The Billboard 1901-07-27: Vol 13 Iss 30 (1901-07-27)

8 Time,’ “Just My Little Yaller Boy and Me,” “In Our Home, Sweet Home,” ‘The Moon Buby” and “When Chloe Sings a Song.’ All of these she renders in her usually artistic style, and easily captures her aud lence. On account of sickness Rose Coghlan has been compelled to cancel all her summer engagements, which included a series of rformances at Denver, in plays which rave made her famous, and a number: of vaudeville dates. She is suffering from nervous prostration, superinduced by her marital troubles, and it is likely she will be taken to some quiet sanitarium. The Vaudeville Trust has become a fact, but the Cincinnati-Pacific crowd which has been working on it fer months did not incorporate it. J. J. Murdock and the Chicago Masonic Temple people have stolen a march on them. Murdock has incorporated a gigantic stock company, with a capital of $5,000,000, $3,000, of which has been paid in. President Gormley, of the Masonic Tempie, is at its head. The company will have a vaudeville theater in every town in the land, not merely in the cities from Cincinnati to the Pacific coast. The company is thoroughly organized, has a bid in for a theater in each city, and is ready to do business when the regular season opens. Murdock has gone to New York, there to complete the Eastern arrangements. What Morris Meyerfeld and M. C. Anderson will do is not known. and could not be learned. The Cincinnati-Pacific men are Meyerfield and Martin Beck, of the Orphevm cireuit; Kohl and Castle, of Chieago: Geo. Middleton, St. Louis, and M. C. Anderson, Indianapolis and Cincinnati. Burlesque. Dunean Clark will open the Fanny Hill Show July 29. Gus Hill will have thirteen companies out the coming season. He can not be very meek civen to superstition. Daniel Swift has been signed for an important part with Gus Hill’s “Happy q Hooligan” Company the coming season. W. Campbell Shepp has engaged his wife's brother, Jack Sydell, to manage “Slaves of Opium.” Jas. J. Johnson will continue to manage the “Big Sensation’ for Mrs. Flynn. His address is 66 Rush street, Brooklyn, N. Y. The once famous $10,000 beauty of Barfium’s Circus fame, Louise Montague, will appear in FE. E. Rice’s extravaganzas the coming season. Phil. Sheridan will feature a girl’s basket ball game with the “City Sports Big Show” next season. The show opens at the Palace Theater, Boston, Aug. 26. Fanny Hill’s Vaudeville and Burlesque Company is well booked for the coming season. One of the features of the program will be the contortion act by Kledzio. Kiaw & Erlanger have engaged the Grigolatis aerial troupe for their production of the Drury Lane fairy etravaganza, ‘‘The Sieeping Beauty and the Beast,’’ at the Broadway in November. The Dainty Paree Burlesquers, under the Abie management of J. H. Barnes, is going o surprise some of the knowing ones. ‘here are two features that are new, an electrical device which, though simple, is surprising, and some original ideas in &cenery and costumes that will prove—well, pleasing. The singing of the show will be stronger, too, than last year. Mile. de Leon, or “The Girl in Blue,” is creating a frost in the sizzling hot air that permeates Koster & _ Bial’s roof in the warm city of New York. She is announced as ‘‘direct from Paris.’’ Now Millie, as every one who is ‘‘up” in stage gossip knows, has never been nearer gay Paree then Paris, Ky. As in Cincinnati, St. Louis, Chicago and other Western dramatic centers, she seems to be a trifle too realistic for the cities. Farce-Comedy. Will Spaeth’s new farce comedy is said to read well. Fred Raymond has provided “The Missouri Girl’ with a complete new set of scenery. Harry Zella, with Ringling Bros. Shows, will have ont a big farce comedy during the coming winter. H. Walter Van Dyke is booking for a good comedy drama. He can be addressed at Rock Raven, W. Va. Time for Arthur Deming in “Don’t Tell My Wife” is said to be coming in well. The venture promises well. Fred C. Whitney has decided to name the new musical comedy in which he will star Lulu Glaser “Dolly Varden.” Fred C. Whitney has decided to name the new musical comedy in which he will star Lulu Glaser “Dolly Varden.” Billy Barry has a son of the same n:me who is under engarement to play Tiin MeFadden in “McFudéen’s Row of Fiats.” Weedon Grossmith, whom Americans know chiefly as an eccentric comedian in the late Rosina Vokes Company, seems to have hit in England on a farce, “The Night of the Party,” that may warrant his bringing it to us. Weedon Grossmith, whom Americans know chiefly as an eccentric comedian in the Inte Rosina Vokes Company, seems to have hit in England on a farce, “The Night of the Party,’ that may warrant his bring| ing it to us. Messrs. Klaw avd Erlanger have engaged Mr. Harry Gilfoil, who retired from the art of Prince de Bomsky in ‘The Strolers” last Saturday night, for an important one in their coming production of Mr. Harry B. Smith’s new musical comedy, “The Liberty Belles,’’ which will be seen in New York for the first time at the Madison Square Theater Sept. 