Variety (April 1953)

iwarm iAii P$K&lTr “Women,’ ‘Sailers’ Snnuner Tryouts Set for Westport Dennis Bans Jean Dalrymple’s ‘‘Seven Wom- en'* and "Sailors Delight, Law- rence Langner’s adaptation of the French comedy, “La Duchesse d Al- gues,” both slated for possible Broadway production next season, will be tried out at the Westport 4Conn.* Country playhouse this summer. The warm-weather pres- entation of "Women" will be pro- duced by Miss Dalrymple and Gilbert Miller. Latter has the show on his fall production slate. The Laijgner work will be done Initially by Richard Aldrich as the ■preem production at his Cape Playhouse, Dennis, Mass., the week of June 29. It will play Westport the following-week. Comedy is a possibility for production in the fall by the Aldrich-Richard Myers producing team,*in association with the Theatre Guild. Eva Gabor will star in the play at both strawfeatters. “Duchesse" is Constance Coline’s adaptation . of an original English play by Peter Blackmore. Miss Gabor leaves June 1 for the Coast to appear in a TV film. She’s due to return June 15 to start rehearsals of "Sailors." Following her appearance in the play, she leaves for a European vacation. i n Westport Ups Capacity Westport, Conn., April 28. Westport Country Playhouse opens June 15, with Charles Bow- den as producer-director and Rich- ard Skinner as managing director. Other staff assignments include Al- lan Stewart, treasurer; Lorraine Hansberry, assistant treasurer; and E. E. Clive, Jr., stage manager. Production slate at the theatre Includes pre-Broadway tryouts of Jean Dalrymple’s “Seven Women" and Lawrence Langner’s adaptation of the French comedy, “La Duch- esse d'Algues.” “Mayfair 1912," a new version of the Restoration comedy, “School For .Scandal,” with June Havoc starring, is tentatively set" for presentation. Idea of put- ting on “Man and Superman," with Alfred Drake in the lead role, is reportedly cold. Additional 100 seats have been Installed for this year, giving the house a total of 775 seats, with a potential $14,000 gross at $3.90 top. Added seats are in the balcony and* boxes. Aldrich Opening June 29. . Dennis, Mass., April 28. Richard Aldrich will begin the summer season June 29 at his Fal- mouth Playhouse, Coonamesset, Mass. Opening play hasn’t been set. His Cape Playhouse here also opens the same day with a pre- Broadway tryout of Lawrence Langner’s “Sailors Delight." Aldrich’s Cape Cod Music Cir- cus, Hyannis, Mass., also opens June 29 with “Showboat." Allies Sets Staff Stockbridgef, Mass., April 28. June 22 opening has been set by producer - director William Miles for his Berkshire Playhouse here. Season will* run through Sept. 5 with John Codman as business manager, Betty Bunce in charge of the boxoffice, William Roberts as designer and Mary Ward as prob- able pressagent. Barn seats 436 and has a capacity gross of $5,800, with the top re- maining $3. includes David Ford, Alichael Keith, Betty Winsett, Iva Reed, Myles McAleer, Rose Dresser and George Philips. Bep Brown of Providence and Larry Bockius will handle the di- rection. Sunday performances will ring up at 5:20 p.m. Falk to Have Two Barns Worcester, Mass., April 28. Lee Falk will operate the Coun- ty Playhouse in nearby Framing- ham, as well as the Boston Sum- mer Theatre, again this year. Framingham will run from June 16 through Labor Day, and in Bos- ton from the first of July to the middle of September, with a guest- star policy. - _ , Falk recently returned ' from Nassau in the Bahamas, where he conducted an eight-week stock sea- son. Barter Sets ‘G & AT Tour Abingdon, Va., April 28. Six-state tour of Gerald Savory s comedy, “George and Margaret, has been set by the Barter Thea- tre here. Play is the sixth pro- duction to be toured by the Bar- ter players during the current sea- son. Presentation opens in Ash- land, Ky., May 4 and winds up in Clinton, Tenn., May 23. It will also hit towns in Virginia, West Virginia, North Carolina and Mary- land. - The summer season at the Bar- ter Theatre is scheduled to begin June 15 and continue through Sept. 7. A special Drama Festival will be held at the theatre during the Virginia Highlands Festival, Aug. 1-15. Finger Lakes Skeds Dozen Dozen musicals will be offered this summer at the Finger-Lakes Lyric Circus, Skaneateles, N. Y. Productions will include- “Call Ale Madam,” “Gentlemen Prefer Blondes" and “Carousel.” The ini- tial show will be “The Vagabond King,” June 23-28. Other presen- tations scheduled are “Sally," “Student Prince,” “Brigadoon,” “Chocolate Soldier,” “Blossom Time,” “Sweethearts,” “Song of Norway” and “Rose Marie.” The musical tent operation Is currently pitching two season dis- count plans at prospective ticket