Wheeling Sunday register. [volume] (Wheeling, W. Va.) 1882-1934, 1901-04-07

| cities II ~ counfry over tie Stair
and Hayatn circuit OF theatres. The
company Will number twenty and the
production Will be complete. Mr.. Fcy
during the early summer will I'LL about
six weeks in the leading vaudeville
theatres.
Robert Grau, in construction with
Emanuel Warner, of Richard Warner
& Co.. have engaged Cecilia Lotus
for a summer trip, opening on June
3 for special o~ne-night engagements in
cities that she has not already played
and for three nights in Montreal. Miss
LOTUS will introduce her familiar inn
itations, and will be seen, too, in a
short play, wherein she will be assist
these features there will be shown a
vaudeville bill of very high class, and
the enterprise will all be conducted
on high lines at high prices.
Owing to ill-health James X. Hack
EFT closed his starring tour in The
Pride of Jennico in Cincinnati, O.,
last week, and will rest until next
season, when he reOpens under his
own and R. J.. Citizens management.
During the performance last Tuesday
night, Mr.. Hackett collapsed from an
attack of nervous p~rostration. He rest
ed in Cincinnati, under medical care,
until Friday, when he went to Phila-
delphia to join his wife, Mary Man
nering who is filing an engagement
there. Mr.. Hackett's illness is said to
be due to overwork.
There were two fire scares in two
widely separated theatres on Saturday,
and in eacn case the cause was the
same. At the Walnut street theatre,
Philadelphia, during Mary Mannering's
matinee of Janice Meredith, the skirt
of a woman in the audience caught
fire from a lighted cigarette that 1t
had swept up, and the smell OF smoke
sent the audience into a panic. For
tunately, the blaze was extinguished
before any harm was done, and the
excitement subsidized. At Ashland, KY,
the coat of one of the members OF
Fields MINISTRIES took fire from a stove
on the stage of the opera house. Here
also the audience stampeded, but re-
turned to the theatre when assured
that the fire was out.
Maurice Barrymore is at present an
inmate of the insane pavilion at Belle
vue Hospital, and it is feared his
mind is permanently d%eranged. He
was taken to the hospital last week.
Mr.. Barrymore has frequently show
ed signs of mental collapse of late,
and on Thursday surprised the aud
fence at .Le Lion Palace Music Hall,
where he was playing a vaudeville, by
a scathing denunciation OF theatrical
managers. Later; on his way to his
home at Coytesville, N. j., he created
a scene in the Fort Lee fe~rryhouse.
His family then decided that an exam
nation as to his sanity was necessary.
The sale of seats for the benefit to be
given to Madame ~Janauschek by the
women of the American stage at Wal
lacks Theater on the afternoon OF
April ~, began with a rush at Wal
lacks and by moo the takings amount
ed to 81, 800. There is every indication
that the benefit will be a huge success.
Two of the numbers will be The Queens
Messenger, a new one-act play, pre-
scented by Blanche Bates and Campbell
Gollan, and Richelieu's Strategem, act
ed by ]. E. Dodson, Annie Irish and
Robert Edeson. Viola Allen will make
her last appearance as Glory Quayle in
L he CUIlSCldH, DGluS seen III Cic IHllu
act of that play, supported by E. j..
Morgan and many members of the or
iginal company.
Robert Grau, who has originated so
many ideas, has now brought forth a
new one and has decided to book in
stock companies some of the principal
legitimate players that he has already
made famous in vaudeville. AS he
les to put these people in various
stock companies for brief engagements,
during which they will be supported by
the resident stock organizations, it is a
practical return to the system of tour
ing stars that characterized the So
called "palmy days" Mr.. Grau's first
capture of this sort will be Eliza Proc
tor Otis, whom he has booked to appear
with the Henry V. Donnelly stock COM
pany at the Murray Hill Theater April
1920, and Nancy Sykes in Oliver Twist.
A week later he has contracted for
Rose Caghlan's performance in The
Sporting Duchess, with the Columbia
Theater stock company, in Newark,
N. ].