The Billboard 1905-04-29: Vol 17 Iss 17 (1905-04-29)

The Billboard il PRO AND CON Bouquets and Choice Knocks for Western Vaudeville Managers The follownig letters regarding the alleged mistreatment of vaudevillians who have sought engagements on the western circuits have been received by The Billboard, and are published for the benefit of managers and performers who are deeply interested in the condition of the vaudeville circuits in the western section of this country: Alpena, Mich., April 12, 1905. Editor The Billboard, Dear Sir—Many articles on the condition of vaudeville on the coast have come to our notice and we feel that we are doing the managers an injustice by not giving them credit for their kind treatment toward us during our thirty weeks out there. We logt one week, making a jump from Frisco to Portland, Ore. Previous to that our work was continuous. There are a great many performers out west who could not make good because they did not have the proper material; but when the managers get hold of people who can give them a clean act they keep them working. Another reason so many are stoo@ up is that after the originator of an act plays a house some one steals it and tries to put it on. Of course they don’t make good, hence a quick eancellation. We played the Three-L Circuit and for John Considine, Sullivan, E. R. Lang and Dick P. Sutton’s, and when we got into Chicago in February we found more performers doing nothing and getting turned down than there are on the coast. It is just as other performers, whose letters you have published, have said: Managers do not want to be handed the junk, neither do the patrons, and to avoid this and to protect their reputations and get a clean, refined family audience they drop the bad act. We play a return date as soon as our contracts in the east expire and we know that the managers will give us a hearty welcome as they are in need of performers who work for their interests; and as they have been so misrepresented they find it hard to secure good talent. Thanking you for the publication of this letter, we remain, Very truly, RAWLS and VON KAUFMAN. Fort Worth, Tex., April 4, 1905. Editor The Billboard, Dear Sir—Referring to your stand in regard to performers’ letters and also the Lubelski and Archie Levy letters, I would like you to give my letter space in your valuable paper. I am a performer, have been on the coast and know considerable as to the deal any of them will give a performer. It is true that they will book and promise you twenty weeks, the better your work the bigger the promise, but when you arrive they will try to cut you on time and tell you the house at Fresno or San Jose, or some other place, could use you at about 30 per cent. less. So you lose the time or have to work for the same as they pay. I mean out of town houses. All men and women born in California join a society known as the Native Sons. All Native Sons, with very few exceptions, never have a chance to leave the coast. Just as soon as an eastern performer comes out there every one of them is ready to steal every gag, gesture or anything original. They will even copy costume and make-up. So the agents say to the Native Son performer: “‘If you can put on that act I will book you.’’ The price is generally $15, not to exceed $20, per week and Mr. Native Son gets the work or Mr Eastern Actor can go to work on less or lay off. Now, on the other hand, why a ‘‘make good’’ and “deliver the goods’’ act loses time is because these ten-cent houses, all of them except the Chutes Park, Lyceum, Orpheum, Weston’s and Tony Lubelski’s Oakland house, never have had a show composed of entirely eastern performers. They have one team or two singles, and the balance are Native Sons, and I will bet $100 in cash that there are in San Francisco 2, males and females, Native Sons, who have the footlight fever and go daily to the agencies. It is a good thing for the agent because the Pacific Coast Actors’ Union and the agent are about a unit, and all of these Native Sons belong to the Union. Really, it is embarrassing for a performer to call at a San Francisco agency. Reminds one of going to visit the sights at the Salvation Army soup house. It is the truth; a fact that you can see fond mothers with aspiring daughters, young men and women all over the sidewalk for one block each way and each of them wearing a big button signifying membership in the P. C. A. I also want you to make known the fact that the ten-cent house predominates, not only in the small towns, but right in San Francisco; it is ten cents admission now. As I started to tell you, the real reason is when a performer once cuts his or her salary rather than lose time it is all off. That is where the real trouble begins. You not only are compelled to work for the