The Billboard 1904-02-20: Vol 16 Iss 8 (1904-02-20)

| i | THE BILLBOARD NEW YORK MANAGERS ORGANIZE. Theatrical managers ot New York City have formed an association for tueir mutual protection and benefit. Only two prominen. managers were absent at the first meeting. While the recent action of the city authorities in closing several theatres because of alleged failure to obey promptly orders for changes in exits, &c., was the direct cause of the managers coming together, it is understood they will seek to establish control over any matters such as billposting, passes and speculation in tickets. THE AL G. FIELD MINSTRELS. The Al G. Field Company seems to have weathered the unfavorable .oeatrical storms that have prevailed the past few months in a manner entirely creditable to thig time-tried organization. aeports from all sections tell of the big business the Al G. Field Greater Minstrels are enjoying. The losing nights of the season can de counted on the fingers of one ..nd. The losing stands were affected by local causes entirely. Since the opening of the season, Aug. 12, the company has appeared in but one town where their reputation had not been estaliished by yearly visits. Mr. Field has laid a route over which he travels yearly, increasing his business (if that were possible) on each recurring visit The coming of this company is looked forward to by the citizens of the cities in which it appears. ‘Sold out to the doors’’ is their usual welcome greeting. There must be method that ig good to place any theatrical venture upon a business basis so secure as that enjoyed by the Al G. Field Greater Minstrels. The busy brain.of Mr. Field is working upon his next season's production. From the opening of the season, when ®ne venture is in} launched, another is begun Scenie artists, electricians, costumers, ete.. are at work upon the production for next season. Somet! ing more elaborate in the way of first parts will be AL G, FIELDS. attempted than has been produced heretofore This part of the entertainment will deal with minstrelsy the middle ages down to the present a immet, who is the originator of Ame relsy, wi sist Mr. Fievi in g i facsimile of tie first minstrel first part ever presented. There were but four per formers in this minstrel first part, and after the representation of minstrelsy in the days of reproduction of the first minever given will be produced ’ ail as it can be remembered by Mr Emmet will be presented. The makeup of the four performers will ve exact counterparts of the « als, to be followed by the gorgeous first part representing present day minstre!sy The first part will be in three separate scenes, constructed upon ideas and models originated by Mr. Field. A big military spectacle under the supervision of Cap. Wheeler Wykoff, the noted drili-master. will be a part of the program. A review of the military service from the days of the Col) nial ‘Troops down to the present time ig a part of this spectacie. A putnber of historical eveuts in the various wars will be graphically illu: trated by imposing tableau, notably, Washington taking farewell of his army, Old Hickory Jackson at New Orieans belind the cotton bales, the Alamo and the Blue and Gray. Tulwill be the wost ambitious production of this Character ever produced in coujuuction with a minstrel performance. Mr. Field, who bas been successful in feeling the public puise heretofore, is sanguine ip ite success. A big European act is under consideration. However, Mr. Field, who Las imported one or more acts trom abroad yeurly, asserts that he has been more successful with the American acts. ine musical portion of the show, which has always been one of itg pillars of strength, wiil be made even more prominent tuan ever before. Many people ure needed to complete tls company for next season, full particulars of which is given in the advertisement which appears in thig paper. DRAMATIO, The Jesse James Company closed Feb, 13 in Louisville, Ky. Man to Man Company closed its season at Hamilton, Ohio, Feb. 6. The Huntley-Jackson Repertoire Company recently disbanded at Olyphant, Pa. Lddie Foy has signed with F. C. and B. C. Whitney's