The Billboard 1908-09-26: Vol 20 Iss 39 (1908-09-26)

16 The Bi llboard SEPTEMBER 26, 1908. W. H. DONALDSON, Managing Editor. PUBLISHED WEEKLY AT 416 Elm Street, Cincinnati, Ohio, U. S. A. Leng Distance Telephone, Main 2769, NEW YORK. Suite D, Holland Builcing, 1440 Broadway. Telephone, Central 1630 Bryant. CHICAGO. 907-909 Schiller Building, 103-109 Randolph St. Tclephone Central 5934. Cable Address (registered) “Billyboy.” SAN FRANCISCO, CAL. Room 2. 1439 Fillmore Street. LONDON, ENGLAND 8 Rupert Court, Leicester Square, W. MELBOURNE, AUSTRALIA. Caledonian Building, office 264, Postoffice Place. Address all communica ions for the editorial or business departments to The Billboard Publishing Company. Subscription, $4 a year; 6 months, $2; 3 months, $1. Payable in advance. No extra charge to foreign subscribers. ADVERTISING RATES—Twenty cents per line, agate measurement. Whole page, $140; half page. $70; qua:ter-page $35. THE BILLBOARD is for sale on all trains and news-stands throughout the United States and Canada, which are supplied by the American News Co. and its branches. this office. When not on sale, please pots ; THE BILLBOARD is sold in London at our office, 8 Rupert Court; American Exchange, Pall Mall ~~ Carlton street; Norman’s American Ticket Agency, Haymarket. tano’s, Ave. de |l’Opera. Remittances should be made by dressed or made payable to The Bill copy. In Paris at Bren The trade supplied by the American News Co. and its brarches. post-office or express money order, or registered letter adboard Publishing Company. The editor can not undertake to return unsolicited manuscript; correspondents should keep When it is necessary to wire us instructions and copy for advertisements, great saving in the matter of telegraph tolls may be had by recourse to t e Donaldson Cipher Code. Entered as Second-Class Matter at Post-Office, Cincinnati, Ohio. ce EXPIRATION OF EACH SUBSCRIPTION is indicated on the printed wrapper. THE renew promptly, to avoid missing any issues. ALL COMPLAINTS of non-receipt direet to the publication office, 416 rh attention—and not to any branch give old as well as new address, Kindly of The Billboard or changes of address should be made m Street, Cincinnati, Ohio, where the office or agent. will receive — When notifying us of changes of dress, SATURDAY, SEPTXMBER 26, 1908. NOTICE TO ADVERTISERS.—The Billboard’s advertising patrons will ¢reatly oblige sending in the co last moment. for their advertisements as early as convenie~t, instead of waitirg till A All ads received early in the week will receive preference in pcsition and display. Producing managers who have spoken without prejudice generally pre dict an unusually successful season. In the first place, the country will not be over run with cheap shows, during the early part of the season, at least. The Consensus perity. Of Opinion. If the shows without merit enter the field at all it will be after the election when things have got into the full swing of pros The attractions now on the road are the most substantial ones and it is believed that there will be fewer of the cheap ones even at the height of the season than there have been before in years. Things may seem a little dull just now, in almost every section of the country are opening up to their full capacity. CINCINNATI, O. Another week of splendid business is to the credit of the local houses. With several of the late successes offered at the different theatres, each possessing merits of more than common interest, the crowds have patronized liberally. Not only tbe straight dramatic productions have come in for public attention. but the moving picture houses have been doing much better than formerly. Paid In Full, at the Grand, made a big showing, and the cast was adequate to the lines and situations. This week, Honeymoon Trail, the first musical comedy production of the season, at this house is seen. Much is expected from the attraction, and the opening, the 21st, saw big crowds and a show, brilliant, as a picture, and charming as a vehicle of song and good comedy. The story of the play is not only interesting and amusing one, but is one which is very seldom seen in a musical play, a consistent one, and there is reason for every bit of action per formed. The scenes are laid in California, at a sanitarium, known as Sleepy Hollow Rest Cure, a retreat for business men seeking rest from the toils and worries of their business. Adjoining this sanitarium is a hotel called Liberty Hall, inhabited by a divorce colony. The action of the play begins on the appearance at the Rest Cure of a traveling salesman for a bean concern. This salesman is a great hustler and is always working out new schemes to advertises his wares, and while his employers have sent him to the sanitarium for rest, his brain refuses to remain inactive and his hobby of always attracting the attention of the public to his ‘“‘beans’’ causes some very funny situations in both the Rest Cure establishment and the hotel. Before he gets throngh he has the inmates of both places literally standing on their heads, not knowing. or caring much, what they are there for. The play ends with the wedding