The Birmingham age-herald., 1902-09-07
GOSSIP OF THE THEATRES
Curtain Rolls Up on Six New Plays at Metropolitan
 Theares-Return of Fsvorites from Sea and Shore
BY ALoNzo NEWCOMER.

- EW YORK, September 6.-Dra-
 matic productions are to the H v general public nothing more nor less than pleasure; to many hundreds an industry affordlng labor and profit to many. and the opportunities for fortune making to a few. Millions are paid in at the box office window and millions are paid out to landlords, playwrights. actors and stage mechanics. Last seasons won- derful records. stimulate the hope of a still more profitable season. To that end managers are working and the dramatic wares they propose offering their custo- mers are. they believe. attractive. Actors return from abroad, from sea and shore to take up their winters work and the renovator turns over to landlords elegant ly appointed temples of the drama.
 MT. John Drew, on Thursday evening. produced a new play, and like nearly all his media as a Frohman star, 1t is an im- portation from London. In Rosemary" "The Liars," "The Bauble Shop" and other English plays MT. Drew won suc- cess in roles written for Sir Charles Wyndham, and in ''The Mummy and the Humming Bird he will have one more chance to do the same thing. This oddly named comedy was produced by Sir Charles almost year ago. and it reached the mark of 100 performances. It's title role refers to a self-centered scientist, the mummy, and his disregard for his friyol- ous wife, the humming bird, whom he loves, nevertheless. MT. Drew and Mar garet Dale will undertake these parts. As the wife was written for Lena Ash we'll as an immediate successor to her triumph as Mrs Dane in Mrs. Danes Defence, Miss Dale will probably have a good opportunity to establish herself in public favor in her first attempt to fill the place in which Maude Adams became famous. An odd character of a street organ grinder was taken by Lionel Bar rymore. and Guy Standing played the vil- lain. Marie Derickson had the part writ ten for Mary Moore. Although foreign in scenes. subject and originally acted abroad, The Mummy and the Running Bird was written by an American Isaac Henderson.
 A local American play, Mrs. Jack" was presented at Wallacks on Tuesday evening. It is by Grace Livingston Fur miss, who coliaborated with the late Abby Sage Richardson in writing "A Colonial Girr' and Americans at Home" and In dramatizing The Pride of oennico." In this case she has written a role said to be eminently suited to Alice Fischer. Mrs Jack Banastar lived with her husband only six months, but when he died three years later he left all his money to her. This is where the play starts, and its three acts in New York and Greenwich take the lively widow through troubles serious and laughable. Mrs. Thorndyke Boucicault played Mrs. Jackis snobbish sister-in-law and Edward s. Abeles her brother-in-law, who tries to win her and so keep the money in the family. Others in the cast are Alice Leigh, Charles N. | Collins, James Carew, Jacques Kruger, 1 Thomas Evans, Myrtle Vinson, Florence 1 Lloyd, Anne Huntington, George Fox, E. L. Clark and Mary E. Post. Henry B. 1 Harris promises a handsome production and has engaged enough time at Wal lacks to give the play a good run if the public cares for it.
 Klaw & Erlanger have again been suc- cessful it is almost sure, in getting l burlesque that exhibits the Rogers Bro- thers advantageously. "The Rogers Bro- | thers in Harvard" which comes to the | Knickerbocker, is by John J. McNally, | who has fitted these men in all their star | parts. Like his other extravaganzas for them, it seems to be more or less plot | vaudeville specialties. The first of the 1 three acts is at Claremont, the second on | the Harvard campus and the third in the 1 Eden Musee. J. Cheever Goodwin has written words to songs set to music by