Variety (March 1909)

18 VARIETY SUMMER PARK® THE MIDDLE CUSS WORK. By J. a NUGENT. Toronto, March 26. Scarboro Beach, on Lake Ontario, will open for the season about May 22. There will be several new features. H. A. Dor- •ey, president, W. H. Moore, vice-presi- dent, and J. D. Conklin, secretary and treasurer, are the officers. The latter will probably be manager. New Orleans, March 26. President Hugh McCSoskey, of the New Orleans Railways Oo., has sprung his an- nual joke, saying his company is going to rehabilitate Spanish Fort, a resort situ- ated on Lake Fontchatrain, about three miles from West End Park, and trans- form the place into a magnificent summer park. Mis Mcdoskey's statement may have been concocted with a view to fright- ening the City Fathers into giving the Railways people another lease of West End Park. John J. Quigley, lessee and manager of Woodland Park, Worcester, Mass., denies his park is on the market or that the outlook for it is bad. Mr. Quigley states that about the middle of April alterations will commence and the regular season open May 30 with a bigger and better re- sort than ever. The theatre in the park will be entirely covered and seating space provided for 2,600. Wheeling, W. Va., March 26. Wheeling Park will run again this sum- mer under the direction of the American Amusement Oo. It was closed some time ago following the failure of the concern to meet some of its obligations. A meet- ing was held this week between repre- sentatives of the American Oo. and CSty A Elm Grove Railway Oo. It was the latter concern that forced the closing of the resort by an action against the Amuse- ment firm. The two concerns came to an amicable agreement at this week's confer- ence. Another conference has been set for the near future. At that time the resi- dent manager will be named. Wheeling, W. Va., March 26. This city is to hsve an airdome seating 6,000 persons in readiness for opening by the arrival of the warm weather. The Airdome Amusement Company of Wash- irgton, Pa., is promoting the venture. That concern has secured for a term of years a site on Twentieth Street. It is 120 feet square. Improvements will cost about $2,600. Freeman Bernstein will open the park at Bergen Point, New Jersey, en April 12, playing high-grade vaudeville in the theatre which seats 1,800. The Morris office will book. Bergen Point is near Bayonne. The Filipino Band, a collection of about sixty natives from the Philippines, which played at the New York Hippodrome a few weeks ago will reappear there on March 28. R. H. Francis, who imported the musical organisation, may place it in parks dur- ing the summer. He has several offers under consideration, but will return the Filipinos to their homes if not favorably deciding. Contrary to the common belief, the band was not brought over here for a limited time. Newark, N. J., March 26. General Manager Schmidt, of the Olym- pic Park Association, says he will have an opera company at his park the com- ing summer. He may produce grand and comic operas on an elaborate scale. Lake Como, Ft. Worth, Texas, will open May 1. The entire park is under the man- agement of Thos C. Bunch. Frank Melville has established a branch of his park booking office in Pittsburg. Other branches will be started in half a dosen towns according to Mr. Melville's present plans. He left this week for a month's tour in the middle west. Cincinnati, O., March 25. The Coney Island Co. is building a vaudeville theatre here for summer use. It will have a seating capacity of 3,000, according to the announcement. Manager G. W. Englebreth will be in charge. Youngstown, O., March 25. On Monday night, after Willie Whitla, the abducted boy from Sharon, Pa., was returned to his father at the Hollenden Hotel, Cleveland, following the payment of the $10,000 ransom, Joseph Wess was ar- rested in this city as being implicated in the crime. Wess was locked up in the police station. He was formerly a man- ager of a park here, and expected to have an amusement place in this vicinity the coming summer. He was released upon the capture of the real kidnappers. Sharon, Pa., March 25. F. R. Hallam, owner and manager of the Lyric Theatre and Airdome at Belle- field, 111., is in the city in search of a loca- tion to erect a summer playhouse. It is planned to make Sharon part of a circuit to include Washington, Pa., McKeesport, Pa., Wheeling, W. Va., Steubenville, O., Youngstown, O., East Liverpool, O., and New Castle, Pa. Conneaut Lake, Pa., March 26. Exposition Park on Conneaut Lake, de- stroyed by fire last December, is being rebuilt on a much more elaborate scale. It will open May 30. THE CURZON SISTERS. The Curzon Sisters, who appear on the cover, both graduates of Bellhaven Col- lege, Jackson, Miss, come of a typical Southern family, who were greatly op- posed to their entering upon a show career. Miss Pearl, the elder, early in 1002, became the wife of J. W. Curzon, who in the spring of 1906 originated, pat- ented the apparatus and produced their now famous revolving aerial teeth perform- ance, with which they have just completed a successful ten months European tour, at a greater salary than ever. The younger sister adopts the Curzons' name professionally. Curzon has Instigated two infringement suits against alleged copies who would ply upon his invention. Young J. W. Jr., who also adorns the front page, is the pride of the profession when ac- companying his parents. If a like this about that western work; it is just as hard to book as the big time, so far aa that ia concerned, and there ia quite aa much red tape and dignity in the offices of the smaller circuits aa in the sanctums of the powera-that-be. In some caaea there is much more, and incidentally, it's much funnier. But the point ia that the middle