of the salesman to the daughter of a rival concern of his employers, and the taking of him as a partner in the concern. The cast includes Dorothy Brenner, Alma Youlin. Olive Vail, Bessilee Merrill, Leona Remington, Gertrude Lennox, Harry Stone, Bert Baker, Fred Rogers, Alvin Laughlin, Lawson, William Bechtel, Nell Doveney. The big chorus of fifty boys and girls is considered to be one of the most perfect singing and dancing combinations ever gotten together, while the famous La Salle ‘Broilers’? make a big hit by their wonderful Aancing. There Lew Jack Saunders and are over twenty musical numbers in but they will brighten up. The crops are the best in years and industries the show, the majority of which send the andience home humming and whistling. The Witching Hour closed a very successful week at the Lyric last week, and, this week, The Wolf, with William Courtnay and Frances Ring, Walter Hale, Thomas Findlay, Sheridan Block and William Rosell, begins a_ recordbreaking business. Inherently the play is so appealing to the critical theatregoer that public interest is not hard to hold. Next week, William Faversham will present The World and His Wife. Murray and Mack closed a winning season at the Walnut, last week. Johnny Ray, always welcome, is exciting the risibilities of his old friends and others, by the portrayal of his inimitable King Casey. There is no question about the drawing power of Johnny Ray, and a big week will be to his credit. At the Lyceum, this week, is The Lost Trail. The show is drawing well, the cast is strong and is well sustained in all its parts, while the talking horse, Hadji, introduced, is a real feature. A great big production of 1908, at the People’s, personations include about all the prominent people in stage life, and make a great hit. The show is a live one and is doing a splendid business. Heuck’s this week is held by The Montana Limited, a new kind of Western railroad play. It is full of startling and sensational scenic situations and is a thriller of the first-class. Business is excellent. At the Standard, Fred Irwin has his Majestics, a large company, fully up-to-date, including a sensational Salome dance. The Standard is doing great business, at this home of burlesque. The Olympic, with its Forepaugh Stock Company last week, produced His House in Order, to fine business, and the offering this week is Margaret Anglin’s powerful drama of human emotions, Zira. The play, in the hands of the Forepaugh Stock Company, is receiving an artistic rendition and the scenic adornment is adequate. A good bill is presented by the Columbia, this week. Among those on the program are: Gus Edwards’ School Boys and Girls; Juggling Normans; Edwin Rood and Company; WardKlare Company; Rooney’ Sisters; Bootblack Quartet; Braselly Sisters, and some excellent moving pictures. The new Robinson is The Frivolities this week. The im is making a magnificent showing, artistically and financially. There is no gainsaying the fact that the management is giving one of the best shows ever given at low prices. Last week the program was exceptionally good. There is a change of program every Thursday and Saturday. Miss Agnes * | Anger a beautiful woman, by the way, gave | twelve curtain calls. Strongheart will be prosome excellent songs, wearing a directoire | duced by the Woodward Stock Company, the gown, the past week, and the moving pictures | week of September 20. were of the best. Miss Angel remains for the The Cowboy Girls, as presented by the comcoming week, and others on the program are: | pany at the Gillis Theatre, week of September The Two Moras, in new illustrated songs; | 13, Is a musical melodrama of unusual merit, Billy Raymond, black-face comedian; Edwin | full of melodious music, new and catchy songs, Burlege, character artist. The picture selec| plenty of comedy, and a capable company and tions are timely and beautifully projected. | chorus. Sue Marshall has the title role, and Little Miss Eva Prout, Cecelia Loftus in minia| such excellence as hers, in singing, dancing and ture, will be a headliner in the bill. acting is seldom found in combination. The At the Auditorium, Crawford’s moving and | Cowboy Girl is a favorite here, and the two talking pictures, masterpieces, are drawing good | immense Sunday audiences approved most audiences. warmly, by enthusiastic . applause. Capacity will be the rule during this engagement. The old standby, Panhandle Pete, will be the atLACKAYE OPENS IN THE BATTLE. F The Battle, a play by Cleveland Moffet, with Wilton Lackaye as the star, was given its initial performance at the Lyceum Theatre, Duluth, Minn., Friday evening, September 18, aml too the audience by storm. Had the Lyceum patrons, when they gave Mr. Lackaye, Mr. E. M. Holland and others curtain calls in numbers, realized that the author was an tInterested spectator of the first presentation of his play, there would have been insistent calls for him. The play is elemental, dealing with the battle between capital and labor, complicated not only by a love story, but by ‘‘the eall of blood’’—the love of money making a king of frenzied finance, and a boy who was taken away by his mother