been a long time since the Victory was a paying proposition. C. P. Hall made some money out of it, but there was no opposition then. There were no vaudeville theatres; the Jose Theatre was not in existence; he leased the Auditorium and kept the latter place closed, in order to prevent opposition from that source. He paid only about one-half the rent now demanded by Mr. Phelan for the Victory. At the expiration of Manager Hall's lease Phelan demanded a higher rent and Hall declined to pay it. The theatre was then leased by Manager Morosco of Eos Angeles. He held it for six weeks or so. Selby Oppenheimer came along with an ambition to be a showman, and took over the lease. Oppenheimer then began to run the theatre and managed, without much effort, to lose a bunch of money. Sam Harris was the next manager. He relieved Oppenheimer of the load. Harris lost several thousand dollars in a few months. Then Barton took it. The article is timely, as it touches upon a condition of things that do the show business no good. Local pride prompts the building of theatres too good and far in advance of the needs of a town. Just think of a theatre in San Jose renting for $450 per month! The theatre itself probably cost $30,000, at the most. It brings $5,400 a year income. In six years the lessee will have paid for it. Pretty good income— for the owner. Other cities are proportionately in just as bad straits. J'etaluma has a fine little theatre that cost $30,000. Chico has another that cost about the same. Both bring in rentals far above their value and almost make it impossible for the house manager to make a dollar in the season. Marysville has a fine, new theatre, away ahead of the needs of the town. Woodland, too, is similarly equipped. Red Bluff is building a theatre to cost about $40,000. The town isn't worth it. It is an axiom that can be hardly controverted — a theatre or a local orchestra never drew a dollar. The show's the thing. These small cities, averaging from 5,000 people to 50,000, would turn out just as well for attractions if the theatres cost only $15,000, if they were only clean and comfortable — and the local manager might be able to offer visiting shows better terms, and also make some money for himself. So, in conclusion, you gentlemen of the Coast who want to build theatres, build monuments if you will, but don't saddle an excessive rent upon the show business. Remember a plain, comfortable place that rents for $100 per month will bring in as much business as one that must rent for $300 to bring a fair return on the investment. John Blackwood is a Liar Those fellows down in Los Angeles are experts at handing out good press stuff. Here is a sample of what the Los Angeles papers are constantly falling for: "I am a liar." was the startling greeting of Manager Blackwood of the Belasco, Saturday morning. "Yes, it's a fact. I told the public that this would be the last week and it was wrong. Here I have stood alongside of the public all week, carefully holding its pulse to see when I should shut off The Girl of the Golden West. There is no come back on me. I was ready to shut her off all right, but it was no use. That pulse has kept beating girl-girl-girl, just as steady as a clock, and if I had shut off the flow cf tickets, why there would have been such a jam of girl-girls against the box office window that there would have been a serious accident." David Belasco came down from San Francisco early in the week to see what was the matter. He had burned up the wires last week, demanding to know the exact box office receipts for each night, and stating that if they ran the show any longer than it was called for by the public, some one would get fired. This week he wanted to be shown, so he came down to take a look. "I fixed him," said Blackwood. "I made him sell tickets for two hours straight. He cried enougli and said he would go back to Frisco and keep still until I told him to talk." The truth of the matter is that there is something in the sentiment of the play which has struck a heretofore untouched chord in the hearts of the Eos Angeles theatregoing public, and it has aroused so sweet a melody that they are loath to have the music cease. — Los Angeles Record. The School-of-Acting Fake A desire to win fame as an actress led Mabel M. Harper to leave her Utah home a few months before the big fire to come to San Francisco for the purpose of taking a course in the Caldwell College of Oratory and Acting. The other day she appeared before Judge Troutt to prosecute an action against F. Cooke Caldwell for $475, which she claimed she had paid for instruction for herself and her mother, Mrs. M. M. Harper, and which she said they did not receive-. .Miss Harper learned of the college of oratory through a prospectus issued by the school which was illustrated with pictures of actors and actresses, in