buyers. Players, Inc., Season Winooski Park, Vt., April 28. Players, Inc., currently in Korea on a USO tour, will perform as the resident company at St. Michael’s Playhouse here for its seventh sea ton opening July 14. Engagement wall mark the third year at the Playhouse for the Players. Group is made up of Catholic U. drama de partment- graduates, headed by Rev. Gilbert H^rtke, O. P. “Dea^Ruth" will be the opening play, with “Harvey" winding • up the season Aug. 22. ‘Sheba’ Preems Westboro Worcester, Mass., April 28. First' of the summer stock the atres to pry open the season wiL be the Red Barn in suburban West- boro. Spot gives its first perform- ance next Tuesday (5), with "Come Back, Little Sheba” as the open- ing bill, with Shirley Matson and Matt Pelto in the leads. ° Sid Sawyer, his wife. Miss Mat- Son; Richard Daniels and Harold Stephenson are the producers., The company signed for th$ Cooler in Rochester Rochester, April 28, Contracts have been signed to air condition the Arena Theatre, the local year-round theatre-in-the- round which will begin it’s third summer season July 3. The $5,- 000 operation cool-off will' begin June I. Arena’s b.o. suffered last sum- mer-one of the town’s hottest on record. ‘Colony’ Sets 13th Season With 62 Performances Greensboro, N. C., April 28. More than 150 persons Will be in "The Lost Colony” company this year, when the symphonic drama by Paul Green begins its 13th sea- son in Waterside Theatre, June 27, on Roanoke Island, off the North Carolina coast. This year there will be 62 per- formances of the drama, a show each night of the week except Mon- day through Sept. 6, for longest season of the drama. Samuel Selden will be super- visory director, with Clifton Brit- ton as associate. Richard C. Jor- dan is general manager and Albert Q. Bell his associate. Current Stock Bills (April 21-May 10) Arms and the Alan — Arena Stage, Washington (27-10). Be Your Age—Arena, Rochester (28-9). Blossom Time—Paper Mill, Mii- burn, N. J. (27-10). Glad Tidings (Sidney Blackmer) —Quarterdeck, Atlantic City (4-9). Happy Time—Quarterdeck, At- lantic City (27-2). Harvey .— Dobbs Ferry (N.. Y.) Playhouse (27-3). Jason (Franchot 'Tone) — Ber- mudian, Hamilton (3-8). Night Must Fall (Johnny Stew- art)—Dobbs Ferry .(N. Y.) Play- house (8-10). Play for Alary (Franchot Tone)— Bermudian, Hamilton (27-1). Producer Kermlt Bloomgarden has taken over as company man- ager of bis revival of "Children s Hour," succeeding Jack Schliss^, who resigned to take bis annual stint as business manager of the Pittsburgh Civic Opera. Tom Powers has taken over as company manager of Bloomgarden s Th Crucible" production, succeeding Sam Haridlesman, who left for ms second season as general manager of Theron Bamberger % P^ousej in-the-Park, Philly • ♦ • Cheryl Crawford has f c ^f du IS d otJaft 0 ^v’a tion next fall of Edward Chodorovs "Oh Men, Oh Women, to be staged by the author. Allan Stevenson is directing an Equity Library Theatre production of “Hobson’s Choice,’ due for presentation May 6-10 at the Lenox Hill Playhouse* N. Y., with Lesley Woods as femme lead . . . .Legii- TV director John Griffin has gone to Toronto to restage his prt>du<> tion of “Lady’s Not for Burning for the Jupiter Repertopr Theatre^ where it was a b.o. click last Feb- ruary ... With the closing next Saturday night (2) of * Male Ani- mal" in Chicago, pressagent Joe Sheat has moved over to Deep Blue Sea,” succeeding Howard Newman. Clarence Derwent awards of two $500 prizes for the best supporting performance of the season will be made May 12, following selection- of the winners by judges Derwent, Brooks Atkinson, Ward Morehouse, Herman Shunuin, Margaret Web- ster and Gilbert Aimer ... “La Carreta,” Puerto Rican comedy by Rene Marques, preems Alay 7-10 at the St. Sebastian Auditorium, N. Y. . . . Rosalind Russell, Robert Fryer, Leonard Bernstein, Joseph Fields, Jerome Chodorov, Betty Comden and Adolph Green, all representing “Wonderful Town," to be Drama Desk guests May 11 at Rosoffs Restaurant, N. Y. . . . Triumph Productions, recently formed by Anna Sosenko, Jay Lurye and Ken- neth Allen, slating “An Evening With Victor Herbert,” a musical addition to the recent rash of dra- matic readings, for Coast produc- tion this summer, with Lionel Barrymore handling a commentary and Dorothy Samoff and Fritai Bcheff as possibilities for singing parts . . Eddie Albert may play the Tom Ewell role in the touring edition of “Seven Year Itch" next season. Rose Goldstein, who recently re- signed as general manager for pro- ducer Jule Styne, is vacationing in Florida for three or four weeks.. - In honor of Gilbert W. Gabriel, drama, music and literary critic who died recently, a fund Is being raised to award an annual prize to the Williams College senior who has made the most outstanding contribution to the advancement of the theatre at the college.