upon her discovery of her husband's criminal business procedures. The child was taken away at the age of four, and is brought across his father’s path when twenty-six years old, by a man who had befriended the mother, long since dead, and loved the child. The boy was brought up in accordance with his mother’s wishes to fight the battle of poverty—against riches. Neither the man who has brought him up, nor himself, nor the sweet-faced trained nurse with whom he is in love, can point the way. The father, a hard-headed man of business, finally convinces them that he, too, wants to help, and inquires the way. All three are nonplussed, and simul taneously put the proposition up to him to solve. “This is my idea.’’ he says, and approaches the table with a roll of blue-prints. They all bend over the plans—and curtain. The play is over, and the interest hasn't flagged a moment, being tense at the end. Wilton Lackave, powerfully built, gives a fine interpreta tion of John T. Hagleton; E. M. Holland presents a living personality in Gentle; H. ° Warner as Philip Ames is natural and effec tive: Julia Dean, as the nurse, appeals in her part. The rest of the cast are excellent. JAMES V. ALLEN. KANSAS CITY, MO. James O’Neil opened a week’s engagement, at the Willis Wood Theatre, Sunday, Septem ber 13, in his new play, Abbe Bonaparte. A novelty of the engagement is that there is to no presentation by Mr. O’Neil, of Monte Cristo, however, Mr. O’Neil pleased the large audiences, in his character of the Abbe. This characterization is an unusual one for Mr. O'Neil, and served to show his wonderful versatility to advantage. He is assisted by a capable company and, as a whole, the play is well worth while. Brewster’s Millions comes to the Willis-Wood, the week of September 20, and the next attraction, the week of September 27, will be The Follies of 1907. The Shubert Theatre will present, weeks, to Kansas City theatregoers, Fitch comedy, Girls. The story is too well known to need any outline here, but on the first presentation of the two weeks, Sunday, September 13, it seemed to take the fancy of a large and enthusiastic house, and will doubtless fill the theatre during the two weeks’ engagement. The three girls are effectively done by Miss Bessie Toner, Miss Ethel Grey Terry and Miss Suzette Jackson. The next attraction, at the Shubert, will be The Road to Yesterday, the week of September 27. The house. this year, is pleasing the public by its liberal policy. The Orpheum offers another good bill of vaudeville the second week of the new season and, for two the Clyde from the large attendance at every matinee and capacity night houses, vaudeville is holding its sway over all Kansas City. The Or pheum at all times presents the best and most attractive acts in vandeville. The Millman Trio have the first place on this week's bill, and have an unusually good wire act. They are marvelous. Gracie Emmett and Company, in the playlet, Mrs. Murphy’s Second Husband, are new to Orpheum patrons, but are eucceeding in pleasing every one. Frank Oakley, Slivers, of Barnum and Balley fame, is amusing all baseball fans and others in his clever pantomime, The Baseball Game; Bert Earl plays everything musical, on his banjo: Chas. Wayne and Company appear in a comedietta, 10 A. M.; Amy Stanley, an English soubrette, and her four singing and dancing pickaninnies, have a swinging act that took well with the audiences, getting many encores; Hallen and Hayes are eccentric comedians and dancers of ability. Next week’s bill, at the Orpheum, includes such well-known artists as Gus Edwards’ Blonde Typewriters, with Arthur Conrad: Favor Sin Claire and Company, in Hogan's Flat: Bookers, Walters and Crooker, The Three Rubes, and La Petite Mignon, dainty little comedian. Harry Webb sings and talks: Baader Levelle, bicyclist, and Cogan and Bancroft, in Fun on Roller Skates, are also on the bill, and, of course, the Kinodrome will present new, Inter esting pictures. The Grand patrons are much pleased with the offering, this week, of George Cohan’s rural musical play, Fifty Miles From Boston. This sort of show is just to their taste, as was evidenced by the way they were packed in at the opening, Sunday, September 13, and from the long line that are desirous of seeing the production at each and every performance, including the matinees. The characters are all well played. Chauncey Olcott, the Kansas City favorite, will be seen here, the week of Septem ber 20, at the Grand Theatre. in his new play, Ragged Robin. Doubtless his many admirers won't be all able to see Chauncey, on account of the already enormous demand for seats. Mr. Jason E. Ratekin, the treasurer who has been so long and efficiently at the Grand, Is as courteous and obliging as ever, in the box-office. The Woodward Stock Company Is offering to the public an unusually strong production, this week, at the Auditorium Theatre, in The Lightning Conductor. The company is seen to good advantage in this play and standing room only was out at the first performance, and will doubtless face all the Auditorium patrons at every performance. At the end of the third act the andience signified