Variety (December 1912)

VARIETY ||4 THEATRES BUILDING IN A ND AROU ND CHICAGO 0. L. Hall Gathers Statistics on New Theatrical Opera- tions in Windy town. 100 Intended for Pop Vaude- ville and Pictures. Much Money Represented. Chicago, Dec. 4. 0. L. Hall, dramatic editor of the Journal, who is up on the statistics of theatres in Chicago, has discovered that there are now under construction in Chicago just 114 theatres. They will have a seating capacity of about 70,000, which will make a playhouse for each 3,000 people or thereabouts in Chicago. The cost of these theatres will be over $2,000,000. There are forty pic- ture houses in the list which will cost from $25,000 to $30,000, and sixty which will cost in the neighborhood of $10,000. TOO SMALL FOR TRUNKS. New Orleans, Dec. 4. New Orleans boasts a small time the- atre with the smallest of small stages. Artists carrying trunks are not booked as they (the trunks) interfere with the scenery. A plain, ordinary pebble is used for a set rock. Last week a hand-balancing act play- ed the house, and the management was compelled to remove the skylight in order that the top-mounter might ex- tend himself. RITCHIE TURNING THEM AWAY. San Francisco, Dec. 4. As a result of his win over Ad Wol- gast Thanksgiving Day, Willie Ritchie is filling an engagement at the Em- press this week. $1,500 is said to be his salary. Ritchie is extremely popu- lar here, and the Empress is doing a turnaway business. TOMMY QUIGLEY WEDS. Chicago, Dec. 4. Thomas J. Quigley, manager for M. Witmark & Co., was married Nov. 27 to Elnora Fowler Robnett at Crown Point, Ind. The wedding was a sur- prise to the theatrical colony and was something in the nature of an elope- ment. Mr. and Mrs. Quigley will make their home at the La Salle Hotel. PUBILLONES IN HAVANA. The Pubillones Circus, which has been several months in the "jungle" of Cuba, came into Havana this week, opening at the Payret theatre. It will remain under that ■ roof for a month at least. Several American turns joined for the engagement in the city, among the number being Charlie Rob- bins, son of Frank Robbins, the circus proprietor of Jersey City. Young Rob- bins has a high school act and a jump- ing horse. Plimmer. The house is under the management of O. H. Stacey, of the Knickerbocker Athletic Club, this city. It has seating capacity for 1,- 600. Six acts and two reels of moving pictures will be given three times a day. Mr. Plimmer returned from a trip upstate this week bringing with him contrac.s for four new booking con- nections. They are the Majestic, Troy and three Proctor's (not F. F. Proc- tor) houses located in North Troy, Mechanicsville and Saratoga. WILLIAMS IN TOWN. Percy G. Williams has closed up his country home at East I slip, Long Island, and moved into town for the winter. He has engaged an apartment at the Knickerbocker Hotel. The holes in his private golf links are plugged up. but as soon as the ice melts he will return to East Islip, if not before. ACROBAT KILLED. Mail advices from Europe this week stated that Stelling, of Stelling and Re- vell, was killed Nov. 18 at the Melini theatre, Hanover, by breaking his neck while at practice on the stage of the theatre. Stelling and Revell were English ac- robats, who had appeared over here. THE BERNHARDT SHOW. The Mme. Bernhardt road show, un- der the direction of Martin Beck, which plays the Majestic, Chicago, next week, will be made up of six acts and pictures. The running order of the acts is as follows: McMahon, Diamond and Clemence, Josie Heather, Saranof, "And They Lived Happy Ever After," Charles and Fanny Van, Mme. Bern- hardt, pictures. POP IN ALBANY'S COLONIAL. Albany, N. Y., Dec. 4. The new Colonial, built at a cost of $100,000, starts Dec. 23 with a policy pf pop vaudeville booked by Walter DELAY ON MT. MORRIS. There has been some delay in the completion of the new Mt. Morris the- atre, at Fifth avenue and 116th street, due for opening Dec. 1. It is being erected by the Ancient Order of Hi- bernians for Manager Edelstein, who is financed in the enterprise by Max Kobre, a wealthy Canal street banker. The Hibernian society is allowing the lessee $72 a day during the delay in construction, with the expectation that the house will be ready for occu- pancy Jan. 1. The lease is for sixty years at an annual rental of $35,000, plus taxes and insurance after the first five years. The theatre has a seating capacity of 1,600, made up of orchestra and two bal- conies. CONSOLIDATED SEPARATES. The Consolidated Booking Offices separated this week, when M. R. Sheedy, one of the circuits formerly booking through the agency, removed to his former suite at 1402 Broadway. Cunningham & Fluegelman and Moss & Brill remain in the offices at tne Fitzgerald Building, continuing under the agency name of the Consolidated. They also have a working understand- ing with