Variety (Jul 1946)

58 LEGITIMATE Wednesday, July 24, 1946 Strawhats Booming in Rural Byways But Urban Centers Can't Take It Good business is reported for quite t a number of summer stocks, but there have been sizable casualties. Particularly in urban sectors. Hart- ford, for instance, folded after going $12,000 in the red for its first two weeks. First week takings of "Pursuit of Happiness" were re- liably reported to have been $299. "On the Town," a musical, was able to get $2,440 on its week but It cost $4,000 to operate the show. J. J. Leventhal had shows, includ- ing "Candida" on a so-called rotary stock basis, no stagehatids being car- ried • as the shows used house set- tings. Stands played were Buffalo, Toledo and Cincinnati, which he has discontinued. That would indicate that summer stocks in cities this sea- son cannot draw as they previously did. Neighborhood attractions book- ed by Leventhal are in Brooklyn and the Bronx, and are said, to be "satis- factory except for matinees. Alfresco Ann. Formed Louisville, July 23. National Civic Operetta Assn. was formed here Saturday (20) by reps of summer theatres In Louisville, Grand Rapids, St. Louis, Memphis, Toledo and Cleveland. Meeting was pp"-* by James W. Henning, prez of Louisville Park Theatrical Assn. which operates Iroquois Amphithea- tre, now in midst of a six-week sea si <.. Plans were set for an exchange of ideas for all phases of summer theatre operation,, including man- agement, casting, costuming and business aspects. Several meetings will be held each year. ■ St. Louis Municipal Opera Co. was represented by M. E. Holder riess, treas.; Paul Beisman, gen., mgr. and W. E. Sitton, asst. treas. Others were Harry J. Brown, Grand Rapids Municipal Opera Co.; HlUsman Tay- lor, prez, arid Galvin Hudson, Mem phis Open Air Theatre; Paul Spor, Toledo Civic Amusement Guild and •William R. Winters, Cleveland Heights Cain Park Theatre. Denis Dufor, Iroquois Amphitheatre pro- ducer, also attended meeting, . to- gether with several local directors. Theatre Production Guild Bows on Coast Hollywood, July. 23. First legit play by the Theatre Production Guild will be 'The Gen- tle Approach," a farce by John O'Dea- with Robert Mitchum, Isobel Jewell and Jacqueline de Wit. Show will be produced by Clancy Cooper and Josef Montaigue and directed by Harold Daniels. Company opens at the Avalon theatre on Catallna Island, Aug.' 2, with Aug. 6-7 dates at Long Beach and a mid-August opening in Los Angeles. For' the run of the play, Mitchum is on' loanout from RKO and Miss De Wit from Universal. Barter Theatre Plans for Tour Strawhat Reviews Carbon.Copy Hempstead, L. I., July 17. Dr. William K Dunn preaentullon of com- edy In three not* (four scenes) by Cieome Morris. Sinned by otto Slmeltl; netting by HlchnrJ Curbln. Preaenled Bt Hompaleiid Summer Theatre. HampBteftd. 1*- I., July HI. •*«. Ijinco 1'ayne...- Duncan Munsey Penelope Payne..........Jonn Oupelanil Una Qrnyaon.. . ..Arlene C. Dorn Hurry. GraysonItlrhnnl lluxrnn Karen BannInter. .-.. v . -... Ellen ..... . Kvclyn'n Kuton ....Kathleen Clnypool Governor to Barter . Abingdon, Va„ July 23. Gov. William Tuck, accompanied by state dignitaries, will visit Bar- ter Theatre here tomorrow (Wed.) and Thurs., for first visit to the state theatre since the Assembly gave, it a $10,000 grant last summer. Theatre will put on three shows for the visitors; "Arms and the Man," "My Sister Eileen" and "Virginia Overture." Guests will be hosted for lunches, dinners and a special party. . Musical Tryout Provincetown ■ Playhouse, N. Y., will present a two-week tryout of "It's Your Move,", new musical com edy with book, music and lyrics by Jerry Stevens, starting tonight (24). Fall Broadway tryout is expected. Paul Benard and Don Briody are staging, with Alan Banks as choreog- rapher. Dean Goodman is presenting, Lahr 'Burlesque' 8%G, Hub Boston, July 23. Wowing capacity audiences with an outstanding performance in "Burlesque," Bert Lahr boosted the Boston Summer theatre to a record take of $8,500 this week. Got rave notices at opening with Eileen Hechart as "Bonny" and talk here is that "Burlesque" might be revived on Broadway with Lahr starring next season. At Cambridge Summer theatre, "Angel Street," starring Francis Lederer . and ' Bramwell • Fletcher, grossed $3,500 this week. Priestley's 'Inspector* On Golden's Fall List "An Inspector Calls," by J.. B. Priestley, is definitely on John Gold- en's production schedule for next season, being due in November.. For some months the producer contacted the British author by mail and cablegram In reference to script re- visions he suggested for the Ameri- can showing. "Inspector" is also to be presented In London by Old Vic during the fall, it being the only new drama on the repertory outfit's listing. Leo G. Carroll, who will be ■tarred by Golden in the Priestley play, is currently at Ogunquit, Me., In