The Billboard 1924-01-05: Vol 36 Iss 1 (1924-01-05)

10 The Billboard JANUARY 5, 1924 “GUYING” CAUSES TANNEN TO STOP ACT Vaudeville Artiste Gives Audience at Philadeiphia Theater Severe Lecturing — Philadelphia, Pa., Dec. 30.—Julius Tannen, last night at the Chestnut Street Theater here, was much annoyed by the unnecessary laughter at his jokes by the audience, mostly in the to» gallery and second balcony, that took on the form of ‘‘guying’’. Mr. Tannen stood it as long as possible, then stopped his act and lectured them severely, finally saying that it was the first time in twenty-one years that he ever had been so treated, and that the audience would select Christmas week to subject him to such treatment for his efforts to please hurt him to the heart. The lower part of the house applauded the loudest after Mr. Tannen’s speech. CHICAGO HAS FIRE IN LOOP On Twentieth Anniversary of the Iroquois Theater Fire, Orpheum Theater Badly Damaged Chicago, Ill., Dec. 30.—Coming on the heels of the twentieth anniversary of the fateful Iroquois Theater fire, in which 575 were burned to death or suffocated in the panic that eusued, Chicagoans awoke to another fire in the loop. Greatest damage was done to the building at 114 South State street, newly refinished and occupied by DeMet’s Candy Company. It is directly opposite the Palmer House and is flanked by the Orpheum motion picture theater and a shoe store. The Orpheum Theater was damaged badly. Before Fire Chief Luckley could turn in a 4-11 alarm the fire had shot upward, and, spreading. thru the fourth floor, cestroyed the offices of Jones, Linick & Schaeffer, theater owners. ZELDA SEARS CELEBRATES 30TH STAGE ANNIVERSARY ~—_— Roston, Dec. 29.—Zelda Sears, who is appears ing at the Tremont Theater in her latest musical success, ‘‘Lollipop’’, will celebrate a very interesting annivarsary on New Year's Eve, The oceasion will mark Miss Sears’ thirtieth year upon the stage—and also the thirtieth anniversary of her debut as a writer. She made her first stage appearance on December 31, 1893, as a court lady in ‘‘Camille’’, and the following morning there appeared in print some of her back-stage impressions of Sarah Bernhardt. This double event, combined with the New Year festivities, will form the bas's of a grand party at the Tr. vont Theater after Monday night's performance, CHAS. G. BRANHAM APPOINTED GEN. MGR. GORDON THEATERS Boston, Dec. 29.—Charles G. Branham, who bas been general manager of the Famous Players-Lasky chain of theaters in Canada, will on January 1 assume the duties of general manager of all the Gordon houses, known as the Olympia theaters. Mr. Dranham succeeds 7. J. Mee Guinness, who will now devote his attention exclusively to the booking of vaudeville for the Gordon theaters. This division of executive duties has become necessary because of the rapid growth of the Gordon interests, and also because of an illness suffered by Mr. McGuinness some time ago, which left him unable to handle the increased amount of work. SUNDAY OPENING IN BUSINESS DISTRICT O. K. Now York, Dec. 31.—-The South End Minters’ Association of Newark will meet this k to diseuss steps to close down on Sun the Weequahie Theater, located in the tal section of the city. It does not ject tio shows in the business district, it ys, but will invoke the old bine laws to close H places of amusement unless the Weequahie rformances at this house interfere with wor hip, it contends, Theaters in the business district contribute a portion of the Sunday receipts to charity. DOROTHEA ANTEL RECE!VES BLESSING FROM POPE New York. Dee. 31.