The Billboard 1915-02-06: Vol 27 Iss 6 (1915-02-06)

FEBRUARY 6, 1915. The Billboard — THE Cohan & Harris Plays To Be Produced in Australia by J. C. Williamson. New York, Jan. 30.—Sanger & Jordan have just negotiated for Cohan & Harris the Australian rights to It Pays To Advertise and On Trial, which will be produced in the antipodes by J. Cc. Williamson. Charles Dillingham has also received from Mr. Williamson an offer for the Australian rights, together with a novel proposal for perfecting the production. Colored motion pictures will be made of the show, and phonograph records will be simultaneously employed. K. & E.’s Fads and Fancies Klaw & Erlanger will attempt to break all records for musical review productions in New York City on Feb. 15 with a new kind of show, resembling somewhat the Ziegfeld Follies, only on a greater scale, which they have named Klaw & Erlanger’s Fads and Fancies. ° Neilson-Terry Resuming. New York, Jan. 30.—Through the failure of Liebler & Co., the tour of Phyllis Neilson-Terry’s tour was cut short at the Liberty, but Joseph Brooks has arranged for her a trip around the Shubert theaters of the country in a revival of The Adventures of Lady Ursula, starting right away, and including a New York engagement at the Maxine Elliott Theater, beginning March 1. Concerts Atop Strand New York, Jan. 30.—Tomorrow night the cafe atop the Strand, managed by Mrs. Vanderbilt, Anne Morgan, Elsie de Wolfe and Elizabeth Marbury, “im the interest of the respectable middle classes,” will add Sunday evening concerts, with special entertainment. During week days the stenographers and clerks of Longacre District may eat their lunch and tango and have a perfectly good time for little money. Moving pictures of the oafe and its unique equipment have been taken and are shown at the Strand (proper), down stairs, as part of its program. Adolph Phillip Returning New York, Jan. 30.—Adolph Phillip has decided to again appear upon the stage, speaking English, in the musical comedy, Two Lots in the Bronx; in which he won great popularity as principal in its priginal German version at Adolph Phillip’s Theater, but lately called The Bandbox, on the East Side. Mr. Phillip is part author of the piece he will Anglicize, as well as being part author of Alma, Where Do You Live, The Midnight Girl, Adele and other pieces he brought out at his own theater. The Apollo Amusement Company will present him in an elaborate production with excellent support. ' Egg or Hen? New York, Jan. 30.—The stage is Set for a revival of the world-old argument about the poultry and its progeny. It’s all about masking in a Stage, obliterating footlights and covering the stage front and proscenium arch to give “atmosphere.” David Belasco introduced Frances Starr in Marie-Odile, at the Belasco, Tuesday evening. The lighting is all done from 4 Hi Wii, MT, Yi WH, YY} / } ypun ROBERT GRAU Intimate and Important Revelations Appertaining to the Larger and Finer Phases of the Business One may only conjecture as to where the new craze for midnight entertainment, such as Florence Ziegfeld has inaugurated atop of the New Amsterdam Theater, is to end, but few will protest against this new evidence that we have a few showmen who know how to offer reprisal to the menace of the cabaret. Already William Morris is preparing a midnight revue atop of the New York Theater, and there are signs indicating an effort to outdo the cabarets at every turn. With motion pictures starting at 9 a.m. and midnight revues luring the public up to 3 a.m. one must grant that theatrical managers are alive to the modern trend. Everywhere the slogan is, “Give the people what they want and they will come.” The attraction of pretty women and a plethora of song, dance and gayety has ever been a compelling one, and now that Daly’s Theater has been once more placed on the amusement map by a resort to modern burlesque the long dark Garden Theater is due to reopen with a policy of ‘“‘stock’’ burlesque such as has already found favor in several of the larger cities. One hears considerable protest against the tendency toward vulgarity in recent Broadway productions, where under the cloak of novelty the producers have been emboldened to undertake daring devices to attract blase theatergoers to the box-office, but if one may judge from the manner in which Mayor Mitchel and other representatives of the local government applaud the innovations, also attending frequently, there is little indication that a halt will be called. After all there is nothing so vulgar on view—even in the very latest efforts to thrill the blase—as was meted out in other days when the “can-can” was in its glory, when New York had seven theaters simultaneously catering to the baldhead element and when the presence of a woman in such auditoriums was unknown. No, there is nothing on the great white way today half so sensational as was to be seen in the days of “Jake’’ Beny. One can but wonder what would happen if some intrepid individual would tempt fate with an offering such as was the regular fare at the “Parisian Varieties’’ in the early ’80s.. Many there are who will recall the tremendous vogue of Matt Morgan’s living art statues. Today such an offering would create not a ripple of excitement, hence it must be that there is a vast difference between present-day gayety and old-time vulgarity. The spectacle of Annette Kellermann appearing in the nude in Neptune’s Daughter was so artistic that what was thought by many would be hailed as a sensation was presented without a protest, even from those who are never so happy as when they can inconvenience the showman. It was quite the same when Lois Weber’s Hypocrites was revealed on the screen at the Long Acre Theater last evening. Throughout the auditorium could be recognized