Piff, Patil, Pouff for next seaseou. Wright Lorimer is now in New York preparing for his production of The Shepherd hing, J. Norton Vedder is business manager of the James Kennedy Company, which is headed Eastward. Manager Wm. Stamford, of the Wilbur Mack Colipany, reports business good with his company. Miss Blanch+ Aldridge, leading lady of Zazelle & Vernon's Comedians, was ill at Madison, Ind., Feb, 3-6. Stanley Baker paid Dixon, 111, a short visit Feb. 5-6. Mr. Baker reports business good in Wisconsin. Harry Wendell is playing Policeman O'Brien in Mr. Waldmann’s production of Dr. Jekytl and Mr. Hyde. Miss Eva Belden, of Princeton, IlL., recently joined The Cavalier Company, and is playing the role of Lucille. The theatrical business in Canada ig reported to be picking up wonderfully, and all good troupes are being well patronized. T. Henry Sorrells, an Uncle Tom and Ten Nights man, well known in the West, died at Independence, Kan., Feb, 3, of pneumonia. Miss May Buckley, who scored a hit in A Japanese Nightingale, will be leading woman for Wright Lorimer in The Shepard King. W. J. Jossey, late. of the Elliott Stock Company, of Chicago, Ill., has joined the HuntleyMoore Stock Company at Atlantie City, N. J. Burt King has been engaged by Edward Waldmann to play Dr. Lanyon in Mr. Waldmann’s production of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. Ben Hur did $18,000 worth of business in Evansville the last week in January playing to S. R. O. at every performance except the first Aubrey Boucicault is said to have severed his relations with Messrs. Brady and Shubert, who were announced as his managers for next season. Edith Ellis Baker, who has been associated with Sydney Rosenfeld in his Century Theatre Stock Company, has ended her connection with the company. Frank A. Moore, formerly of the Bandit King Company, is at his home in Warren, Ohio, for the present, but will soon be out with an attraction of his own. Kyrle Bellew and company, driven out of New York temporarily by the closing of the Prin‘ess Theatre, opened in Rattles at Troy, N. Y.. Feb. 8, On a road tour. Edna Wallace Hopper has been defeated in her efforts to break the will of her stepfather. Alexander Dunsmuir, and to secure a portion of the Dunsmuir millions. tuby aatti, of the Game Keeper Company. is dangerously ill in St. Joseph's Hospital Denver, Colo. Baby Patti igs the daughter of Mr. and Mrs. D. C. Seldon. Master Alfreq Carey, a bey soprano, of Min ‘apolis. Minn., has joined the Fatal Wedding Company, and will be member of Miss Gertrude Haynes’ ‘‘choir celestial.”’ Harty Levy, advance agent of A Ragged Hero has @losed to go ahead of Wedded But No Wife which is also put out by the Fielding Amusement Company of New York City. Cosmo Gordon Lennox, husband of Marie Tempest, is writing a one-act play especially for the Actors’ Fund benefit. which takes place t the New York Theatre March 1. Charles Frohman has secured Brother Jacques the new four-act play running with great success at the Varieties Theatre, Paris. Mr. Frohbian will preduce it here next season. Robert Edeson has written a one-act play called A New Alliance. With Byron Ongley he has just finished a dramatization of Stewart Edward White's novel Conjurer’s House. San Francisco is particularly loyal to the stock. The Aleazar’s season there is nearing the four hundredth consecutive week, something unparalleled in the history of American theatricals. Soldiers of Fortune, in which Robert FEdeson starred last season. has ben secured for the Pacifie Coast by Belasco and Mayer, and will he done at the Aleazar, San Francisco, during the summer. John Kendrick Bangs and Roderick C. Penfield met Fzra Kendall by appointment at Elmira, N. Y., Feb. 6, and submitted outlines for a new comedy for that popular comedian, which they will write. Ralph Stewart bas entered Into an arrangement with Franklyn Fyles to collaborate in a melodrama, which will have Kit Carson, the border hero, for its leading character. Me. Stewart will play the part. Mr. Frank W. Mauson, of Why Women Love Company, reports a very good season since thelr opening at Washington, Aug. 31. He has not lost an engagement this season and reports no ho..up on account of the severe weather. Miss Mathilde Weffing, who was with the Tess of the D'Urbervilles Company the fore part of the season and later with His Sister’s Shame Company, which closed recently. 