cut, but you are placed to suit the menager or agents. Not one of them could guarantee and give you twenty weeks and the salary they promise before you start. They dare not make a deposit in cash to guarantee the work; don’t make any difference who they are, except the Orpheum. When you go to the Orpheum you know what you are going to do, when to do it, and that you will get what is promised. I played all the houses that paid me what the contract called for, but lost four weeks on my second trip to California with Shore Acres. I was so surprised to see the sight and especially in front of Archie Levy’s Theatrical Agency. It put me in mind of a lot of people waiting for a chance to look through the Cincinnati Enquirer want ads. I had but very little to do with the agents on the coast. They all promised and were Me anxious to have me list with them, but I vooked myself, not to save the percentage, but I knew where I was “‘at.’’ I would advise performers not to go to Calffornia, Washington, Utah or Colorado, unless you have a round trip ticket, as those ten-cent houses can’t stand acts that exceed $20 for singles and $30 to $35 for teams. A $75 or $150 salary is out of the question. Now, if you want to find out more or doubt me, ask the San Francisco Ex aminer. They had it wrote up once as to San Francisco being overrun with actors without places to eat or sleep. Yours respectfully, VIOLA WRAY, of The Three Wrays. Billings, Mont., A 4 5 Editor The Billboard, a Dear Sir—We have read the articles in your very valuable paper in regard to the manner in which performers are treated in the west. We will say in justice to the good old west and the managers and agents out here that we have never received better treatment anywhere than we have here. We left the east seven years ago; have never lost time through lack of work. The only time lost was through sickness or in making jumps. That speaks for itself. Seven years of good work. In that time we have played for Mose Goldsmith, Tony Lubelski, 8. Morton Cohn, Henry Lubelski, Edwin R. Lang, D. J. Grauman, E. M. Carlson, Archie Levy and Ed. Shields, besides many others. It stands to reason that if we had not been treated right out here we would have immediately returned east where we have a good reputation, having played in the leading houses for many years. We have played for Hyde & Behman, Proctor, Poli, Keith and Pastor. With best wishes for the best’ show paper printed, we remain, Respectfully, STANLEY and SCANLON, Novelty Musical Artists. Harailton, Ont., April 11, 1905. Editor The Billboard, 2 om Dear Sir—I neglected to mention in my complaint about the northwestern managers. The bookings of Mose Goldsmith and Ed. Lang are good; but the Three-L’s—look out for them. You can see good people get it on the Three-L Circuit. I can send you names if necessary of a dozen good people that received unprofessional treatment from them. Yours, DeKOTA. HARGREAVES SUFFER BLOW DOWN While preparing to give a dress rehearsal Friday evening, April 21, at Chester Pa., preparatory to the opening of the season Saturday, 22, the tents of the Hargreaves Show Were swept down and the main top torn to ribbons by one of the fiercest storms of wind and rain that ever visited that section of the country. The show had been wintering at Chester and everything was in fine condition for the opening. The damage will amount to several thousand dollars. Luckily the animal tent, only a few feet from the main tent, was only slightly damaged. Several animals escaped, however, but were recaptured without injury. The storm lasted but three minutes, and as soon as the wind had subsided, Manager Hargreaves and the entire force were busy at work righting things and ascertaining the extent of damage. The main poles were broken as if they were matches. These were hastily sup plied and new canvas was secured enabling the show to open on time, Saturday. The catastrophe will in no manner interfere with the route of the show. Manager Hargreaves has restored everything with lightning speed, and with the true spirit and pluck of the showman has demonstrated that disaster to him does not signify failure. PINE BEACH, NORFOLK, VA. Pine Beach, “The Queen of Resorts,’’ situated on the south shore of Hampton Roads, where the Elizabeth and James river meet to cast their waters into Cheasapeake Bay, is known the world over. The most interesting spot on Hampton Roads is Sewall’s Point, the location of Pine Beach, Here is located Pine Beach Hotel, the first seaside hotel in this section and the scene of many brilliant social events. Sewall’s Point hed its share of the stirring times of the Civil War. Here the Confederates constructed lines of fortifications and planted batteries for the defense of Norfolk and the Navy Yard at Portsmouth. Some of