—Dorothea Antel, who has heen a helpless cripple since she injured her back in a fall down the dressing-room stairs of Poli's Theater, Hartford, Corn., four years go, bas received a Christmas letter from H!s« Holiness Pope Pius, bringing a special papal blessing, rosary and a medal. The Pope's gifts were transmitted thru Monsignor Mariano Ugolini, canon of St. Peter's, (THE NEW PLAYS ON BROADWAY 39TH ST. THEATER, NEW YORK Week Beginning Monday Evening, rego 24, 1923 WOODS Presents A. “THE ALARM CLOCK” 3yv Avery Hopwood Adapted from “La Sonnette d’Alarme” of Maurice Hennequin and Romain Coolus. Staged by David Burton (As They Appear) WAS. ces cecteceessaciie’s John Troughton Little DORMS cceccsccscssevesen Helen Flint Cimetie TRGRE < ccncbeesciccsan Ernest Lambart Mrs, Dunmore ......... ervccccceccoes Gail Kane Bee. WRMENRGD 04006 csdevenseves ...-George Alison Bobby Brandon ........ eeccccesecs Bruce McRae Mra, Guste Bent ....ccsccceciveces Blanche Ring Mary Bent cicsccsescsccscccese Marion Coakley Homer Wickham ........+....Harold Vermilye Teme DOU kc nck csvcscenaseies Charles Abbe POG SIS WIM occ ccccceseseces Vincent Serrano There was a mighty good Ring to “The Alarm Clock’, which had its metropolitan installation at the 39th Street Theater this week, and, unless I am greatly in error, both “The Alarm Clock” and the Ring will remain in New York for some time. It has been quite a while since I saw Miss Ring playing in “Broadway and Buttermilk”. Time has but mellowed (Continued on page 105) GREENWICH VILLAGE THEATER, NEW YORK Beginning Wednesday, December 26, 1923 INTER-THEATER ARTS, INC., Presents A Truly Old-Time English Christmas PANTOMIME AND HARLEQUINADE Being the Story of Little Red Riding Hood and the Wicked Wolf Arranged and Staged by Alfred Hemming, late of Covent Garden, London THE CAST Bek Willing Mook. . x... .scccase Florence Liss The Wicke® Welk ..cccccsccses Fletcher Norton Robin, Prince Valiant ........... Barbara Bruce Te Gaed DOG: secs voascsceves Edna Bachman ce Sey err prey = Rita Matthias The Dame er oweesénsnn necensas Joe Edmunds ceccessovcoes coed Alfred Hemming bab obeubene see Rupert Outhbert apes tia cnteee Dorothy Nash The Clerk of the Wot The Polar Bear Charice ‘Castes Eee Fee TEE | kctecidscedsss Lois Shore Marjorie Daw ...ccccccs 006 véase Sybil Deuscher Little Bo Peep inched bake Bessie Lane ee Elizabeth Tarlor Demme Teeket occ cscossevcosases Mabel i.ong i TT er ..Dorothy Page (Continued on page 105) GARRICK THEATER, NEW YORK Commencing Friday Evening, December 28, 1923 Third Production of the Sixth Subscription Season THE THEATER GUILD Presents For the First Time on Any Stage “SAINT JOAN” A Chronicle Play by Bernard Shaw The Production Directed by Philip Moeller CAST OF CHARACTERS (In the Order of Their Appearance) tobert de Bandricourt ....... ..Ernest Cossart DOOGGNE wns invisdsvinsacue William M. Griffith POE cuiebcbsseecderipesnadexet Winifred Lenihan Bertrand de Pulenzgy ......... Frank Tweed The Archbishop of Rheims ... Albert Bruning La Tremouille, Constable of France Z sotusuniwos Herbert Ashton Court Page ......«.. coesne Jo Mielziner Gilles de Rais, Lluebeard....Walton Butterfield Captain Le Hire .....cccerce Morris Carnovsky The Dauphin (Later Charles VII) os ; isiate Philip Leigh Duchess de la Treme le -...Elizabeth Pearre Dunois, Bastard of Orleans .Maurice Colbourne Dunois’ Page . ‘ ‘ James Norris Richard de Beauehamp, Earl of Warwick hae se we aaa A. H. Van Buren Chaplain de Stogumber Henry Travers Peter Cauchon, Bishop of Beauvais lan Maclaren Warwick's Page .....-.0.