1s visiting her parents in San Antonio, Texas, for gq few months. The item printed in one of the dramatic papers to the effect that Adelaide Thurston, in Polis Primrose, would close the season, is denied by the management, who state that time is booked up to May 15 and on no account would they lose before that date. White Whittlesey made his New York debut in The Pit on Feb. 19, and will continue In the dramatization of Frank Norris’ epic of the wheat’ pit until he comes to California next summé¢r to begin his long starring tour, under selasco, Mayer & Price’s direction. Jacob P, Adler, the Yiddish actor, at one time manager of the Grand Theatre Company, of New York, it ig said, has bought up all the stock of the company and would assume control over the playhouse immediately. It is bis intention to put on a series of Shakespearean plays. Stanley Holland, of Warren, Ohio, will have a fiue line of plays on the road for season 1904v5. Mr. Holland is on old-timer and bas a wide repufation as an actor. He made a hit ufteen years ago in My Partner, and has for the past ten years been with the leading repertoire companies. Daniel Frohman hag received from Israel Zangwill the manuscript of a new play, entitled The Serio-Comic Governess, in which Cecilia Loftus will star under Mr. Frohman’s management at the Lyceum Theatre, New York, in September. The play is founded upon a short story by Zangwill. The question How Old is Ann? has been dramatized and was staged at White Vlains, N. Y. Barney Gerard, the autuor, makes Ann a mischievous litte girl, who refuses to go to schvol. The school authorities get after her to punish her but must first find out how old she is. Complicatious result. A. Milo Bennett, of the Bennett Dramatic Exchange, Chicago, writes: Business here ‘s not as bad as reported, nor hasn't been, and reports about the great number of people here disengaged are wonderful exaggeratious. Tie theatres are going to open up aguin and the outlook igs very promising. Manhattan theatres ure wide open to new productions just now, but Maurice Campbell has refused all offers to put on George Hazelton’s new play, The Raven. It is now announced that The Raven will be done next.September, and until that time Frederick Lewfg will continue to rest at his home in Oswego. As the bogus aunt in Charley’s Aunt, Howard Russell, the leading juvenile of the Baker Theatre Company, made a personal bit when this company appeared at the Marquam Graud, at Portland. Ore. Mr, Russell, who is now in his second season with the Baker enterprises, is from Boston, Mass. Klaw & Erlanger have purchased the Randgl Hotel at Evansville, Ind., and will repair and refit it especially for the theatrical people. Later it will be replaced by a handsome new playhouse. The price paid was $16,000. Manager Pedley, of the Grand at Evansville, is also connected with the deal. George E. Gill's A Little Outcast Company (Northern) closed its season Feb. 17 at Whee!ing, on account of its being too expensive to play in one-night stands during the dull season. The Eastern A Little Outcast Company, however, will continue ite season up to June 4, as it is booked solid in the week stands. Elmer Tenley, who hag been the leading comedian at Watson's Cozy Theatre, Brooklyn, N. Y.. since the opening, branches out next seasou as a full-fledged star, appearing in A Tipperary Christening, a symposium of girls and laughter. A company of forty people will be carried and new scenery, properties, etc., will be used. A metallic casket, believed to contain Charles Coguians remains was discovered eighteen miles from Galveston Feb. 3. It was found on the mainland by J. C, Nixon, a hunter, in au unfrequented spot, which he was beating up for game. Mr. Coghlan died in November, 1899. The casket was washed out of the cemetery in Galveston in the flood of Sept. 8, 1900, and has been missing ever since. While pleying at Granby, Mo., Miss Clar: Selcber was the recipient of some expensive and elegant cut flower mementoes from the Bachelor’s Club. The house was entirely sold ont for the three nights. This is Belcher's Comedians third night here. The roster reads. W. M. Belcher, Jennie Millen, Clara Belcher, Mabel Belcher, C. H. Adams, Frank S. Hayden. C. E. Horn, Frank Friel, F. De Costello, Little Miss Flossie, Paby Wava. In his new play, The Crown Prince, an unusnal circumstance, James K. Hackett will return to the romantic roles with which he was sv long identified after a couple of seasons with such plays as The Crisis and John Ermine. An other striking thing about this production 1s the fact that it is by George H. Broadhurst. whose name in the past hag been entirely ass»ciated with the light and frivolous ferces of the Whet Happened to Jones and Why Smith Left Home class. The Green Room Club gave its annual fulldress rehearsal at the New York Theatre Feb. 13. William A. Brady had charge of the entertainment. Among those who appeared were De Wolf Hopper, Frank Daniels, the Rogers Brothers, Dan Daly, Willis Sweatnam, Emma Carus Joe Cawthorne, Wilton Lackare, Sam Bernard. Marie Dressler, Lew Dockstader, Templar Saxe Charlie Rigelow. Charles Dickson, Gus Hil! Harry Rulger, Viola McIntyre, Virginia Earl and W. H. Macart. The theatrical man known as John F. Vernon. who died at the Hope Hospital in Ft. Wayne Ind., Sunday evening. Feb. 7, of Bright's di! sease, after only a few honrs’ seriong illness bas been identified as John Fugate, whos brother, Frank Fugate, resides in Toledo. H+ was the advance agent of the James Kenned: Stock Company, which was playing a week's engagement In the Masonic Temple Theatre In the Indiana city last week. and fell uncon selons Saturday morning while at the theatre The Modern Woodmen, of which he was a memher, and the company sent hig remains to Toledo. O., for burial. Wright Iorimer, who fs to make his first New York appearance in The Shepherd King, April 4 has engaged the following well-known plavrers who will continue members of his company afte’ the New York engagement: May Ruckley, Dor othy Rossmore, Charles Kent, Fdward Mackay Edmund Preese, Harold Hartsell, Florence Ger ald, Moergaret Hayward, Marien Ward. Ethe) bert Hales, William Frederic. Preston Kendal! Charles R. Gilbert. Edward Farle, William Ba’ four, Charlies H. Martin. John Wheeler. Frank Walsh, John O'Meara, Angela Orden and Mar jan Frederic. Waltér Clarke Rellows has been engaged as stage director and F. C. Butler a+ stage manager. There are in all twenty-five speaking parts, and over one hundred and fifrs —_ will be used In the interpretation of the piay. Stetson’s Unele Tom's Cabin companies, four in nomber, under the management of Mr. Leo: Washburn, touring the United States and Can ade. have met with remarkable success this senson. In spite of so many complaining of hard times they have been productive of larger finau celal results to Mr. Washburn than during an) viwer year in bis experience as 4 Mauage: ureat attention Is paid to the mwerlt of peuple employed, and lavish amount of money i» spent in costumes and scenery. The past weer uas been a record breaker, every company dolug a turp-away business. Mr. Washburn has just completed arrangements for one of his cow panies to make uw trip to Alaska ag s00n ag the regular season closes. He ig now in New Yorn attending to business for next season, and will remain there for a few weeks. George Pec, uis general manager, left recently for the Pacific Coast. The Albert Taylor Stock Company is having the most successful season in Mr. Taylor's sla years cureer a8 a Manager. The company has been out for thirty-six weeks this season, baviug opened in Joplin, Mo., June 1 and played ali the summer. ‘There has not been g change made in the company daring that time. It will close the season the last week in April, making a season of forty-nine weeks. It will rest onl) four weeks and then open the new summer theatre in Shreveport, La., on June 1, with Dallas and Denison, Texas, to follow. The entire com pany has beer re-engaged for next season. The roster reads: Albert Taylor, owner and manager; Col. R. B. Marsh, Sam