Variety (June 1952)

LEGITIMATE $6 \ 'Moon Backers Share in Coast Co.; Show May Profit No. 3 Production The Actors Co. production of "Moori Is Blue," opening July 1 at La Jolla, Calif., with David Niven and Diana Lynn co-starred,’ has been .financed with profits from the original Broadway company and is using scenery and props from the recently-closed third company. Otto Preminger, who staged the original and the two touring edi- tions of the F. Hugh Herbert com- edy, is also directing the La Jolla troupe, which will tour Coast cities after opening the 'season at the Actors Co. home base. According to a letter from pro- ducers Aldrich & Myers (in associa- tion with Julius Fleischmann), the La Jolla version of the play is be- ing bankrolled with f1.0,000 of un- distributed profits from the origi- nal Broadway company. Thus, the original backers became partners in the Coast edition, unless they spe- cifically .requested to be excluded. That is in contrast to the setup for the No. 2 and No. 3 companies, which were separately financed, so as not to have to wait for accumu- lation of profits from the original troupe. Although the Aldrich 8i Myers letter to the backers didn't reveal the exact terms of the deal, It in- dicated that the La Jolla use of the scenery and props from the No. 3 company would involve a "financial arrangement." Such agreements usually involve a flat rental fee or a royalty based on a percentage of the gross. Since the No. 3 edition, financed at $50,000, broke even on its season's tour, the revenue from the scenery-property deal should bring in a modest profit on the investment. SOUTH PiX OPS OFFER POOL FOR LEGIT TOURING . Austin, Tex., June 24. Interstate Theatre Circuit and a few other southern film ops are negotiating a deal to present stage attractions in their houses this coming fall and winter. The plan, in tentative form, calls for several circuits to pool their houses and offer the overall package to tour- ing stage units. The plan as outlined is expected to appeal to legit show producers, since they can come in for sev- eral months of bookings intead of the usual four or five weeks which individual circuits could offer. In the past, the favored cities for bookings have been San An- tonio, Dallas, Fort Worth and Houston. Now the plan will take in several other cities where in the past stage shows have proved successful. Show jfe Leaders Aid In Pernick Testimonial Testimonial dinner was tendered Monday evening (23) to Solly Per- nick, business agent of the Stage- hands Union, Local No. 1, Interna- tional Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees. Aff.iir was hosted by the Theat- rical Suurre Club at the Hotel As- tor, with George E. Goldsmith, sec- retary of the Masonic groUp, as to as tm*. el”, r. Number of show biz leaders and celebs were on hand; including Morey Amsterdam, Ralph Bellamy, T \TSE prexy Richard Walsh, IA.TSE secretary-treasurer William P, Raoul, Actors Equity execs A“*rus Duncan, Television Author!.;' lopper George Heller. Theatr*'' 1 Mutual Assn, prexy Paul Stahl, American Federation of Mu- sicians ’acal exec Sam Suber, among o !i_rs. Pernick was given a gold I.\T3E membership card by the union. Lrre as Laulrec Hollywood, June 24. Pet r Lorre will star on Broad- way next f-’U in the title role of "Monsieur Lautrcc," Irving L. Jacobs’ production of the Edward Chodorov (’"araa about the crippled French poster artist. Jacobs set the deal with Lorre and the latter’s at- torney, Jots Silverstone. over the weekend here. * Silverstone planed east today (Tues.) to set a release deal for the Lorre-produced and directed star- rer, "The Lost One,” made in Ger- many. The German language thriller, with English titles, will be &>9kcd into^ £rt. houses*, , ,, „ , Two Strawhateto Liven ^ iifc-North Florida Area Birmingham, June 24, The Alabama-North Florida area will have two strawhats this sum- mer, one an Equity company at Panama City Beach, Fla., and