men about town who never miss a premier where something “blue” is heralded. But so artistic and deft was the handling of the “sensation” in Hypocrites that not a few were disappointed, though if there is a possibility of a photoplay made in this country attracting at dollar prices this one should achieve that distinction on purely legitimate grounds. ; ' Those who insist that hard times is the cause of existent theatrical conditions should have been in the neighborhood of Fortieth street and Broadway on Wednesday last, about 9 a.m., when the advance sale opened for what is thought to be Caruso’s last appearance as Don Jose in Carmen. The line began to form at midnight. By 8 o’clock it stretched half way to Seventh avenue. John Brown, as is his wont, was on hand determined to keep the six-dollar seats out of the hands of the wily speculators, but this gentry was not to be balked—instead of pressing to the front themselves the ticket men had secured a bévy or démilré Waidens who were Tuly “rehearsed: : “istrict telegraph offices were emptied of messenger boys, so that by 9 o’clock, when the sale opened, the dear public was relegated to the end of the line. By noon not a seat—nor even a seat in a box—was to be had at the boxoffice, yet in their underground fashion the speculators were handing out seats in all parts of the opera house, asking $20 a pair for the orchestra, and not only getting it, but the seats in the top gallery found ready purchasers a $5 a throw, which is interesting only to prove that we are still prone to worship at the shrine of one great phenom and that the day of good “ensemble” opera has not yet arrived. Naturally speculation is rifer than ever before as to what will happen during the eight weeks at the end of the opera season when Caruso must sing abroad. If Otto H. Kahn succeeds in attracting the average attendance to the splendid repertoire mapped out without the glamor of his $2,500 a night tenor he will have solved a problem that has sorely tried every impresario since the days of the irrepressible Mapleson. Already the subscribers are protesting that they paid their money expecting Caruso to sing the entire season. Fortunately no rebate can be demanded, as each subscriber must sign a release of all claims for changes in cast. It was the late Henry E. Abbey who conceived this method of first aid to the helpless impresario. What the late Marshall P. Wilder lacked in size he made up in mentality, for he was one of the shrewdest business men of his time; also he was a born showman, but more than once his mania for system and business rectitude came near costing him a pretty penny. In the days when Wilder was in demand at clubs and private entertainments he was determined to have but one price, and under no circumstances would he think of entering into an engagement unless his own contracts were signed by both parties. On these contracts the emolument of $50 per performance was printed, and such a stickler was he for an unchangeable (Continued on page 62.) above, or off stage, footlight being eliminated. To give the penetential atmosphere of the convent, wherein the scene is placed, burlap is stretched across the stage-end of the theater, and the first boxes are draped, as with sack-cloth. Wednesday evening the Granville Barker Players opened at Wallack’s under the auspices of the Stage Society, presenting two plays of ancient extraction. To give “atmosphere”. there is a stage built over the regular stage, two low steps leading down to the apron, and covering the footlights, The stage boxes are partitioned off and the entire stage-end of the theater is covered with neutral-tinted cloth, framing the whole “picture’’ from the viewpoint of the audience. Now comes the point: Belasco presented Miss Starr for a preliminary week at Belasco’s, Washington—but Granville Barker might have used the drapery scheme over in England. And there you are; egg and hen. Brady’s Next Production New York, Jan. 30.—A week from next Monday at one of the local Shubert theaters William A. Brady will produce the new comedy, The Rented Earl. In the cast will be Lawrence D’Orsay, Alice Lindahl, Theresa Maxwell Conover, Evelyn Carter Carrington, Olive Templeton, Albert Brown, Schuyler Ladd, Douglass Wood and J. H. Gray. Sari in Chicago Chicago, Jan. 27.—Mizzi Hajos opened at the Illinois Theater on Monday. The critics have words of praise for the star as well as for the capable work of J. K. Murray and others of the cast. Morosco’s Latest Los Angeles, Cal., Jan. 29.—The Lady We Love, Frank Mandell’s threeact play, was produced at the Burbank Theater a few days ago by Oliver Morosco, and met with such gratifying success that Mr. Morosco intends to offer it in New York early next season with a specially selected cast. The play is described as an Eighth avenue romance, the scenes being laid in New York City, and the theme having to do with the rivalries in that section of the lower part of the West Side between the different nationalities represented in its citizenship. Miss Taylor Plays to $9,500 Néw ‘York, Jan. 28.—Laurette' Taylor played to $9,500 at the Globe Theater, London, last week, in J. Hartley Manners’ comedy, Peg o’ My Heart. Miss Taylor started her London engagement at the Comedy Theater October 10, and business became so great that it was found necessary to transfer her to the Globe, which has a much larger seating capacity. It looks doubtful if this actress will be seen again on the American stage for at least two years, as she has captured London completely. The Ballad of Auburn Gaoi. It’s a long way to Broadway, A long way and lone. Broadway, dear Broadway, ’Tis for thee I hone. Old Auburn is all right, There’s lots of them worse, But give me dear Broadway And a fairly fat purse. —wW. Jaygee. ’ eg =