these fortifications still remain, overgrown with pine trees twelve inches in diameter. From Sewall’s Point hundreds of residents of Norfolk and vicinity witnessed the fight between the Merrimac and Monitor, a point three miles off shore. Pine Beach is surrounded on three sides by water, consequently the only land breeze at Pine Beach comes from the east, as the prevailing winds in summer are from the South. Pine Beach obtains full benefit as they sweep down the Elizabeth river. Across Hampton roads stands famous Fortress Monroe, where Old Point Comfort, Soldiers’ Home, Hampton and Newport News are in plain view, presenting a panorama unequalled anywhere. To the natural advantages of the place the owners by a lavish use of money and labor, have done much to add to the beauty and attractiveness of Pine Beach. Here is to be seen the largest and most complete pleasure pavilion on the Atlantic coast, if not the largest, In this country, being two storles, and covering two acres of ground. It contains two hundred modern appointed bathrooms, a beautiful casino that will seat 2,500 people, restaurant, refreshment stand and cafe. The ballroom is probably the most notable feature of the pavilion, being on the second floor and protected from the weather, yet so arranged as to get the benefit of the breeze from whatever quarter it blows, which renders dancing a pleasure on the hottest evening. The floor is 50x125, and ts kept in the best condition. An orchestra in keeping with the grandear of the place furnishes music for dancing. Among other features are a figure eight, scenic waterway, and one of the finest merrygo-rounds south of Dreamland. A circle swing will be in operation by opening day. June 1. The broad lawns are being improved and the lighting effects, produced by means of thousands of electric {luminants, will be much admired by the thousands of people the management has reason to believe will visit the resort this season. The Pine Beach Hotel, an important auxilliary, has just been completed at a cost of $250,000. Pine Beach ts reached from Norfolk and makes the run of nine miles in twenty minutes. It can also be made by water, the trip aff a most delightful ride dewn the harbor. Newport News, Hampton, Phoebus and Old Pont Comfort are connected by boat line. Everygoes to Pine Beach, which this summer will be operated on a more magnificent scale than ever. It is recognized as one of the finest pleasure resorts in the country, and the management can not be praised too highly for the success they have attained in endeavoring to give to the public an up-to-date resort. Pine Beach is the site of the Jamestown Exposition to be held in 1907. LONDON LETTER London Office of The Billboard, 23 Oxedon st., S. W. April 8, 1905. Lent is fast losing its terrors for show folk the world over. Only one of Lon don's hundred theatres closed during Holy Week—His Majesty’s—and this is due perhaps more to Mr. Tree’s predilection for the traditional than to any pious or financial consideration. Easter was a period of unusual activity this year and ‘‘habitual’’ first-nighters will be kept on the jump if they would not miss any of the many openings. The topic of the week among vaudevillians has been the tardy action of the committee of the Music Hall Artists Railway Association in calling an extraordinary general meeting to elect a treasurer in the place of Mr. Douglas White, who resigned some time since. The meeting will now take place at the Trocadero on Thursday, April 13, at 1 o'clock, with Mr. Joe O’Gorman in the chair. Some interesting developments may he expected. The present contention originated a very long time ago in a difference of opinion between committee members, and eventually resulted in a faction. Several committee members resigned and later the treasurer, who had held that office since the Association started. According to rule 5 this resignation required the convening of a general meeting to elect another treasurer. Instead, however, it is claimed that the committee elected, at one of their weekly meetings, a treasurer pro tem. who was to hold the office until the next general meeting in October. The opposition gained adherents and a lively agitation has been kept up until the committee called an extraordinary general meeting. A lively ‘‘gathering of the clans’’ is to be anticipated. If the committee have their way a ney treasurer will be elected and that will be ali, then the members of the committee will remain in office until the next regular general meeting in October decide by their votes, whether or not they approve of the committee’s recent actions. If Mr. Harry Mountford, the leader of the opposition, has his way, a vote of censure will be proposed which, if won, will mean the resignation of the committee, another general