claaa work or the vaudeville time in the smaller towns and cities of the south and weat and middle weat ia the future field for the great army of vaudevilliana, and viewed even from a patriotic standpoint it ia the duty of all who wish to upbuild the volume of business to go out and help build up those small circuits. As a business proposition there is much more money for the artist if he views his income by the year instead of by the week in playing anything and everything which he is able to book at a salary satisfactory to him than can possibly be made by de- pending entirely on that which is known as the "big time." There are in New York agencies repre- senting most of the western circuits, but a visit to these offices will do the average artist very little good. The way to book the small time is to go at it exactly as one would who is conducting a Lyceum bureau or working up a series of benefits. An artist who has one or two good market- able acts must begin and continue a system of continuous advertising by secur- ing a mailing list of all the local managers aud sub-agents from coast to coast This list can be procured easily enough from the correspondence columns of Vabhtt. Then with the aid of a typewriter and a little tasteful printed matter one should mail a letter or piece of advertising or reproduction of a notice or some sort of novelty together with a list of open time, terms and good plain description of act to each of these local managers and sub- agents every couple of weeks. That a standing advertisement does a great deal of good there can be no doubt, but that alone will not suffice. It takes hard work to get results. This campaign of con- stant writing requires a day or two each week and the expenditure of a few dollars, but if continued for any length of time there is no reason why a good act cannot keep booked up practically all the time. Good, plain sketches and monologs, high claaa or low class singing acts, and all sorts of acrobatic and dancing acts are fine and useful material for this vaudeville taste. I think the average raudevillian places the wrong construction upon the word "success." Success to a sensible man or woman should be placed within fhe limits of his possibilities and should first of all consist of an ambition to make himself and those dependent upon him financially independent, not for the sake of having or handling money with a miser's glee, but simply because it is the duty of every citizen to be self-sustaining and able to carry his own weight. To own one's home, educate one's chil- dren, pay one's taxes and have sufficient income from safe and conservative invest- ments in case of sickness or for old age, is achieving much greater success than to be intermittently headlined for a few weeks out of the season at some of the big houses, and spend the rest of the time in debt through an impossible attempt to keep up the false position which these few spas- modic and irregular dates make necessary. Again ye who live in hall bedrooma and talk fondly of the big towns remember tbat even we who put ourselves in exile love the big town and are glad to get back to it, but that Is no reason why we should discount the smaller cities. It would sur- prise many a non-traveled New Yorker to discover that many of these same cities are much in advance of New York as far as the comforts and conveniences which an artist requires are concerned. There are fine modern hotels at reasonable prices and up-to-date theatres in which the' un- usual act and, in fact, any act, is treated vith the courtesy altogether lacking in the more pretentious houses. There is, if one cares for it, a much better and more ele- vating social environment open to the ar- tist who cares for outside acquaintance- ship. There is a refreshing rest away from the big cities. There is a greater freedom from temp- tation in the direction of dissipation and a fine opportunity for self-improvement along the lines of study and reading. I have found several good avenues of em- ployment for my idle hours during the past thirty months, of which thirty months I have lost but eight week's time, playing generally two consecutive weeks in each house on every known and unknown circuit from coast to coast This is not only the field for the actor who cannot get continuous work on the big time, but to my mind it is the field to which the manager must look in future to find suitable new material for the big houses, as gradually a certain percentage of these unknown acts are developing by the mere process of constant playing, cut- ting, changing, reversing and rehearsing into splendid and sure-fire vehicles. Instead of expecting new and untried material to be successful on the start and to avoid that Gethsemene of heart pers- piration through which we all must pass, they should keep an eye on that striving, struggling army out there beyond the pale of the bright lights. BAR VAUDEVILLE FROM PICTURE SHOWS. Boston, March 25. The local authorities have promulgated the strict order that those show places having only a second-class license for the exhibition of moving pictures must not introduce vaudeville during the entertain- ments. By this ruling a number of "store shows" operated by Harry Farren, of the Columbia, were this week forced to cancel a long list of small turns. Another order of the police has to do with the style of offering in the regularly- licensed houses. Nothing containing any flavor of spice will hereafter be permitted. The Howard Theatre has sent out notices to all the acts booked for future engage- ments that they must under no circum- stances make use of any off-side dialog, nor employ "hell" or "damn." The Otto Brothers will sail for England in a few weeks. Dancing Davey and Pony Moore play Yonkers next week.