-- Bretaigne ’Windust will stage the Broadway edition, of “Murder Mis- taken,” Janet Green’s London mel- ler to bd produced by Edward Choate and George Ross...David Powers, associate to Alarian Byrim and Phyllis Perlman, pressagents of “Wonderful Town” and “Seven Year Itch,” will be p.a. this sum- mer for the Bucks County Play- house,. New Hope, Pa. ... Patricia (Mrs. Philip, Jr.) Barry, ingenue lead in last week’s brief entry, “Pink Elephant,” is a prospect for the femme lead in the touring company of 4 iSeven Year Itch.” Thackeray’s “The Rose and the Ring” will be done May 5 at the Arena Theatre, Cosmopolitan Club, N.Y. The play, being presented by Gertrude Macy and Chandler Cowles for eight performances, is the 30th annual production by the King-Coit Children’s Theatre. “A Girl Can Tell,” new F. Hugh Herbert comedy to be produced on Broadway next fall by Aldrich & Myers, in association with Julius Fleischmann, with the author di- recting, is a three-setter requiring a cast of about a dozen. It will be budgeted at $100,000. without pro- vision for overcall. “Dear Charles," also on the A&M schedule, but fol- lowing “Girl,” will be budgeted at about $60,000-$70,000. Irene Cowan, who was a well- known figure in Pitt radio and lit- tle theatre circles for several years, has returned to Pittsburgh to play the title role in “The Little Wife,” a play she co-authored with Jay Looney, which the Pittsburgh Play- house has selected for its closing production of the 1952-53 season. It opens a four-week lain Alay 23. Billie Burke will tour the east- ern strawhats this summer with “Life With Mother," in which she recently appeared on the Coast. Edward Noll has been set as choreographer for the Civic Light Opera season in Pittsburgh, which o"e‘ns with “Call Me Aladam” June Alariha Graham and her dance company will return to Broadway for a one-week spring season, be-. _ ___ ginning Sunday, May 17, at the Al-j 15. Noil served" in same capacily i m TAcafre, ■ I last season. » n n iv o a n a n a n n ti u d n n a ti « i) d o u o Wednesday^ April 29, 1953 Inside Stuff—Legit Although “Me and Juliet,” the new Rodgers-Hammerstein musical, is a comparatively heavy show, it is by no means the heaviest legit production on record, even excluding spectacles. Its 19,300-pound weight is, for instance, less than those of the current “Wish You Were Here” and the incoming “Can-Can,” both also designed by Jo Atielziner. Fact that the Hanna, Cleveland house where “Juliet” is playing a try- out engagement, had to have backstage reconstruction was not because of undue weight of the show, but because the theatre needed recondi- tioning, having been capable of supporting only 600 pounds per foot of stage depth. Most Broadway theatres are figured able , to support 1^200 pounds per foot of stage depth. Mielziner explains that the weight of a show Is figured according to, the hanging weight. That is, including such scenery, drapes, lighting and occasionally a few. prop items, as are hung from the grid. That normally includes most of the physical production, except costumes and props/ since relatively few scenic pieces and practically no drapes or lights (the latter usually being a heavy item) are set up other than by hanging. Backers of “Men of Distinction," the Chandler Gowles-Martin Gabel production, include Jack Arkin, Dan Amstein and Ben Marden, owners of the Playhouse Theatre, N. Y., $19,500; publicist Monroe Greenthal, $3,000; indie -filgti producer Huntington' Hartford, $3,000; attorney Bertram A. Alayers, $3,000; James Mulvey, president of Samuel Gold- wyn Productions, $1,500; TV producer Max Liebman, $1,500; Hilda S. Kook, wife of Century Lighting head Edward Kook, $1,500; attorney Meyer D. Mermin, $1,125; agent Irving Lazar, $750; actor-director Paul Stewart, $750; souvenir program agent A1 Greenstone, $750; announcer Kenneth RojaeTts, $750; Marian Ruth Crown, wife of Alfred Crown, RKO foreign sales manager, $750; bandleader Ray Bloch, $750; author Arthur Kober, $750, and film exhibitor-distributor Ilya Lopert, $750. production was capitalized at $75,000, with provision for 20% overcall. Sixteen months' after the abrupt demise of the highly-touted Coast musical revue, “My L. A.," a committee of stockholders still is trying to get something out of the wreckage. An unidentified showman-stock- bolder ■reportedly believes enough material can be salvaged from the show to recoup some of the nearly $300,000 lost when the revue folded after three years of preparation and four performances. Show was financed by a public stock sale that amounted to around $175,000. At least another $50,000 was borrowed before the ^curtain went up and the jshow closed' in debt—bow much, no one knows for sure, because the committee hasn’t been able to raise the necessary $1,000 for an audit. The show was promoted, produced and directed by Willy Trenk, now in Vienna. The committee hasn’t heard from him. John Chapman’s Sunday column in the N. Y. Daily News, regularly reprinted in the affiliate Washington Times-Herald and Chicago Trib- une, was held out by the latter paper April 19 on the grounds, be- lieved to have been enunciated by publisher 'Robert R. McCormick himself, that it was “censurable.” Ironic angle of the situation was that, although ostensibly a serious reply to a woman who had written him that she regards “Seven Year Itch” as immoral, the piece was actually a kidding comment on bluenose mentality and censorship in general. Due to a typographical error, the profit on the tour of ‘Call Ale Aladam” through April 11 was incorrectly reported as $2314274 in a tabulation in last week’s issue. The correct figure should have read $131,274. That, plus the $573,412 profit on the Broadway run and the show’s share of the $255,000 film sale, brought the total net to $804,686 as of April 11. There had been $766,875 distributed, leaving a balance of $38,811. Advance ads in Chicago for “New Faces," which opens at the Great Northern there tonight (Wed.), bill Walter P. Chrysler, Jr„ who was a silent partner in the production on Broadway, as the presenter* of the Leonard Sillman revue. Below, in relatively small type, John Murray Anderson is credited as stager and below that the copy spates, “Produced, compiled, assembled and supervised by Air. Sillman.” ASBURY PARK F1LMER TO BE 10-WEEK BARN The showcasing of films at the Savoy Theatre, Asbury Park, N. J., will be cancelled out this summer, with the inauguration of a strawhat policy at the house. Legit opera- tion will be undertaken by John Huntington, manager of the Spa Summer Theatre, Saratoga Springs, N. Y., Theatre, incidentally, be- longs to the Walter Reade chain, which in recent years has occa- sionally brought legit attractions into some of its film houses. The Savoy season will run for 10 .weeks, employing a star policy. Huntington will also continue oper- ating his Saratoga barn. D. C. Met Opera Draws White House, 90G Gross Washington, April 28, President and Mrs. Dwight E. Eisenhower headed a brass-studded audience at the first of a three- night run of the Met Opera -last night (Mon.) at the Loew’s Capi- tol • Theatre. * Met returned to Washington last year after hiatus of over 20 years. Experiment was so successful that pattern was es- tablished, with an extra night add- ed this year. House, scaled from $12 nights and $10 for single matinee, was 90% sold, with take of $90,000 for 3,434-seat house. President and First Lady attended the perform- ance of the “La Boheme” as guests of Loew’s topper Nicholas Sclienck. Equity Shows (April 20-May 3) • Deep Are the Roots—^‘Lenox Hill Playhouse, N. Y. (22-26). Hobson’s Choice ^ Lenox Hill Playhouse, N. Y, - (6-10)* • ■> - » See Ballet Group Tours In Danger Unless Tax . Exempt Ruling Is Set Norristown, Pa., April 28. Tours of dance groups next sea- son have been imperilled by action of the local Internal Revenue of- fice, which ruled recently that a ballet group appearing on th® Community Concerts series was not exempt from ^Federal admis- sion taxes. Office maintained that although Community* which is a non-profit setup, is entitled to ex- emption on its concerts, the word “concerts” in the tax regulation applied only to vocal and Instru- mental talent, and not to dancers ,or ballet, latter being considered as “entertainment” instead, Nor- ristoWn ruling was sustained by D.C. authorities. As result of this, Hyman R. Faine, exec secretary of the Amer- ican Guild of Musical Artists, and Frederick C. Schang, prez of Co- lumbia Artists Mgt. (parent org of Community Concerts), attended a hearing in Washington last week on the matter., asking the author- ities to construe that “concerts” also included the dance. Bureau asked them to have their lawyers prepare briefs to back this up, and a prompt ruling is expected on submission of briefs. Favorable ruling is considered vital to several dance groups (like the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo Concert Co.) that play only Com- munity bookings, as well as new dance attractions preparing to tour next season, such as Sol Hurok's Agnes de Mille Dance Theatre, Co- lumbia’s Americana Album, Ja- cob’s Pillow Dance Festival, etc. If these groups are not tax ex- empt when playing for non-profit organizations (who will comprise most of the bookings), latter won’t book thepfc,.