its approval in traction 20 at the Gillis, the week of September Mr. Thos. Hodgeman is proving popular in the management of the Majestic Theatre, and much liked by Kansas Citylans. He came here to take the management of this theatre, from New York City, where he was with Liebler and Company. The Hastings *Show, week of 13, at the Majestic, is proving a sure winner, with good vaudeville between the two burlesques. Harry Hastings, Tom Coyne and Viola Sheldon are features of the two burlesques. The Century Theatre offers the week of September 13, The Champagne Girls, clever bur lesque and good olio. The author, manager and leading actor, Mr. Chas. Nichols, is the important part of the show, and makes good. The Century Theatre is doing wonderful business, capacity being the general rule. Mr. Chas. E, MeCrae, the capable manager of The Pantheon Rink, is making a winner of this rink. It has been enlarged during the summer months, and is in all ways much improved. Mr. B. Tunnison has been engaged as floor manager, and will give exhibitions of fancy skating, during the winter. The Coliseum Rink, the big South Side rink, opened to good business, Saturday, September 12. The rink has been resurfaced dnring the summer, the skates overhauled, and new ones put in, and the management is able to take care of a big crowd of roller skaters. Atterbery’s famous ten-plece band will give the necessury music, at both afternoon and evening sessions. Mr. W. A. La Duque will be assistant manager. He has recently come here, from New York, and will give fancy skating exhibitions during the season. The Chronephone, the new moving picture Theatre in Kansas City, is a novelty, in as much as to the moving pictures there is added sing ing. The Chronophone is making good, here. The bills are changed twice a week. Electric Park closed its season Sunday, Sep tember 13, with an immense throng in attendance to bid the park au revoir until next year. Electric Park has done much for the amusement lovers of Kansas City, and ts a handsome, large, attractive outdoor amusement park. There are many bnew amusement devices, and all the latest rides, ete., to cater to the public. The Banda Rossa, under the leadership of Senor Sorrentino, played the farewell concerts, and had to respond to many encores. Forest Park is the only amusement park left open now, and its season will probably continue until October, as the public still seems to want to go to the park. There is a good roller rink at Forest, and the dancing pavilion claims many devotees. Manager Anderson has done all in his power to make Forest a success, this year, and to please the people. That he has succeeded is evidenced by the park’s remaining open at this time of the year. GANS-NELSON FIGHT PICTURES. The long promised Gans-Nelson fight pictures made their appearance in Chicago this week. They are being handled by the Chicago Film Exchange. The new production covers four reels and includes scenes in the training quarters, the preliminaries and 21 rounds of the big contest. The pictures are a complete suecess and a triumph in the moving picture art. They are being shown this week at Hammerstein's) New York; the Trocadero and Schindler’s Theatre, Chicago, also in ‘Frisco. State rights have been sold for Mentana, Ore‘on, Washington, California aml Massachusetts. a films promise to have an unusually success ul run. MARRIAGES. PARTRIDGE-McELRANY.—Mr. Charles A. McElrany and Miss Emma Partridge were quietly married on September 8, at the parsonage of the Idlewild Presbyterian Church, Memphis, Tenn. The bride is a well-known vaudeville actress and resides in Milwuakee. Mr. Me Elrany is a native of Pittsburg, Pa., and is the originator of the figure eight device and well known in the amusement world. PALMER-DEACON.—Mr. James Deacon, the popular treasurer of the Alvin Theatre, Pittsburg, Pa., and Miss Nela Palmer, of the Wine, Woman and Song Company, were united in mar riage at Dayton, O0., September 16. Mr. R. M. Gulick, manager of the Alvin and Bijou Theatres in Pittsburg, acted as best man, while Miss Palmer's attendant was one of the members of her company. McDHU-BARNETT.--Mr. Chas. Barnett and Miss Mona MecDhu, both of the Campbell Brothers’ Shows, were united in marriage at Be loit, Kan., August 21. BIRTHS. Born to Mr. and Mrs. J. A. Anslinger, a seven-pound boy, September 11, at Cincinnati, 0. Mr. Ansiinger is the manager of the Cincinnati Novelty Company. DEATHS. CECIL NEWSCHIAM, the assistant treasurer of Poll’s theatre, at Harford, Conn., dled suddenly of heart failure, September 12. Mr. Newcham, who was of English parentage, was very popular and his untimely death will be a dis tinct loss to his many friends. WILLIAM GARDNER, better known as “Fatty,”’ died September 10 at the Harrisburg (Pa.) Hospital Hie was formerly connected with various large circuses as a billposter and was well liked for his sunny disposition. He retired several years ago from circus Hfe and engaged in the produce business, Hie was forty-six years of age and is survived by a wife and many relatives The Marlo Trio is now playing @ long list of bookings for the Western Vaudeville Managers’ Association.