the garb of their profession, rehearsing their various parts. Fencing was also one of the accomplishments in the curriculum. Correspondence resulted in the girl and her mother coming here to study. They began their studies shortly before the fire, which wiped out of existence, for the time, the college of acting. Miss Harper says she and her mother received only six actual lessons, their other visits to the school being understood as preparatory lessons which were not to count. Caldwell declared the couple had between them 124 lessons, and that there was no such thing as a preparatory course. He said if he had been able to start his school after the fire he would have given both the full course. After James A. Davis for the plaintiff and P. A. Bergerot for the defendant had argued the case, it was submitted to Judge Troutt, who suggested a compromise, and intimated the plaintiff should recover. Results of this kind are only too common. People without any gift or teaching, without any ability to act, without any knowledge of practical stage direction, start "schools of acting," and begin to work for the dollars of the unwary and the vain. When they do graduate their pupils they have no means of getting them upon the stage. Schools of acting, in theory, are good — in practice 99 out of 100 are frauds. The way to become an actor is to get a job in a theatrical company and proceed by hard work and experience to learn the mechanical parts of acting, for Acting is largely mechanical, and only when there is intellectuality or some particular brilliancy or excellence due to temperament, does acting rise above the grade of the mechanical. Useless Firemen Melvill Marx of the Van Ness Theatre has addressed a communication to the Board of Supervisors asking that the ordinance which now requires two firemen to be on duty in theatres at all times while performances are being given, be amended so that only one fireman will be required. He says, in his opinion, as well as that of other theatrical men, one fireman is all that is needed. Mr. Marx might go further and say no fireman is needed and if he is, the city ought to furnish his services free of charge. The theatres certainly pay enough in taxes and licenses to get some benefit of this enlightened government. Central Theatre 8th and Market Phone Market 777 ERNEST E. HOWELL Prop, and Mgr. Souvenir Matinee Wednesdays Regular Matinees Sunday* The Home of Melodrama Tonight an^l All Week — Matinee Sunday The Sensational Melodrama A WIPE'S SECRET .■x r> yv i The Boy with the Boodle Prices, 15c, 25c and 50c New Alcazar Theatre Tel. West 6036 Cor. Sutter and Stolner St». Belasco & . Mayer, Owners and Managers Absolutely "Class A" Building; j Sixty-fifth Week of the New Alcazar Stocm Company COMMENCING MONDAY, JUNE 8, Herbert Kelcey and Effie Shannon And the New Alcazar Players in DaviJ Belaseo's Version of . . . Z A Z A . , , A Sumptuous Production Prices: Nights 25c to »1; matinee* Saturday and Sunday, 25c to 60c. Next Week — Kelcey and Shannon in the Great Military Drama. TAPS ORPHEUM Ellis Street, Near Fillmore Absolutely Class "A" Theatre Week Beginning This Sunday Afternooa Matinee Every Day Vaudeville Extraordinary JESSE LASKY'S SEVEN HOBOES, In Their Famous Comedy Singing Act, ON THE ROAD; SMITH AND CAMPBELL; WORLD AND KINGSTON; MR. AND MRS. GEO. A. BEAjE; DEVLIN AND ELWOOD; FELIX BARRY AND BARRY; DE WITT BURNS AND TCRRANCE; NEW ORPHEUM MOTION PICTURES. Last Week and Immense Success WILEY PANTZER & CO. EVENING PRICES— 10c. 25c, 50c, 76c;. Box Seats. II. MATINEE PRICES (Except Sundays and Holidays), 10c, 25c, 50c. Phone West 6000 Ye Liberty Playhouse OAKLAND 14th and Broadway DIRECTION H. W. BISHOP Phone Oakland 73. Nance O'Neil Arouses Tremendous Interest and Enthusiasm in MARIE ANTOINETTE Next Week — Miss O'Neil will be seen Id ...AGNES... Prices— 25c, 50c, 75c, $1. Matinees, 25c ami 50c. AMERICAN THEATRE Phone Market 381 Market St.. Near Seventh THE HOUSE OF SAFETY AND COMFORT COMING ATTRACTIONS May Robson In The Rejuvenation of Aunt Mary Richard J. Jose America's Sweetest Singer Miss Nance O'Neil In Repertoire Prices — Evenings, Orchestra, 50c, 75c, $1 and $1.50; Balcony, 25c, 50c. 75c. Matinees, Orchestra, 50, 75c, $1; Balcony, 25c, 50c. Princess Theatre Phone West 663 Ellis St., near Fillmore Samuel Eoverich, Manager Absolutely "Class A" Theatre Huilding Matinee Saturday and Sunday East Two Weeks EDWIN STEVENS TONIGHT — ALE THE WEEK The Oriental Musical Eccentricity THE TAR AND TARTAR Special Engagement — Christina Nielsen, Virginia Cameron and Charles E. Couture. Arthur Cunningham and all the Princess favorites in the cast. NEXT The King Maker Prices — Evenings, 25c. 50c, 75c; Matinees (except Sundays and Holidays). 25c and 50c. SHAW-GILLE, Inc. SHOW PRINTERS HENRY G. GILLE Manager 2257 Mission Street, near 19th. Telephone Market 1865