meeting and a new committee. Nearly all vaudevillians who play England are members of the M. H. R. A. and enjoy the assoelation benefits: twenty-five ger cent. reductien on railway fares, accident, salary and property insurance, and free legal and medical advice. This is rather an accowplishment for a body of variety-performers. ut the best yet. And it seems a pity that the organization should now be threatened with a serious setback. Every member of the M. H. A. R. A. has the right to vote at these elections, no matter where they may happen to be at the time the election takes place, and it is decidedly the duty of every artist to write for a voting blank at each election and utilize . his vote, to the best of his judgment, in the interest of the association. Turns which bring into play a number of auxilliaries have been numerous of late, but not always successful. One that Is an exception to the rule and shows a tendency of the times is Miss Kitty Rayburn’s Raggedty Tag Brigade at the Pavilion. The Brigade consists of half a dozen boys dressed as boys do dress when playing soldier. They sing and march in time to the rollicking song which is the title of the act. The Lyceum showed great enterprise on Friday evening by presenting on the biograph screen the race for the Grand National just six hours after the event in Liverpool. This smart piece of work was made possible by special railway facilities, the films being developed during the journey from Liverpool and delivered all ready to go into the machine at Marylebone station before 9 o'clock. Mile. Genee, the Empire ballerina, sides with Mlle. Eva Sarcy of Paris in her action against the M. M. Isela Freres as to whether or not the ‘“‘tutu’’ is necessary to a ballet dancers performance. What is the use of the ballerina’s art if her legs are wrapped up in long skirts? they both ask. During her engageement with the Isola Freres at the Gatety. Mile. Sarey was asked to appear in flowing robes. She refused and walked—that sounds like a strike in an tron-foundry, doesn’t it? The consequent action at law between her and her former managers came up on Saturday in the civil courts. Houdini is back from Paris and commenced a tour of ten weeks with his own company at Sheffield on Monday. At the end of which time he goes to America under a contract with Percy Williams. The Sisters Devona will sail for South America on the 13th inst. and thence direct to New York where they open their tour of the states in September. Keno, Welch and Montrose, at present at the London Coliseum, were secured for the Berlin Wintergarten by Director Steiner during his recent visit to England. They were contracted to open in Berlin at the commencement of last season, but were prevented from filling the engagement by the illness of one of the company. Harry Van Tilzer cf the well known New York music publishing house recently arrived in England and will establish a branch office here. It is believed that a site has been chosen near the Gaiety Theatre. Portsmouth by the double track trolley line of the Norfolk and Atlantic Terminal Co., which , Miss Anna Wilson, the American soprano, made her London debut at the Alhambra on Monday last and scored favorably. Radford & Valentine are enjoying the sunny clime of the French Riviera and at the Nice Casino, “appearing before several Dukes, Earls and Lords at every show.” King Edward honored the London Coliseum with his presence for the first time on Wednesday evening at the 9 o’clock performance, and seemed to enjoy the performance very much. Four of the seven vaudeville acts, who will now likely add the royal coat-of-arms to their letter heads, are Keno, Welch and Montrose, Barton and Ashley, Terry and Lambert and The Marlo-Dunham Trio. American showmen visiting England all admit that this country is the making of a great show country. Then they move on to the continent, where good show conditions are already developed, for though claim-jumpers are pleutiful, pioneers, men who will lose and work to win, are all too few. There isn’t a street railway park in England, not a fair using at tractions and even the old galas—across between the old market and the modern Street Carnival—are a century behind the times. Just now we have an attraction here that would | be the making of any outdoor show—and not a showman in the country enterprising enough to take a chance with it—namely Schreyer, the nervy cyclist and diver. So he too is moving on to the continent where conditions are better. The Sanger Show, the largest traveling show in the United Kingdom, has opened its fifty-seeond season and is en route to Seotland. The show travels by wagon and consists of seventy vans and two hundred horses. The following list at present at the Stourbridge Market, will give American showmen an idea of the class of attractions to be found over here: Messrs. P. Collins’, Ltd., gondolas, cockerels and cinematograph show; Mr.Jarvis’ steam swings, Mr. Caddick’s high flyers, Mr. Sam Dobson's juvenile ponies and swing boats, Mr. Ford’s fountain balls and gallowery, Mr. Tom Dobson's shooting saloon, Mr. W. Dobson’s fountain ball saloon, Mr. Stoke’s Emma, ring board and shooter, Mr. S. Robin's ring board and pipe shooter, Mr. Cooper’s ring board and Bmma, Mr. Mullett’s Emma and air gun shooter. On the continent there are a few good summer parks and some fair carnivals, but they would all benefit by a touch of ‘‘hustle.’"’ There are several good circuses—fortunately for such attractions as ‘‘the loop,’’ ete. Circus Beketow will consist of three companies this summer. At Copenhagen they will not use the cireus building (which has been contracted for by Circus Madigan), but will appear on the lot of the Tivoli establishment. Cireus Alexander Ciniselli will open at Budapest on April 28. The new circus built by Manager Albert Schumann in Frankfurt, will be finished this autumn. Circus Sesar Sidoli proceeds from Bukarest to Braila. The circus building at the latter place is a lumber affair with a capacity of 2,500. Circus Gatti and Manetti dissolved partnership on the 8th of March. Each of the two directors now has a cireus of his own. C. Manetti fs in Italy, and Cireus Gatti is touring Egypt. The Dutch Cireus Durandsen opens on the Ist of April at the Nouveau Cirque, Gand (Belgium), for one month, Norton B. Smith, the famous horse trainer, {% with the Cireus Busch in Germany. This is Smith’s third season with this show. Captain Williams, an American liontamer, had a narrow escape from being killed by a lioness named Vixen in a menagerie at Peterborough on the 24 of March. He had entered the cage and conducted the performance without mishap and was about to leave when the animal made a spring at him and fastened her jaws upon his shoulder. The audience was terrified, but attendants, by means of red-hot bars, drove the animal to the other end of her cage and released Williams, who is suffering from a badly lacerated shoulder. Last Witsuntide Vixen, it is said, killed Ratcliff, her trainer, at New Brighton. Barrie has scored again. The title of his latest effort, produced at the Duke of York Theatre recently, Alice Sit By The Fire, caused much speculation before the plece was produced, but strange as it may seem the title has an intimate connection with the theme of the play. And ‘‘Alice,’’ who sits by the fire, is Ellen Terry. Alice Grey, fair and forty, has been the belle of every station in which Ooi. Grey has held command. Returning to England she finds it difficult to pick up the threads of her home life with her two, now grown-up children, Both children are prey to that up-to-dateness which Barrie delights in poking fun at. The mother wants to love her children, to chaperon them, but finds that, after forty, mothers are old women to their children. And so the belle of Simla has to learn to be Alice Sit-By-TheFire. Imegine what a part for Ellen Terry. Alice Grey has had many an innocent flirtation with young boys in India, Stephen Rolle among them. He runs to see the Greys on their return to England. The daughter jumps to the conclusion that she has unearthed the conventional intrigue, such as she has seen in modern plays. How to save her mother from the just wrath of Col. Grey is answered by her declaration that she is engaged to Rollo. Alice tumbles to the misconception and uses the incident as a trump eard to regain the lost affection of her children. And then, when all is explained, the daughter really engaged to Rolle, Alice discovers the appointed destiny of her life. Spring is gone, youth, a docile acceptance at the children’s hands of whatever form of homage their affection may suggest to them. And Alice, having regained her children’s love, sits by the fire. A lovable fantasy, very whimsical. very tenderhearted and full of mirth and laughter. Close on to a thousand people went to the Duke of York on Wednesday evening. perhaps many who Mr. Barrie had not yet convinced, but it may safely be said—they are all Barrie ites now. c. C. BARTRAM, The Neimy Amusement Co., with headquar ters in Chicago, have spared neither pains nor expense the past winter in preparing for the summer tour which opens next month. yeneral Manager K. E. Neimy informs us that a number of strikingly new and novel features will be incorporated in his carnival company, and that the route for the season is well booked up, there being but few open dates at the present writing. Pilbeam Brothers write that they have been disappointed on a contract they have had two months for a Ferris wheel. They are advertis ing for this attraction in this issue.