The record-union., 1897-01-03

ed to while he was appearing in The
Masked Ball
| Bronson Howard'S royalties for
| Aristocracy' exceeded $4,000, and be-
| fore the usefulness of The Sporting
Duchess is at an end its authors will
have received from me fully S1OO,0O0.
/ None of the plays l have mentioned
here dates back ten years, and most
of them go back no further than five
years. When this fact his taken into
consideration it Will be seen that the
sliding scale of royalties, particularly
where a play is a great success, makes
the money return that comes to the
author rise quickly into the thousands.
Under the former system the highest
an author could realize from his play,
no matter what the size of it's triumph,
was about $500 a week, and he had to
be an author of repute to do that, for
most of the plays were paid for at the
rate of $40 a night and 50 matinee.
Now it is poor play, indeed, which
will not pay $500 to 5000 a week. l
| have myself paid authors as much as
81, 200 a week in royalties for play
when but a single company was pre-
senting it, and as high as $1,000 week
when two or more companies were ap-
pearing in it, The figures l have given
do not mark the finaEty of their mon
| ey value to their authors, for some of
the plays are still before the public,
drawing good money and good royal
ties
The large sums that / have named
are not the only money that goes into
authors pockets. A manager having
as many theaters and companies as /
have puts money into plays that are
never seen or heard of. l have invested
as much as $4,000 in manuscripts
that have turned out to be of no more
value than their weight as waste pa
per. But the author again loses moth
ing. On the contrary, he is in pocket
and he is at liberty to dispose of his
work in soma other direction if he likes.
"Of course" Mr. Frohman explained
''the terms of which 1 have spoken are
commanded only by the best authors
or, perhaps, it would be better to say
that only the successful and established
authors could CLEAN such enormous roy
alties as those designated There is no
reason, though, why young and new
authors should not reap the same rich
rewards if their work is worthy l am
perfectly willing to-day to give these
terms to any young author whose play
will draw money enough to justify
them"
ice Murphy, the Irish comedian,
comes to the Metropolitan Theater on
the 29th and Both in Kerry Cow and
Shaun Rhue." He is supported ex-
ceedingly we'll this season.
On the 18th and 10Th insts there
comes to the metropolitan Theater Pal
Guiding a long and successful engage
ment in San Francisco. There are
eighty people of the troupe on the stage
The troupe carries an enormous amount
of fine scenery. Mr.. Cox himself will
be here to supervise the production of
The Brownies" There are twelve
elaborate scenes in which a large num-
Der of specialties are introduced, in
rcluding the Brothers Boraru, from the
Paris Hfppodrome, said to be the great
est acrobats in the world the flying
ballat, over which a law suit is now
pending, a shipwreck, an earthquake
scene, a volcanic eruption, and the de-
struction of beautiful palace
On Wednesday evening next at the
Metropolitan Theater the Stanford Uni
versity Glee and Mandolin Clubs will
appear in a concert of unusual variety.