The Billboard 1908-11-21: Vol 20 Iss 47 (1908-11-21)

(ene iS oe xs LONONE ‘in Nagi c. R. McAdams, Jr., the hustling hustler now ahead of Copeland Brothers and their production of The Opium Fiend, relates a comical incident, which fully illustrates the ignorance of some provincial “opery house’’ managers, and, at the same time, goes to show that the man ahead has to be as well acquainted with the subject-matter of his play as he is skilled in throwing paste. It was out in Western Texas, in a small burg, Mac. cares not to mention, as he’s thinking seriously of going back there again next season. The billboards had been thoroughly stripped by a pestiferous cow. The opera house was some distance from the depot, and after arriving, Mac. finally succeeded in locating the protuberant manager downstairs shining a stove. Having exchanged the usual formalities with him, Mac. began to extend his tentacles regarding the business prospects, and-so-forth. “How much do you think I can do here with The Opium Fiend?” he asked. “Have you got a band?” asked the theatre manager, devoting a little more time to the stove than to the showman. “My dear man, haven't you yet realized that a company composed of brass band players can not put on such a production as truly artistic actors and actresses, engaged especially on account of their dramatic talents, and not to get out on the streets and blow horns or beat drums? Why, my company is composed of stars, and of course you Know that the title is one that all producers are fighting for.” The manager responded, with a sort of childish grin and hesitating speech: “I never did understand that opium business... What is it, anyway?” “Well, well, well,”” exclaimed Mac, about as much disgusted as the farmer who declared that there was no such thing as a dromedary, even while he was standing before its cage. ‘Opium is a drug prepared from the juice of the white poppy, extensively grown every year over hundreds of square miles of India and China. Six hundred thousand acres are devoted to its cultivation in Bengal alone. It is not prepared as a medicine, but is expressly grown to be used as a drug for debauchery, causing the wreck and ruin yearly of millions who become its victims. Our play fully illustrates the harrowing results obtained by its use, and shows the delightful effects of the first smoke. It brings out the hidden results in a startling manner.” Just as Mac. was getting into the interesting part of his narrative, the unobserved billposter and son of the manager, who had been investigating the paper and who had got into a bunch of cross-lined stuff which agents usually carry for cases of emergency, struck a piece of paper which had been picked up in one of the cities after the engagement of Robert Edeson in Strongheart. The ‘pictorial’’ showed Edeson in his football makeup. The youngster, who Was anxious to see the show, told his father that she was a “hum-digger.” “Well,” said the manager, make your own terms, and come on.” When Mac. laid out his paper, he found that several shows that had ‘Played there that season had used the same line. He has been wondering where they got it. Henry E. Dixey, who is now starring in The Devil at the Garden Theatre, New York, was talking about the impish precociousness of the messenger boy. “Only yesterday,” said Mr. Dixey, “a young millionaire I know rang up a messenger boy and handed the lad a bouquet of mauve orchids worth $100 or more, “*Take these, boy,’ he said, ‘to Miss Flo Footlites of the Gay Burlesquers Company.’ “Ere parting with the orchids the young millionaire gave them a long, admiring glance. ‘*They’re beauties, aren't they?’ he said to the little boy. ‘Do you think Miss Footlites will be pleased?’ “*Well, boss,’ the lad replied, ‘last night when I took a similar bunch to Flo, I overheard her remark that she'd rather have a bracelet than all the bloomin’ flowers in New York.’ ” During the two weeks ending last Saturday night, twenty-four young women in the New York Hippodrome’s Birdland Ballet have enjoyed a novel experience. With two performances every day and frequent morning rehearsals of new features, the members of the big company never had an opportunity of seeing the show as others see it. The majority of women and men in the Hippodrome production have never been in the front of the house during a pe piemmanee. By instituting the “merit system’ for all girls who were up to the mark in punctuality and good work, St: ige Director Burnside has given the ones meeting these requirements a chance to see the show. Two girls out of the 360 in the ballet were given a performance off each week, and Messrs. Shubert and Anderson paid them just the same. Of thes twentyfour who have seen the show in the past week, eighteen have been employed in the Hippodrome Company ever since the house opened four seasons ago, and their visit to the show was the