30. Minstrels. Lindsey's Minstrels travel in their own Pullman car. Kuetzger Bros. have ordered a fine line of printing. lli Henry has opened-oflices at 40 E. Mohawk street, Buffalo, N. Y. Al. G. Field is a prominent figure in the Elks’ convention at Milwaukee this week. Jack Holland was a ‘Billboard’ caller July He reports two skows on the road, and both doing well. Harry Ward has been engaged as manager of Richard & Pringle’s No. 1. This takes one of them off the road, but there are still about twenty too many. Lester L. Lindsey’s Mammoth Minstrels will put in forty days under canvas before opening the regular season in opera houses. The show carries twenty-five people. Wm. Franklin Riley, general manager of J. H. Haverley’s Mastadon Minstrels, has engaged a splendid band, which will be featured with that organization the coming season. Harry Ward's Magnificent Minstrels closed suddenly July 20 at Lafayette, Ind., owing to bad business and other causes. Several of the members of above company joined the Great Barlow Minstrels Aug. 25 for the winter season. W. S. Cleveland’s Minstrels have signed Frank Chamberlin, the novel rope juggler. as a feature of their olio for the season of 1901-02. They open at Findlay, O., July 30. His act has won big and deserved success over all the Eastern circuit. ‘Billy’? West, as he is familiarly known, manager and proprietor of the West's Minstrels, is ill in a Chicago sanitarium with an affection in his right jaw, the result of too much smoking. Some time ago an abscess formed in his mouth, and the doctors forbade him smoking. He desisted for a time, but started again, with the result that he has to have a second operation, and is in a serious condition. is company starts rehearsing this week and takes the road at the end of the month, but it is doubtful if Mr. West will be sufficiently recovered to join it. . William S. Cleveland, the well known minstrel manager, filed in the United States District Court in Chicago, last week, a : tition in bankruptcy, in which he scheduled $559,080 liabilities and oo assets. Not even the customary suits of clothing and watch or books are scheduled to his own account. These pages of his petition are blank, except for the word “nothing.”” The debts were contracted mostly in Buffalo and other astern cities after 1887, when the petitioner came into prominence as a manager of black-faced comedians. William West, minstrel, of Primrose and West fame, is not to be operated upon for cancer any more. He felt some weeks ago a pain in his left cheek that he feared argued a return of the cancer which had been removed, and which, the surgeons assured him, would not recur. But the swelling in his cheek annoys him excessively, and he, having made up his mind that it was of eancerous origin, decided upon an operation. The surgeons agreed. And after much delving they found that the cause of the trouble was a toothbrush bristle which was imbeded in the minstrel’s facial muscels. West feels better now. The Great Barlow Minstrels (Donnelly, Coburn & Baldwin, sole owners) are meeting with unprpecedented success on their summer tour, taxing the capacity of the avilions to their limit. At South Bend, nd., they played against the Buckskin Bill Wild West to over 1,500 paid admissions. They have been offered a return date, but as their time is all filled up to June 1, 1902, they were compelled to refuse the same. They play return engagements at Akron, O., and Mansfield, O., closing their summer season at Columbus, O., week of Ang. 25, and opening the regular season at Gallipolis, O., Sept. 2. Their tour will embrace the principal cities of the South and West to coast and return. Their summer season. 1902, will open at Bay City, Mich., early in June. It is the aim of the management to give an entirely new show every season, earrying no hold-overs, and maintaining the high standard attained during our last winter’s tour. Will J. Donnelly, general manager, will be at the Donaldson Litho. Co. week of July 21, attending to his preliminary work for the coming season. J. A. Coburn has engaged all of his people, and will handle the company in the rear, while Mr. Donnelly will be ahead, with two assistants. There are a great many things that have made the Al G. Field Greater Minstrels a great organization in minstrelsy. It is clean and witty, and of the highest order. The costuming and scenic embellishment are always up to date, and originalit marks the entire program. Each succeeding year finds it a stronger and better aggregation in point of general excellence. Attention to the above points from the beginning of this company and throughout its entire career of sixteen years has enabled it to win its way into the kearts of all lovers of this popular form of entertaining, until today the Al G. Field company is recognized as a beacon I'ght in all that is new and original in the domain of minstrelsy. When the big show is each year launched upon its season’s tour the friends of Al THE BILLBOARD think it quite impossible for him to improve, but the show is no sooner fairly on its way than