the other a college one at University, Ala. Both will use central staging. John Aldrich Newfield, of How- ard College here, is producer for the Pelican Players of JPanama City Beach. Newfield, who directs un- der the name of John Aldrich, will offer the following plays on his 10- week schedule: "Engaged," "Penny Wise," "Tobacco Road," ‘Holiday," 'Accent on Youth,” “Kiss and Tell," "Outward Bound," "Rain," "The Constant Wife," and one other. Dr. Marian Gallaway, of the U. of Alabama, will present four shows on a four-perf ormance-a-week schedule, doing one every three weeks. Plays for her Bam Arena will be "The Curious Savage," "Ring Round the Moon," “Blithe Spirit," and a new play by an Ala- bama playwright, Felicia Metcalfe. Newfield's season opens tonight (24) with "The Constant Wife." Gal- laway’s season opens tomorrow (Wed.) with "The Curious Savage." Bari Notes Ruth White, a leading member of the resident company at the Bucks County Playhouse, New Hope, Pa„ will appear on a "loan- out" next week in "Carousel" at the Lambertville (N.J.) Music Cir- cus, just across the Delaware River . . . Charles Evans, scenic designer at Lambertville last sum- mer, has a similar stint this season at Theron Bamberger's Fairmount Park tent theatre* Philadelphia . . Hugh Price Fellows is resident -director at the Kennebunkport (Me.) Playhouse, opening next Monday (30) . . . George Englund, son of film writer Ken Englund and brother of Broadway ingenue Pat Englund, is managing director of the Famous Artists Country Playhouse, Fayetteville, N. Y., opening July 1. Staff of the spot includes Dominie Jesksvich, de- signer; John Fnhrmann, press- agent; Eddie Rissien, stage mana- ger; Nina Lawman, treasurer; Donna Guido, property mistress; Ray Rutan, master carpenter, and Robert Barnes, technician. Paul Crabtree is general manager of this barn as well as the Country Playhouse, East Rochester* N. Y., also serving as managing director of the latter. East Rochester staff includes Daniel Broun, stage man- ager; Joe Chomyn, head tech- nician; Joan Vadeboncoeur, pro- duction assistant; Joan de Keyser, property mistress, and May Jack- son, p.a. Latter is the wife of Matt Jackson, sports editor of the Rochester Times Union, Anne Pearson, daughter of radio- newspaper columnist Leon Pear- son, and niece of Drew Pearson, made her stage debut in the in- genue role in "Come Back, Little Sheba” at Olney (Md.) Theatre last week. Concert singer Susan Jteo<j[.f]te play in summer stock at ChagHfi Falls, Ohio, as guest-star. Her husband, Janies Karen, will have juvenile leads in several produc- tions. Joe Lustig has taken over as pressagent for Sara Stamm’s Casi- no Theatre, Newport, succeeding Peter Glenn, who has gone to Eng- land. The American Legion is pro- testing the scheduled appearances of Larry Parks and Betty Garrett (Mrs. Parks) in a tryout of “The Anonymous Lover” at Guy Palrn- erton’s barns at Worcester and Fitchburg, Mass. The actor, ap- pearing before the House Un- American Activities Committee last year, testified he had'been a Communist but left the party in 1945, and named various Holly- wood personalities who had been members. Palmcrton has ex- pressed a determination not to cancel the bookings ... Uta Hagen, Luther Adler, Herbert Bcrghof, Romney Brent and Paula Law- rence, appearing at Miami in their N. Y. City Center revival of "To* varich,” were such a hit that they were held over this week to star in "The Play's the Thing," under Brent's direction. Roddy McDowall will appear in Philip Barry's "The Youngest," week beginning July 21, at Thcrou Bamberger’s Theatre In The Round, Fairmont Park. Philadelphia. Co- starred .will be JPeggy G V pcr N Strawhat Reviews Ouat Tour BleuiaRf New Hope, pa., June 23. Theron Bamberger production oi com- edy in. three act* (five scenes) by Carl and Dorothy Allertsworth. Star* Albert Dekker; ‘feature* Sara Scegar; directed by Ezra St ope; Bettings, 7ean Lnurein. At Bucks County