Myers, Leo Daie Ingraham, Oscar V. Nix, Harry Lecompte, Lillian Cullenbine, Atkins Smith, Fred Ellsworth, Mande Champerio, Jack Voss, Verne Phelps, Eleanore Rehle, Arthur Browning, Roy Cullenbine, and Dora Phelps. Maud Elliott who fs a prominent member of the Nat Wills’ Son of Rest Company, ig considering an offer from David Relasco for next season. Miss Elliott is a beautiful young woman and very fond of automobiling—in fact, she carries her machine with her and takes a spin along the road nearly every day. PLAYHOUSES. The Germantown, Ohio, opera house has been closed. The Tuscola (Ill.) Opera House closed Indetinitely Feb, 2. The Iroquois Theatre will be opened under the name of the Northwest. The New Colonial Theatre at Lawrence, Mass. opened with The Toreador. The Main Street Theatre at Peoria, IL, 1s closed for repairs—new stage, etc. The Progressive League, of Orange, Tex., is booming an opera house for that place. The Globe Theatre in Hamilton, Ohio, will probably be put to the uses of a dance hall. Mr. Peter Moore hag resigned as treasurer cf Watson s Cozy Corner Theatre at Brooklyn. Poth the Music Hall and the Lyceum at Milford, Mass., have been closed for the season. Davig Belasco announces that he will build a new theatre in Rochester, N. Y this spring. H. W. Owens is endeavoring to interest sufficient capital to build a theatre at Waynesville, Ohio. The Danville (Ky.) Opera House will be remodeled in the spring and made an up-to-date house. The plaps and specificationg have been comps on the new Auditorium at Asheville, N. C. ihe gallery of the Auditorium at Newark, O., has been opened by permission of the mayor of that city. Parsons. Kan., Lodge of Elks. No. 527, are to build a $45,000 opera house and lodge rooms this . spring. Mr. W. R. Dally has joined his stock company at the opera house, St. John, N. B., Canada, to play leads. The Grand Opera House at Reading, Pa., closed for the season Feb. 15, with the Real Widow Brown. A new asbestos curtain has been Installed fn Brown's Opera House at Waterloo, Ia., by Manager Brown. The opera house at Honesdale, Pa., has been closed by Manager Silverstone owing to the increase in Insurance rates. New scenery and fireproof curtain, besides other necessary repairs have recently been made on the Mattoon (111) Theatre. The Huntington Theatre Company has been incorporated with a capital stock of $35,000 to build a theatre at Huntington, Ind. The Andes Theatre at Fostoria, Ohlfo, may soon be converted Into an office buflding by its owner and manager, C., R. Rosendale. Arthur Frothingham, owner of the Lyceum Theatre at Scranton, Pa., will run a park—The Rocky Glen—at that place this acason. « The Lyric Theatre at St. Joseph, Mo., was closed the first week of this month for repairs and the addition of a new fire escape, As has been the custom of Manager Haynes, of the Casto Theatre, at Lawrence, Masa., bis theatre will close Feb. 27 until after Lent. It is rumored that Carbondale, Pa., will shortly have a new theatre that will be added to the long Hist of Stair and Havlin houses. Local capitalists, with whom, It Is sald, David telasco is associated, are preparing for the erection o. a magnificent theatre at Elmira, N. Y. The new opera house at Canisville, Mo., was opened Feb. 1 by The Steelamiths. The house is under the management of G. R. Wilson & Son. Nearly all of the Philadelphia theatres gave matinees on Lincoln's Birthday for the first time in the history of that city. Business was ood. . Mr. John M. Hathaway, treasurer of Sheedy’s Theatre at New Bedford, Mass., was married recently to Miss Alice S. James, of Lawrence, Mase, The new opera honse to be erected at Coffey ville, Kan., by T. J. Kane, of Anderson, Ind., will cost $75,000, and will be combined with a hotel. The Gotham, a new burlesque theatre, was opened in New York Feb. 8. The owners are Congressman Timothy D. Sullivan and George J. Kraus. Some of the smaller Chicago theatres ate now bard pressed for room for actors and scenery, because of the load of fire apparatus that has been Installed. ‘ Messrs. J. P. Turregano and Willie O’Shee recently resigned as managers of the Rapides