Mr. Field has his thinking cap on for the season to follow. For the present season the show is prolific with good things and great people. The largest singing contingent and finest array of comedians ever connected with a company are with the Field minstrels and include such noted artists as Jimmy Wall, Frank Fogarty, Tommy Donnelly, Joho Blackford, Doc Quigly, George Mullen, Goldman and Hyde, kKeese Prosser, Joseph EB. Blamphin, M. Julian Walsh, Dan Quinlan and Al G, Field. The grand spectacular first part, “A Visit to the Van-American Exposition,’’ is the most sumptuously appointed scenic production ever known to minstrelsy, and requires un entire carload of special scenic effects. Two thousand electric bulbs are used to give the spectacie a glorious light effect. The famous electric tower is shown with all the brilliancy of its illumination, and it is safe to say it is the prettiest picture ever seen upon the stage. John W. Vogel’s Big Minstrels. The third annual tour of John W. Vogel's Big Minstrels will begin Thursday, Aug. 29, at Newark, O The Vogel-Deming alliance has been abrogated, the connection having been severed the closing day of last season, and while there is no change in ae of the progressive attraction—Mr. Vogel having always been sole proprietor—the title is necéssarily changed, as in the beginning aragraph of this article, viz.: John W. Jogel’s Big Minstrels. This season's happiness will be headed by Arthur Rigby, who will supply the principal end and monologue; McCoy and Gano, Burt and Frank Leighton and Carl Cameron will complete the fun-making contin ent. e The vocal portion of the entertainment will be unusually large, including Chas. R. Wood, Harry Leighton, John P. Moore, Thos. Merrick, Grant Merkley, Percy Reed, Clarence Rummel! and the Pan-American Octette. The O’Brien Troupe of Acrobats, McCoy and Gano, the Great ‘‘Roulette,’’ the Three Hills, Leighton and Leighton, Don Gordon and Arthur Rigby will contribute the greater portion of the olio, while Prof. Jos. Norton will have charge of the band of 25 pieces and an orchestra of sixteen. The performance will be upon a much larger and grander scale than any presentation of the kind ever seen in this country, about 50 people being employed in the organization. Edwin DeCoursey has been engaged as business manager; I. S. Potts as general agent, with three assistants. Musical. When in need of musicians advertise in “The Billboard.” “The Billboard March" daily at the Pan-American. Will D. Burroughs, manager of Sang Foy, can be addressed care of the Stuart House, Valdosta, Ga. Wm. Bauer, an experienced and capable agent, is at liberty. He can be addressed eare of the Bristol Hotel, Cincinnati. “The Lady of Lyons” is to be presented in Lendon as a comic opera, under the title of ‘‘Melnotte’’ or the “‘Gardener’s Bride." May Boley, a chorus girl in the Alice Neilson Company, will soon marry Fred Nicholson, a captain in the British army. Marthilde Preville has taken the place of Estelle Mann, with the Straskosch Opera Company, fer the snmmer months, which has proven a decided acquisition. The Shuberts, of New York, will become ossessed of the new work, called ‘Miss Valker,”’ by Paulton and Jacobowsky, the author and composer of ‘‘Erminie.”’ Ada Palmer Walker has been engaged by the Lulu Glasser Company for next season to sing second soprano parts in a new opera to be produced by that company. Iouise Gunning will sing the prima donna roles in the “Fortune Teller’’ and the “Singing Girl’ the coming season. There are many who will regret her departure from the vaudeville stage. The engagement of Miss Myrta French, an operatic prima donna, and Mr. Jean Paul Kursteiner, of New York, is announced. Miss French will not give up her oratorio and church work, but will retire from the operatic stage. rank L. Perley, manager of Mr. Eugene Cowley, the leading bass of the Neilson Opera Company, declares that Mr. Cowley has not entertained any offer for $1,000 a week for singing in vaudeville, as has been recently reported. Announcement is made of the engagement of Mr. Wilhelm Schaffer, composer of ‘The Robber Baron,” and Miss Eifle George, a contralto, with the Columbia Opera Comvany, now in Kansas City. The wedding s scheduled to take place in about two weeks. An American singer, Mrs. Alice Webster Powell by name, will shake the dust of Europe off her feet and come back to home and mother this year. It is all because her sister artists are jealous of her popularity in the Berlin opera, at least that is the tale being told the public. William Worth Batley, a blind violinist, will make an American tour this winter. The blind violinists’ repertoire consists of eighty compositions, of which fourteen are cencertos, nine fantasies, three polonaises, five tarantelles and mazurkas; thirty-two is played twice | ' morceaus and romances, with seventeen gsonatas and other violin solos. Mr. Henry KE. Dixey has been engaged for the role of Sir Joseph Porter with the Castle Square (New_York) Opera Company's production of “H. M. 8. Pinafore,” at Man. hattan Beach August 12. Directly