Playhouse, New Hope, Pa.; June- 23, '52; *3.40 top. Annie, Kudelka Norma Lehn Leo Bialagrudskl ........Jack Klugman Emma Dbtsndoif Ruth White Bespig - Diefcndorf . Sara Seegar Fred Diefcndorf .......... Albert Dekker Nancy Diefcndorf. Judith Licata Jimmie Diefendori... .Josef Seegar Stone Kitty Diefendori Sue Ellen Blake John Gates .James Goodwin Elmer Price Joseph Foley Newton Gates John Shellle George Caldwell Ronald Telfer Hattie Edwards .Fay Sappington Mr. Fiddler Truman Smith Helper Allen Kramer Telephone Lineman., Tom Avera Andy Bowen .John Crowley It seems improbable that a com- edy about the installation of city water —■ and especially indoor toilet^—on a farm outside Cleve- land', in 1912, would be able to keep anyone indoors after the first act, but "Count Your Blessings," which opened a one-week tryout run at Bucks County playhouse here Monday night (23)* not only holds ' the audience ‘ but sends it home happy. New comedy by Carl and Doro- thy Allens wp^th, presented by Playhouse producer Theron Bam- berger* with Ezra Stone directing, features Albert Dekker as a travel- ling paint salesman who has set- tled his family on a farm. As a jingoistic Optimist fired by the successful completion of the Panama Canal, Dekker plays a man determined to give his family the comforts of indoor plumbing if it breaks him. Sara Seegar (Mrs. Ezra Stone) plays Dekker's wife with a stature and solid humor that give the show real body. Ruth White* a fine charac- ter actress, heads a 15-member supporting cast, which includes Fay Sappington, John Shellie, Jo- seph Foley (who is very funny), Norma Lehn and Jack Klugman. Play's success must be attributed to extremely expert, light-handed direction of Stone, who gets ef- fects where least expected—and whose ability to whip a show into presentable shape in only two weeks of rehearsals is highly com- mendable. With work on the first act, where the story line is somewhat obscure, “Count Your Blessings" should move* very happily into a Broad- way niche next fall. It has a bucolic, tum-of-the-century charm that makes it a sort of. "Oklahoma” without music. - Ward . Carmen Jones y « Boston, June 24. * A* Capp presentation Dick Campbell production of musical two acts, with music by Georges Bizi book and lyric. by Oscar Hammerste St * r * Muriel Rahn. Staged by Cam 25 Set T s -' Theodore Sastrom; danc< Sheldon Hoskins; musical direction, J bert Rivett. At Boston Summer Theati Boston, June 23, '52. Carmen Joe Cindy Lou Husky Miller Frankie ,.... Rum Dink Muriel Rahn Luther Saxon Elton Warren ... 'William Dillard . .Theresa Merritte George Fisher ■ Joseph Lewis conceivably be another Broa< revival, this edition of “Cai Jones” retains the vigor and j matured spoofing of its ope counterpart that the original du £tion captured 10 years ag I* Plot revolves, aecddfc ago, around the escap of gals employed in a parac factory, and military personne signed as guards, plus such yertissements^ offered by fistic Husky Miller and his entou musical remains up-to-date therefore good entertainment. Principals Muriel Rahn, 'Ll oaxon, Elton Warren, Audrey terpool, William Dillard Theresa Merritte. majority whom were in the original show to good advantage in th< cal department. Ballet diveri ment in Act Two, with tore* prancing through a hoked fight, is an espeoially st laugh-getter. Miss Rahn is sufficiently 1 boiled to be plausible and S is equally proficient as the ■ Joe. Miss Merritte scores in relatively minor role of Fra while George Fisher (Rum) (Dink) ably sui Dillard s Husky Miller. • Costuming by Grace Hoi and lighting by Elinor Duvey the proper atmosphere. Cu DES KOINES HOUSE SWITCH Des Moines, June 27. The Community Drama Assn, of Des Moines will take over the Tri- States Roosevelt Theatre July 10. Remodeling will start In July, with first day planned for production in Oqtqbqr, ....... Wednesday, June 2 5, 1$5 2 Howard College'* Alabama, drama professor John Aldrich ,* had long