the Miles Circuit, although C. H. Miles has resigned as president of the Consolidated. Mr. Miles will make it his New York address, but centre his booking activities with Walter Keefe's Theatre Booking Corporation in Chicago, as he has done for several seasons. The parting between the principal circuits of the Consolidated has been long predicted as a certainty. There was a wide dissimilarity in methods of operating between the several booking men that indicated a break from the outset. The circuits booked greatly differed in character and complexion of programs, with some of the Con- solidated houses in sections without active competition while other houses located in large cities had keen oppo- sition. This led to a condition where the prices for acts could not always be mutually agreed upon between the re- spective circuits. The Moss & Brill-Cunningham & Fluegelman Circuits, which have stead- ily remained together as a unit on booking, will place two new houses of the Moss & Brill firm on their books later in the month. The Jefferson on East 14th street, is expected to open Dec. 21, with the Hamilton at 146th street and Broadway, due to start the second half of the same week, the two houses "splitting." This will give the Moss-Fluegelman association six large big small time theatres in Greater New York, with a couple of more in view for the spring. The Sheedy Circuit has from fifteen to twenty houses on its books, from Boston through New England. The new Boland theatre at Taunton, Mass., opening Jan. 1, will be a Sheedy-book- ed house. It seats 1,200. At the separation Monday, each cir- cuit claimed the booking for the new Lenox theaftre, which was to have given its first show yesterday. The house is situated at Lenox avenue and 111th street, managed by Punch & Tanzman. Ben Piermont, for some time a book- er in the Sheedy office, will enter the Consolidated agency within a short time, in sole charge of the Moss & Brill and Cunningham & Fluegelman sheets. James Sheedy remains with his father. McGIVENEY IN A PLAY. Owen McGivcney, now on the Or- phcum time, will be seen in a new play ny Cosmo Hamilton, author of "The Blindness of Virtue." McGiveney plays New York vaude- ville early next fall and then follows up with his debut in America in a protean play. NEW BUILDINGS. Reports of new building operations in »New York and the east generally continue to show great activity, espe- cially in the construction of the smaller picture houses. This week shows new projects involving almost $200,000 in this style of construction. Samuel Augenblick & Co. is having plans prepared by W. B. Levitan, 20 West 31st street, for a two-story mov- ing picture theatre at Second avenue and 8th street, the cost to be $20,000. The Kerlock Realty & Construction Co., 63 Park Row, proposes to build at Amsterdam avenue and 180th street a one-story picture house and stores at a cost of $12,000. The house will be 100 by 50 feet in the ground plan. The Bronx is to have a new one likewise. Goldner & Goldberg, 391 East 149th street, are taking bids on a $30,000 structure to be put up on the north side of 180th street east of Daly avenue. Joseph L. Feibleman, 738 Broad street, Newark, has let contracts for the construction of an $18,000 one- story building to house a moving pic- ture show at Bloomfield and Summer avenues, Newark, N. J. Plans have been filed for the follow- ing picture houses, previously an- nounced in Varmtt: C. B. Brun, Manhattan, $10,000. E. S. Teven, Bronx, $8,000. Jos. ComrJo, Bronx, $2,000. Wheeling, Dec. 4. Plans have been announced for the construction here of a $250,000 the- atre at 14th and Market streets, a site now covered by the Bijou lunch room, Orpheum theatre and Ungerleider cafe. F. H. Lange, who owns the property, is one of the theatre pro- moters. Others interested are Lou Gutman, Samuel Ungerleider, Claude Rogers and D. C. Kurner. The old Orpheum and other build- ings on the property will be torn down next May. Pop vaudeville from the United Booking Offices is given as the policy. Quite recently Marcus Loew visited this city. Local capital is behind the new the- atre to be built on Fourth street, Union Hill. When completed it will scat 1,- 200. No policy has been determined. The two young men behind the project will choose between stock and vaude- ville. Work on the foundation starts Jan. 1. Chicago, Dec. 4. Last week it was announced the old Lincoln theatre in North Clark street would be remodelled and im- proved at a cost of $25,000. A permit has been granted for a $40,000 hmisp at Kimbark avenue, north of East 63d street, and another one for a $20,000 house at 813-815 West Taylor street. The report of the wedding Sept. 9 last, of June Tmes, as printed in Variety- £Jqv. 22, was correct. I AM Making a Speech At Every Performance THEUnion Square week Adeline Francis The Graphophone Girl