++. Seth Baldwin The Taqelettes occ cccvccovcss , Jeseph Macaulay (Continued on page 106) NEIGHBORHOOD PLAYHOUSE, New York Beginning Wednesday Evening, December 26, 1923 THE NEIGHBORHOOD PLAYERS Present “THIS FINEPRETTY WORLD” By Perey Machaye “AST OF CHARACTERS Beem siiniin jakeiinaes E. J. Ballantine Lark Fiddler aan ‘ ..Johbn F. Roche ioldy Shoop ... .. Joanna Roos Granny Combs (Rhody Melindy) ....... cb RbRddadSedE OO SEES KEE ES .. Reba Garden Roosh Maggot Albert Carroll Gilly Maggot ...... $6nn06e cocsccekerny Rvine Mag Maggot ...... eeoeeseeeeAline MacMahon Arminty Sprattling ......... Esther Mitchell Polly Anw Clem ....cceses amela Gaythorne Witty Shepheard ....... T. Lewis MeMichae Reason Day ...... : ..--Dan Walker Dug Cheek ..Willlam Stahl Squire Green Cornet . Robert Le Sueur AnGy Camille .icscccsss ae ..George Bratt Judy Dishman ............. Pola're Weissmann Ruthie Madders ........... .-Lily Lubell Delphy Boggs ..... beahekh a Marion Morehouse Sary Jane ..... $n005s 0080608 ..Grace Hooper SD. cds cnveseéntttseneweses ..A. T. Wenning Bige Bake? ..cocccccscccccess Charles Wagner GE i ccccecsiencdaesssecéscecees temon Ia Jole SE okstasexicansiesssenedeas John Crawford ABR ccccccccccccscccoccesesses Carrington Short The mountain regions of Kentucky, which have been a fer‘ le field for the (Centioved | on page 104) JOLSON’S THEATER, NEW YORK Beginning Monday Evening, December 24, 1923 LEE SHUBERT Presents “THE BLUEBIRD” A Fairy Tale in Two Acts and Fourteen Scenes by Maurice Maeterlinck (Translated by Alexander Teixera de Mattos) Staged Under the Direction of Frederick Stanhope Art Director, Watson Barratt Dances Arranged by Cleveland Bronner Incidental Music From Debussy, Mas senet, Mendelssohn and Schumann CAST OF CHARACTERS (In the Order of Their Appearance) NS TE ais asiekdccessieaee Ethel Jackson ME CRUE -hcbnaduserceuakaseun Stapleton Ken SPE ebilba> ic ddsiwan > soceaseewace jen Grauer MOREE ete e heh sakes i acereneee Mary Corday The Fairy Berylune ............. Thais Lawton (By arrangement with George Broadhurst) Me Guavecen TUTTLE TT TTT TTT. John Nicholson POND awesckassicess ei eens wise Cleveland Bronner ek, Oe DE oc diisesceeas Hes Reginald Barlow TWytetta, Che GRE kcccccsccscs Harold de Becker MOUND Kodtataeteseeessis ete s cede Ingr'd Solfeng SET cavccccses tsntwenew eds Catherine Collins ee rere .....George Sylvaster (Continued on page 18) GREENWICH VILLAGE THEATER, NEW YORK Commencing Saturday Evening, Decemiber 29, 1923 MARY H. KIRKPATRICK Presents sec ROSEANNE” — with — CHRYSTAL HERNE By Nan Pagby Stephens A Play About Colored People CAST OF CHARACTERS Roseanne ..... padddecbes . Chrystal Herne WO Savbewddadvassddsbdsawets ...-Blatn Cordner DOE sbiddtbikvsnscadendiesel Kathleen Comegys OED scbbndbsdotskuanossenned Murray Bennett COUUSY BOO ose sesesiccces . John Harrington See TN GONE ic dédecccansvecdes Marie Taylor ee ee SE nbseci de ddkeas +-Tracy L'Engle We OED CIOS 685065460050 c00 Irma Caldwell Aloe GEARY cccccecccccescses Robert Strauss Dacas SNOW ceccscccccessss. -Lesiie M. Hunt Dot BanGchphe ccoccccssccess .. Grace Stephens i Ee Rova Powell ok er ere ee Mary Van Doran Tolly Satterwaite ...... +» +.Marguerite Harding Vasht] Gatewood ere. Te rrT .. Alice Busey a, ge EE ee ee Gertrude Goher Andy Johnson ...... ae .. Sterling Hollaway Normal Coffee ...... i Chappell Corey, Ir. (Continued on page 104) MORE NEW PLAY REVIEWS ON PAGES 36 and 37 | STOLL SCORES ATTITUDE OF BRITISH EXHIBITORS Says They nie Grecveet by American Pictures, But Public Is Not London, Dec. 31 (Special Cable to The Billboard).