planned to give Somerset Maugham's “The Constant wir >1 at his Equity Theatre, Pelican Playhouse, at Panama City Beach fi 6 But the recent Broadway success of the play, and Katharine Corn m subsequent plans to tour with the show next season, balked him N* field wrote Miss Cornell, told her his Equity company was the ni one for miles around, and that Broadway touring companies rar i came that way, Gertrude Maqyof the. Cornell office informed NewfiS! that his arena theatre on the North Florida coast could go ahead w’tk the production, “inasmuch as Panama City Beach is some distance fm any town that we will play/' Pelican players open their 10-we-pV son today (Tues.) with "The Constant Wife,” Group is in its second season, ■ a Theatre de Lys, which William de Lys plans to open in the fall it, the former Hudson Guild Playhouse, Greenwich Village, N. Y., already represents an investment of $32,539. According to an accounting Mav 31 the expenses included $0,047 for office furniture • and equipment $1,809 for technical equipment, $8,120 for theatre building improved ments, $3,000 for reht, ,$100 for electricity, $75. for telephone $300 for sound equipment, $1,000 for a curtain, $485 for seats, $50 incidental items, $787 for prepaid insurance, and $8,882 organization expenses Opening bill at the .spot, scheduled for* Sept. 29, will be a musical version of “Frankie- and Johnny,” written by John Huston in 1932. Nat Karson, who 'withdrew as stageshow producer at the Empire, Leicester Square, London, when the spot changed policy recently,- is currently in Rome, where he may remain indefinitely. .-Mike Sloane, co-producer with Paula Stone (Mrs. Sloane) of “Top Ba- nana,” leaves tomorrow (Thurs.) for the Coast to confer, with adap- tor George Oppeaheimer, song- writers Johnny Burke and Jimmy Van Heusen and director Bretuigne Windust on the Stone-Sloane mu- sical version of "Carnival in Flan- ders” .. .The National, Washington, currently dark, relights July 21- Aug. 2 #ith “Good Nite, Ladies," before getting "Porgy and Bess" for four weeks starting Aug. 4 . . . George Abbott will direct and part- .'ner with Jnle Styne in the produc- tion of "In Any Language" (for- merly "Only Human”), the Ed Be- loin-Henry Garaon comedy about an American actress in'Italy. Re- hearsals are scheduled for Aug. 15, with- a , Broadway opening Oct. 1 after a tryout tour. . Coast producer Gene Mann in New York to negotiate a television deal .. Joseph Fields and Jerome Chodorov will write the book for a musical adaptation of “My Sister Eileen," their 1940-41 dramatiza- tion of the RUth McKenney maga- zine sketches, which Robert Fryer hopes to produce, with George Ab- bott directing... Pressagent Peggy Phillips has authored a- new com- edy, "To Charlie, with Love,” which may be tried out at • the Westport (Conn.) Country Play- house during September, with Wil- liam Gaxton as lead.. .Warren Caro, Theatre Guild-American Theatre Society executive, leaves today (Wed.) on a trip to discuss subscription plans with local rep- resentatives in 10 key cities, with time out for a vacation in Alaska .. . Tony Griswold and Joseph Stevens will present the Dutchess Players (from the Six O’Clock The- atre in New York) for a nine-week season at the Cecilwood Theatre, Fishkill, N. Y., under the direction of Fred Stewart. Ann Sloper is pressagent for the spot.. .Pericles Alexander, amusements editor of the Shreveport, La., Times, and in- die pressagent, has been signed to p.a. state and national coverage for the State Fair Musicals in Dal- las. Paper granted Alexander a 90- day summer leave. Carleton Carpenter, on loan-out from Metro, has been set for the male lead opposite Monica Lewis in ‘the Actors Co. production of "Remaihs to Be Seen” at the La •Jolla (Cal.) Playhouse . . . Dr. Ed- ward W. Borgers, director of the Queens County Playhouse, New York, has been appointed director of the Playhouse of the U. of Kansas City. Dr. Borgers succeeds Dr. John