a summer stock showing of "Angel Street." Abingdon, Va., July 23, Virginia should have some inter- esting theatre this fall, when the Barter Theatre moves from its headquarters here' to become the official theatre of Virginia. Already three plays and.one revue have been presented, and three more shows are now in rehearsal. Before the season is over, 12 plays will have been presented in Abingdon, and vicinity, and from. these a touring repertory of .four or six will be'selected. The State Conservation Commis- sion has made an initial grant of $10,000 to the Barter Theatre. Under present plans the Barter Theatre' will open its tour in Fred- ericksburg Sept. 23, where it will play that section until Nov. 1, when it moves to Charlottesville. After playing in Richmond tne first two weeks . in December, the company will head south for a' three-week out-of-state tour that will take it to Florida. It. will then return to complete the' Virginia tour. leer Comes Off Skates In Variety - Musical Combo for H'wood Bow Hollywood, July 23. Live show ranks here will be aug- mented Aug. 6 .when new El Patio theatre (Hollywood blvd. and La Brea) opens with George Arnold's reconstructed ice-show-gone-musical comedy, "Nevada, U. S. A." Former white-elephant house was also reconstructed and refurnished recently by Harold Woolever, orig- inal producer of "Maid in Ozarks," who bought the property. A 900*seat house, it is now equipped' for films, legit, vaude or radio shows, being complete with booth, etc. For past few weeks it has been housing Mutual programs. Scale for Arnold show, which, in lesser form, played Iridium Room, St. Regis hotel, N. Y., last year, will be $3.30, $2.40 and $1.80. Company of 25; including small chorus, and pit band of 16 musicians have been gathered. Jack Cathcart will direct music. Show is described as a com- bination variety show and musical, with a running story. Will be laid in 24 sets on two stages, an additional small stage being constructed- to handle blackouts, etc., to insure con- tinuous action. Difficulties of making a go of a second marriage are chiefly touched on M this comedy. Perhaps one trouble is that the particular .diffi- culties chosen to illustrate the theme are rather special. The husband keeps a photograph of his first wife in a wall safe, just so he can take it out every now and then and laugh at it, and of course the picture falls under the eagle eye of the second wife and is misunder-. Aobd. Then, too, the husband seems more than ordinarily irascible, be- ing given to fits of temper when his second wife does the irritating things his first wife used to do- like slipping her hand in his pocket while they are dancing. In spite of its fllmsiness, "Carbon Copy" turns up a couple of amusing moments once it gets under way. and when the author isn't' writing smart; dialog so elliptical and epi- grammatic: that you can't under- stand it, he tosses off an occasional apt line. Cast of six, well directed by,Otto Simetti, acquits itself creditably. Arlene Carroll Dorn, local, girl mak- ing her stage debut, shows promise, while Evelynn Eaton, niece of the Ziegfeld star Mary Eaton, scores as a catty would-be' homewrecker. Joan Copeland and Duncan Munsey are attractive as the battling newly- weds, with Richard Barron and Miss Dorn providing effective support as helpful friends. Kathleen Claypool handles a maid bit nicely. Script itself suggests no possibili- ties beyond present engagement. Paul. The Personal Toueh Branford, Conn., July 18. William Whiting uml Anita Grunnls (In aasn. Willi Alfred H. Tnmnrln) produi-tlon nt- comedy In three acta by Wayne Arnold., Directed by Anltn Ornnnla: Hotline l»- Wil- liam Whltlnic Opened at Mnntowcsc Play- house, Braritord, Conn.. July 1U, '40; top. Kate Drowea Adele nuschmnn Mra. Drowea.. Gertrude Diillns I.uella BIuks Dorothy Pntten Bliss Curpenier Kaihryn Kumea Sophie. Sophia Merrill Calvin Calloway Sotner Albert; DouKlne Drewea Clark Wlliluma Max Barker ..William Dixon Mr. Atkins .Arvo Wlrln Mr. Wilson John Cerelll Met Theatre Booked Into Broadway Oct 1 Ballet Theatre Will open a five- week engagement at the Broadway, N. Y, Oct. 1, prior to its eighth, an- nual cross-country tour. Booking into a legit house, instead of usual Metropolitan Opera House, is in line with troupe's hew policy, to book into legit playhouses all oyer .the country instead of concert halls or auditoriums, and accentuate stage instead of music side of ballet. Troupe, .now playing successfully in London, is due back mid-Septem- ber. U. S. tour, following N, Y. date, starts Nov, 4,' ending May 10. Music Corp. of America is booking this season, replacing Sol Hurok. "Personal Touch" gets by as fair strawhat entertainment, but as fall and winter millinery for Broadway —that's something out. of a different hatbox. Play has one good scene in which a stage-struck lass tells off an egotistical