—British exhibiters are obsessed by American pictures, but the public is not, declared Sir Oswald Stoll yesterday, when he presided at the annual meeting of shareholders of the Stoll Film Co., Ltd., and was explalning why picture theaters had done less business than usual during the past year. Ile declared that the British public resented having to find #25,000,000 a year to send to America in payment of the war debt, and was becoming more and more averse to paying for United States pictures as well. It was foolish, he sald, for exuibitors to expect the people to take a keener delight than ever in American pictures, and exhibitors in that mental con dition seemed to require medical attention. If they persisted in forcing bad and indifferent TU. S. films on the British public they would be helping to close the doors of hundreds of moving picture houses before long, Stoll declared. THEATER MANAGER MURDERED IN TRYING TO HALT BANDITS Lansing, Mich., Dec. 28.—A youth registering as Martin Woesler, 19, of St. Louis, Moe., is being held here for the robbery and murder of Peter Hall, manager of the Plaza Theater Mr. Hall, a young married man, and nephew of W. J. Hall, owner of the Plaza, succumbed to a bullet wound in the right lung Sunday night, December 23, a few minutes after he attempted to check the flight of two fellows who accosted him near the box-office and took a box containing the day’s receipts. Woehler was captured by Officer Claude Boyles, who was attracted by Mr. Hall's cries for help and the sound of the shot. The second man escaped, but his body was found in an automobile near Portland, Mich the following morning. He was indentified by Woehler as William Baumgartner, 24, also of St. Louis, and is believed to have killed himself when the gas in his machine gave out and capture seemed certain. Baumgartner’s body was shipped to relatives in the Mound City, who claimed it. Woehler alleges his companion did the shooting, and Says they were in Lansing for four days prior to the crime. SUNDAY VAUDE. PERMITS INVOLVE MUCH EXTRA WORK Boston, Dec, 29.—The recent ruling of the Department of Public Safety, Commonwealth of Massachusetts, requiring booking offices to submit about a week in advance complete details of acts that are to appear in Sunday vaudeville concerts has burdened a great amount of work on the local booking offices. Since many of the acts that play in the Sunday shows, both in Boston and vicinity, are booked from outside towns where they appear during the week, it is necessary to mail out hundreds of questionnaires each week, and a good many of these come back improperly filled and must be returned for additional data before the act will be approved by the licensing office. To handle this work, the Keith Vaudeville Exchange, which books the big majority of the Sunday shows in this section, has had to engage additional office help. M. P. THEATER OWNERS OF CHICAGO ORGANIZING Chicago, Dec. 31.—M —Motion picture theater owners of Chicago will hold a meeting within a week, at which time it is expected that a theater owners’ organization will be perfected and officers elected. An informal meeting was held a few days ago at which several owners of movie theaters were present. The pulse of the proposition indicated that the theater owners thought they should get together not with any special campaign in view nor to meet any one particular question that is new or may become of importance, but to have un organization like all other lines of endeavor. It ts understood that Balaban & Katz, Ascher Bros, and Lubiner & Trintz, owners of many picture theaters in Chicago, all look with favor on the project. SNEAK THIEF ROBS “BLUE BIRD” CAST New York, Dec. 31.—Several members of the cast of “The Blue Bird", playing at Jolson'’s Fifty-Ninth Street Theater, were victims of a sneak thief Saturday night. Harold de Becker, one of the players, reported the theft of a gold watch and other trinkets, Reginald Barrow said the thief took a diamond stick pin, valued at $200, John Nicholson reported the lose of some personal papers and nioney. ‘ 5