H._ Newfield, recently ap- pointed director of the University Theatre at the U. of Kansas, Law- rence . . . Donald Harrington, di- rector in the drama, school at the P* of Washington, will mark his 100th production with "Ring Around the Moon" at the Play- house, Seattle, Friday (27), Jerome Whyte, Theatre Guild musical production manager and Rodgers & Hammerstein produc- tion aide, was discharged last week from Lenox Hill Hospital, N. Y., after treatment for chronic arthri- tis . . . Peggy Doyle, drama critic of the Boston American, in town last week to catch up on the Broad- way shows. Elliot' Norton, of the Boston Post, on a similar visit the week before . . . Now that her older son’s school term is over, Martha Scott has moved to New York, so she doesn’t have to com- mute from New Haven for her co- starring stint in "Male Animal." But now her husband, bandleader Mcl Powelly> must commute from j New York for his composition and harmony courses at Yale . . . War- ner Watson, production assistant for the Blevins Davfs-Robert Bree* revival of "Porgy and Bess,” out oi the hospital last week after a three- ihonth tussle due to a kickup of an old infection from his GI days Legit-tele actress . Neva Patters** back from a visit to her parents in Elkhart. la. Gertrude M a c y and Walter Starcke, who produced “I Am a Camera", out of the Cornell* McCliptlc office, are taking their own offices for the production of the new John van Druten play "I’ve Got Sixpence." Miss Macy| who will continue as general man- ager for Katharine Cornell, leaves next week for a European vaca- tion . . . Designers David Ffolkes and Stuart Hemingway plan a fall production of Maurice Valen- cy’s "Thracian Horses," which various managements have had un- der option in the. last several years . . . Principal financing for Mike Todd’s musical, "Night in Venice,” the water show and Sunday night concerts at Jones Beach, L. I, is understood being supplied by stock broker Dudley Roberts, Jr. Checks are reportedly being signed by him or Frank Smith, personal manager for Lowell Thomas. Todd’s partner in Thomas-Todd Productions, Inc. Producer Shepard Traube, whose touring edition of "Bell, Book and Candle" is playing through the summer in Chicago, goes to Fire Island, N. Y., this weekend to spend July and August . . . “Le Complexe de Philemon," Jea* Bernard Luc farce which was a Broadway flop last fall, in an adaptation titled "Faithfully Yours," by- L. Bush-Fekete and Mary Helen Fay* is being produced in Leeds, England, two weeks hence under the title, "The Happy Marriage," adapt e’d by John Clements, The cast will include the .adaptor and his wife, Kay Hammond . . . Jed Harris is to stage Arthur Lesser’s proposed production of "Si Je Voulais” ("If You Want”), by Paul Geraldy and Robert Spitzer. The play was origmiflly produced on Broadway in 1924-25 under" the title "She Had to Know,” with Grace George starred . . . Philip Barry, Jr., and Martin Manulis have acquired Richard Condon’s farce, "How to Fly With One Feather,” and will try' it opt week of Aug. 25 at the John Drew Theatre, Easthampton, L. I., with the idea of a Broadway production in the fall . . . Carrol Kyser is the new understudy for Joan Bennett in the Chicago com- pany of "Bel!, Book and Candle. Edward Hunt take^ over as under- study' for the men. Current Road Shows (June 23-July 5) "Bell, Book and Candle” (Joan Bennett, Zachary Scott)— Selwyn, Chicago (23-5). "Cal Me Madam"— Philharmonic, L. A. (23-5). "Good Night Ladles" — Hanna, Sieve. (23-5). , . "Guys and Dolls" — Shubcrt, Chicago (23-5). Tr . "Moon is Blue" (2d Co.)— Harris, *Chi (23-5). T n "Moon is Blue" (Diana Lynn, David Niven) (3d Co.)—La J° ua Playhouse, La Jolla, Cal. (1-5 1 * "Porgy and Bess”— Opera House, Chicago (25-5). c "Song of Norway"— Curran, 5. • (23 ' 5) - * "South Pacific" (Janet Blair, Webb Tilton)—Capitol, Salt Laxe City (23-28); Opera House, b* (30-5). T * "Stalag 17" — Biltmore, L. a* (23-5 L ,