at the conclusion of this engagement Mr. Dixey will sail for London, where he is to read the manuscript of a new play in which he expects to star, David Bispham writes from abroad that he is to create the title role in “Cyrano de Bergerac’ when Walter Damrosch’s operat ic version is produced in this country. .il lian Blauvelt will be the Roxane. Maurice Grau will make this production during the early part of the operatic season at the Metropolitan Opera House, and Mr. Damrosch will be the musical director. Maurice DeVries, who has been prominent in the operatic organizations directed by Maurice Grau and Walter Damrosch, has been engaged by Henry W. Savage to sing leading basso roles with his Castle Square Opera Company during the season of grand opera in English, which begins at the Broadway Theater on September 16 and continues for six weeks. Mr. DeVries will then be heard for the first time in English opera in New York City. It is just possible that Miss Alice Nielsen may avoid the managerial troubles that threaten her if she does not fulfill her contract with Frank L. Perley, by remaining for some time to come—it may be for years and it may be forever—in Europe out of the jurisdiction of the American courts. Miss Nielson has made a very great personal success in London, and George Musgrove, proprietor of the Shaftesbury Theater, who knows better than most people the scarcity of public favorites, is anxious for her to stay right there and appear in a number of new musical productions. One of the best bands Cinviunatians have ever heird is the (hieayso Marine Band, of which Mr. Thomas Preston Brooke is con ductor and which is now filling a successful engagement at the Zoo; in fact, the band has been doing so well that its time has been extended from four to eleven weeks. There is no conductor in the country, bar none, so quick to study his audience and to give it what it wants—from ragtime to the highest classics. One of Mr. Brooke's fa vorite numbers is the Billboard March, by John N. hlohr, which, he says, is destined to become one of the most popular marches ever written. Miss Rosa Gores, the singer, has been near death's door for many weeks at Augusta, Ga. But through the long siege of typhoid fever she has found how much she was loved by the Southern people, for day by day her room was filled with the flowers that bloom there more abundantly than elsewhere, and hosts of friends came with the morning to inquire as to the progress she made toward recovery. Monday she was permitted to start for Cincinnati, and in Hyde Park she will gain the strength needed to fit her for the European trip, which she was to have taken had not her illness upset all the plans made by herself — mother, who was to have accompanied er. A new comic opera produced at Terrace Garden, New York, July 10, is entitled “The Robber Baron,” and is the work of John Arthur Fraser, librettist, and William Schaffer, composer. The story tells, in its three acts, of the career of the celebrated French robber who lived and thrived during the reign of Louis XV., and who, as history records, broke jail no less than thirty-one times. This robber, a nobleman by birth, is a dare-devil—a sort of French Robin Hood. He learns of his ancestry, and his determination to establish his rights to title and fortune gives the glamour of romance to his criminal exploits. Hubert Wilke plays the role of the robber. The cast includes Villa Knox, Mathilde Cottrelly, Frank Deshon and Helen Byron, a pretty creature, who is to support Jefferson de Angelis next season. Our Chicago Letter. The American Posting Service has its boards filled and has paper waiting to go up as soon as the Buffalo Bill paper runs out, which is July 19. There is very little snipping done at present, as most of the theaters are closed. The boards of the Elevated Railroad are all full. A great many firms in Chicago advertise on the Ele vated Rairoad, having special designs made to fill the board. Mr. b&b. PD. Colvin, Hagenback’s agent for the United States, sold Topsy, the perform ing elephant, to the Wallace Show, which was safely shipped to the show at Rush ville, Ind., under the care of J. P. Fagan. The parks have been doing a grand business this warm weather, drawing every one looking for a cool place to pass the time. Middleton's Clark Street Museum has in its curio hall Master Willie Anderson, the boy who, with twelve others, was under a = when a flash of lightning struck the wy and killed eleven of the others, paraIyvsing young Anderson, who will recover. Jimmy Winterburn left on July 11 to visit the Pan-American Exposition, also taking in New York and Philadelphia. This Is a pleasure trip for his wife, The Bill Pesters’ and Billers’ Union at their last meeting elected the following officers: Thos. Cahill, President; « Julius Johnson, Vice President; Doe Dunning, Financial Secretary: Geo, Cochran, Assistant Financial Secretary; Sol Gans, Sergeant-at arms. The President, in his report, stated that there were not five practical bill posters in Chicago who did not belong to_the union. oO'M.