New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1897-11-26
A JONAH BY ANY OTHER NAME.
HOW BRAVE MANAGER HAS GIVEN THE
RIGHT TITLE TO HOUSE OF
MANY WRONG ONES

The theatre on the West side OF Broadway be-
tween Twenty elghth and Twenty ninth SITS which
~ not the Fifth Avenue Theatre. has at last a
frank, candid honest and fearless man for its
manager He is not afraid to call spade a spade,
and to say publicly what every manager who ever
had the theatre said privately. This shall appear
later 1t has been the custom to make some note
In these columns whenever this theatre changed It's
name The formality may have been omitted now
and then, when the name did not stay attached to
the house long enough for anybody to find 1t out,
but the omission has never been Intentional.
The house built for Birch. Wambold & Back
us's San Francisco Mnstrels and 1t was known at
FIRST simply as the San Francisco Minstrels. Some
what later It's name changed 10 the Gaioty
Theatre This simple and pretty name has shown
tendency to break out at intervals all through
its career. Lew" Dockstader took hold OF it, with
his own Ministries as the attraction. and the name
Of the place was Dockstader's Theatre. II kept
this title for a surprisingly long time. II was
Changed. after while for that Of the New Gaiety
ne gloom that hung over the house by giving it
ms Dright name Just as the Greeks called the
le1t wing or their army by pleasant title 10 avert
me superstious dislike Of the soldiers for lighting
Alexander Hermann took the theatre and kept it
80 long that many OF the present theatrical genera
Herrmann's Theatre. But Hermann gave II up,
a9d by ana 6y somebody happened 10 be in charge
called 1t st. Jamess Hall. so he called it that But
a subsequent manager did not agree with him. He
have It as the Z" Gaety Theatre and it was
known by that name; or, rather. that was the
name by which 1t continued TO be unknown Then.
for just little while. It bore the title OF the Bon
Ton Theatre. This was speedily changed 10 the
Savoy Theatre, and that title It kept for some
months
It is more than likely that some Of the names
this house has borne have been omitted from this
list. 1t Is not easy make a complete list OF
them. as anybody who had not tried might think
The office boys who were set yesterday to search
ing the files OF the paper for the advertisements
of the house complained that they working
too hard for holiday. and they may have missed
q few. And then the house has been managed
sometimes by men whose capital did not permit
them to do any advertising beyond two or three
posters around the door. Naturally enough. these
posters have now disappeared and there Is no way
TO tell what names the house bore at such times
except just to remember. and memory is a treach-
erous historian at best
BY all these names the theatre has been what
actors call q Jonah house. The term needs no ex.
PLANTATION II may merely be added. by way OF
emphasis. that this theatre is probably the most
notorious Jonah that this broad land con-
tains. And now IL has manager who sees the
OF all the novces at nomenclature that have
passed away before him. He has named the house
to suit himself and Il is the Jonah Theatre
He deserves to succeed, for his courage and his
honest truth.