first performance they had ever seen there as a part of the audience. Dick Jones is a name for the hangers-on-about-stage-doors to conjure with. He is a power against all superfluous smartness that may be contributed by sundry admirers of stage favorites, and most potent of all facts, he stands six feet in his high shoes, and talks in a deep voice. In brief, Dick Jones is the stage manager of the Royal Alexandra Theatre, Toronto, Canada. Moreover, he is the terror of that peculiar brand of man called “The Stage Door Johnny,” the fidgety type of youth who thinks actresses eat honey and drink milk. Now, when Dick Jones (the name sounds as though he was left wing at Varsity or Yale)—w hen Dick Jones demands a certain way of doing things, it means success, so that a few weeks ago, his decree against all gentlemen in waiting without the golden gates of his beloved playhouse. He walked boldly into the manager's Office, and said these words: “Mr. Manager, I am going to rid this theatre and its surroundings of every useless hanger-on, every stage-door Johnny that infests it. I am a big man, able to do the job. Have I your permission t* And the manager answered: “You have.’ So, as time went on, Dick Jones perfected his plans for ridding the great plague from Egypt. And one night when all was still he put on his widest-brimmed and oldest hat, and slowly opened the door. There were seyen young men, immaculately dressed, waiting outside. One glance gave Dick Jones his bearings. He grabbed the nearest boy, shook him as a terrier does a rat, and made for a second. That one he likewise served harshly. A third was placed in the gutter, and all the rest took wildly to their patent leather heels and disappeared round the corner. Dick Jones stood triumphantly in the laneway. he was victor over his long-hated enemy. And so, night after night, with the same persistence, he put on the old brimmed hat, and slipped softly from the door, but no one ever seemed to be in sight. The story of the sudden attack spread all through the city. Young men who intended to buy supper for two fairies with their week's salary indefinitely postponed it on account of rain. Those who had bought suppers with every dollar they earned (except the twenty they put in the Postoffice bank each week) found that Hall Caine’s latest book beside the grate fire was, after all, the only way to spend an evening. This is not the story of a real reform. It merely seeks to tell in an accurate way of Dick Jones, the stage manager of the Royal Alexandra, and how he banished the stage door Johnny from his once undisputed kingdom His first battle was won; It is the custom with the James Adams Vaudeville Show to give band concerts Saturday afternoons before matinee time. They also put on a free attraction, consisting of Archie Fourniss’ high stilt walking. Charles Hunter then expatiates on the merits of the performance. A few weeks ago Hunter wound up his “spiel” by stating that the tall gentleman would dive from the lofty height of a match into a bowl of soup. Immediately after the band stopped playing a very rusty rabe approached the ticket box and asked the ticket seller if that “tall feller was going to dive into the bowl of soup inside the tent or outside.” Upon being informed that the property man had eaten the soup and that the act would have to be postponed, the hayseed, with a very disappointed look, invested in a ticket and went inside. The chronicles of the stage record no more rapid rise to prominence than the case of Ann Murdock, seventeen years of age, who, after twenty-one days’ experience on the stage, was promoted by Henry B. Harris to the position of leading woman with Robert Edeson in The Call of the North, now touring. Miss Murdock made her debut in a small bit in The. Offenders, at the Hudson Theatre, and when Mr. Edeson went on the road in The Call of the North, so impressed was he and his manager by the work of Miss Murdock, that he gave her the responsible position of leading woman, with the understanding that she should play the part for a week, and if her work was satisfactory, the position would be permanent. Mr. Harris returned from Reading, Pa., recently, where he witnessed a performance, and so satisfactory was the work of Miss Murdock that contracts were signed whereby she remains Mr. Edeson’s leading woman for the remainder of the season. Although never having been on the stage before her engagement in The Offenders, Miss Murdock comes from an old theatrical family, her father being John J. Coleman, for many years manager of the American Theatrical Exchange; her mother, Therese Deagle, was one of the first '-ading women ever employed by Charles Frohman, and her grandfather, George Deagle, was, fifty years ago, manager of Deagle’s Varieties in St. Louis, where the late famous celebri Joseph Jefferson, Sol Smith Rvssell, J. K. Emmett, and other ties played.