actor-author. But just as one swallow doesn't make a sum, mer, one scene doesn't make a sum- mer play suitable for the more criti- cal ganderers of. the snow-and- icicle season. There's a basically interesting idea here but click potentialities are far off. Author, a prof at Washington U, in St. Louis, has located his play in a mid-western town and peopled It with characters affiliated with the local educational system. Into this setup he drops a successful play wright and his producer and the re, suit is a combination of something the sophomore class might be doing for commencement plus some inter mlttent okay diversion. Story centers around Bliss Car- penter, attractive girl who, after an abortive fling at the stage, settles down to teaching in a small town, meanwhile keeping her "past" as an actress a secret from the natives, When Douglas Drews, former local boy who has clicked on Broadway, returns to the village for some hometown background for a: pic mag sketch, Bliss goes for him and he returns the romance. Complica- tions pob ud when Drews, learning of her acting ambitions, thinks she is merely working him for a part in his new play. From there on it's a typical case of now-you-love-me- now-you-don't, with the curtain hinting at a "Bliss"ful ending. Exigencies of summer stock don't Bive the script its best possible try, Casting merely provides a perform- er for every role and lets it go at that. Adele Buschman, as a flip- cracking schoolmarm, contributes most of the cast authenticity, with Kathryn Eames a runner-up. Thea tre itself is cracker-box size with little leeway for expansive produc tion. Single setting of a lving room Is adequate but obviously budget- conscious. Staging is coherent. • Bone. "Alfred's" Strawhat Preem "Alfred," new comedy by Ronald Mitchell, will be given strawhat prcem by Irwin Piscator's Workshop Players at Great Neck, L. I.,'July 30. Author is asst. prof of drama and spepch at University. of Wis- consin. Dr. Saul Colin will direct, Inside Stuff-Legit Perhaps the most amusing commentary on summer stocks, written by Tallulah Bankhead, who alludes to strawhats as the "cltronella circuit" appeared in the N. Y. Times' Sunday magazine (21). Starting off "with'a' jigger of candor," Miss Bankhead said she is in the summer theatre be- cause of economic necessity. She needs the money and so do the other name players appearing in the sticks, she avers. Star alluded to the stocks as being amid "the sumac (poison Ivy) and cedars" and declared that "an actress isn't at her best when she has her mind on her welts rather than her words." Accompanying illustration pictured her with a squirt gun aimed at a large mosquito while on stage. . Miss. Bankhead thinks that while the strawhats were conceived as In- cubators for aspiring talent, young authors, promising scene designers-and directors, that theory has been lost in the shuffle. "Sunburned impresarios" have their eyes on the boxoffice, the same as Broadway showmen. She says summer theatre audiences "are more generous, less bronchial and better-mannered than their winter duplications. When they are pleased their applause is unrestrained, since they know they won't have to suffer any critical rebuttal in the morning. They ignore mechanical flaws and technical omissions . . . they come to clap, not. to carp," At Equity's annual meeting June 7, several members asked how come the deadline for nominations had been set at 30 days by. the council in- stead of 20 days, without such information being set forth in-the union's house organ. July issue of the mag apparently clarifies the matter, it be- ing contended that there isn't enough time between a 20-day deadline and the required two weeks prior to election for mailing ballots to mem- bers, monthly already having been printed. Stated that had Independent nominations been filed sooner than 30 days before election, they would have been accepted,'also that trade papers carried items about the exten- sion. Fact remained that no indie nominations were made, nor did opposi- tion to the regular ticket materialize. Pointed put that'between 1913, when Equity, was formed, and 1935 there was only one contested election,' and since the latter date there were several Independent tickets. It was not the first time; to extend the nomi- nation deadline to 30 days or earlier, the same interval, having occured five times being '36 and '45. Recent criticism by Brooks Atkinson of the Russian. theatre has ap- parently been corroborated by Moscow's top art mag, "Culture and Life." In a recent article criticizing all performing arts, the' weekly called "a significant number"'of plays" regretably mediocre and primitive," blaming the playwrights and deploring the switch in stories from the pragmatic propaganda approach. Story revealed that the committee on. art had also banned showings of foreign plays like Somerset Maugham's "The Circle," Plnero's "The Dangerous Age," and Molnar's. "One, Two, Three," as being "bedroom drama." Also barred were Maugham's "Penelope," and Ber- nard's "My Cafe." All of them tagged "dubious plays of bourgeois play- wrights soaked through with an ideology alien to Soviet society." Russian playwrights were criticized for "failing to meet the require- ments of Soviet audiences." Other cracks, were taken at opera and music, with literature alone escaping unscathed. . Phil Dunning, whose nightclub melodrama of prohibition times, "Broad- way;" started Jed Harris on the way to a bankroll (most of which he dropped during the stock market'erash of '29), has sold half of his property at Westport, Conn. New owner took over the expensive log cabin house on the banks of the Naugatuck river that was built by the Fairfield Hunt club. For quite some time after the play opened Dunning continued to be stage manager of "Sunny." After purchasing the Westport place,, he built a swimming pool near the house. It was fed by spring water but silt seeped in and friends nicknamed the pool "Muddy Waters." So many professionals visited the Dunnings that he erected a sign near the house reading: "42nd and Broadway." Dunning still possesses the guest house up the hill and around 30 acres, half of which fronts on the river, and plans to dispose of more ground. His daughter Virginia (Ginny), who grew up at Westport, is on the stage. Richards Vldmer, former spprts columnist for the N. Y. Herald Tribune) \ covered the premiere of "Big Ben" in London at the Adelphi last Wednes- day. (17). Vldmer, former officer in the Army, who is with the Trlb's London bureau, sent a story to the N. Y. daily printed Friday (19), which mentioned that the home of A. P. Herbert, who wrote the libretto of the operetta, was robbed during, the performance. Story is a political satire and the play, regarded as the highlight Of the. London stage in the past eight years, drew a'fine press. But Vldmer thought the book lacked "clarity, pace and appeal," though he thought the music by Vivian Ellis excellent. "Ben" was produced by Charles B. Cochran, 73-year-old showman re- ferred to as the "Ziegfeld of London." "Cocky" wasn't-present on opening night of his 125th attraction due to illness. He was on hand for the dress rehearsal until 1 a.m., when his doctor ordered him to bed. Production of "Alice-Sit-By-the-Fire," in which Helen Hayes is making brief tour of the strawhat theatres, contains innovation never before used in any Barrle play. Theron Bamberger; who launched the production at his Bucks County playhouse, New Hope, Pa., was impressed by Barrle's stage directions and conceived the idea of incorporating some of the words into the production itself. New character called "The Playwright" was introduced, who read from the stage directions and walked around the stage pointing out various props and introducing some of the char- acters. Russell Collins, member of permanent company at New Hope,; played the playwright there, with Neil Fitzgerald taking over assignment this week at Suffern. General-consensus was that Idea was huge success and gave special flllup to production. It seems that the matter of billing is just as important on, the cowshed circuit as oh Broadway. Two recent instances point this up markedly. First concerned a film star of another era who, although not playing the lead in a certain strawhat show, insisted that she be billed above the play's title. It meant a hurried change in a flock of newspaper ads. Second in- stance involved a distaff thesp who noted, shortly before the premiere of a tryout, that her name was hot listed , on the program cover although the play's title was. Frantic resorting to a typewriter and some gummed stick- ers made art artistic botch of the program but soothed the star's ruffled nerves. t. ____ Russell Janney's book, "Miracle of the Bells," appears destined for the best seller class, with the first edition again being upped, total now sched- uled by Prentice-Hall being 250,000 copies. It's the former producer's first attempt-at novel writing. Janhey attracted attention with his presentation of "The Vagabond King" In 1925 at the original Casino (razed) N. Y. ( which was a click. Vet showman offered a pretentious revival of the operetta.at the Shu- bert three years ago but it failed; Janney told friends that he expects to clear up any obligations entailed by the revival from the book's royalties. Contrary to earlier reports, Michael Meyerberg will not produce Harry Wagstaff Cribble's mixed-cast "Romeo and Juliet," having pulled out within the last two weeks. Date of show's opening is still not set, but it will preem in Chicago in the fall. Rehearsal plans have been held up, with Earl .Hyma.n. slated for the "Paris" role, currently in N. Y. in the "Anna Lucaxta" lead, while Fred O'Nell and Hilda SlmmS, mentioned for other roles, are in the middle west.