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SHOWMAN
for the New York opening. Grismer lived, slept and ate it. He certainly earned that credit-line which always ran in the program: "Elaborated by Joseph R. Grismer." Why, the mechanical snowstorm used in the third act, which had no small part in making the play a memorable success, was specially invented by him for the production and then patented. One of his inspirations was laying hands on a vaudeville actor named Harry Seamon, who had a small-time hick act, breaking his routine into three parts and running him into "Way Down East." Old-timers will remember his first entrance: "Big doin's in town— pust-office bruk into and robbed last night— gret loss fer th' guv'mint— three dollars wuth o' stamps stole!" And that was just one detail in the readying process.
When we got up courage to bring the thing into New York— at the Manhattan Theater— it still looked anything but encouraging. Nevertheless, we ran it seven months, without a single profitable week, in order to be able to advertise a long New York run when we took it out on the road again. As soon as we got out of New York, our battling began to bear some fruit. The first time we'd played St. Louis, we drew $1900 in a week— the second time we got $13,000— which should demonstrate what had happened in the meantime. Our next seven months in New York, at the old Academy of Music, averaged $10,000 a week. If you know show-business you know that, once a thing gets started in that style— remember this was back
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