Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1904-12-24
DRAMA

Toned of gold ratings and pillars, and be-
tween the pillars artisticaly draped in Du
Barry rose. The seating capacity Will num-
Der about fourteen hundred and the exits
provided for this number of people are the
same as are always used when Convention
Hall has its full seating capacity of over hVe
thousand. The building departments asked
Mr. Belasco to provide three aisles, each
five feet wide. He has arranged five aisles,
and has made them seven feet wide.
Back of the footlfghts the alterations are
even more remarkable. Stage, rigging loft,
switchboard, electrical appliances and
dressing rooms are most ingenfously con-
tr1veq. Few theaters can boast as COM
Portable and commodious dressing arrange
ments as have been provided for this week s
engagement from Mrs. Carriers own bou-
| doir to the accommodations for the super
numerarieS.
| VAUDEVILLE AUTHORS ON vAUDE-
| VILE MANAGERS Some interesting opin-
| ions upon the future of vaudeville have been
| obtained from number of the more promi-
| nent actors and artists. Will NJ. Cressy,
whose name is familiar as the author of
many of the best one-act comedies in the
tWice-a-day thea tiers, and who Whole "A Rise
| in Rye" which the Standardization Com
| pany will give at Chase's next week, sug-
gests that to assure the continued pros
perity of vaudeville there should be a kim
| dergarten for managers in which they
should be taught how to put a vaudeville
bill before an audience in pleasing and
| intelligent way. His idea is that too many
managers SHOW want of appreciation of
balance or contrast in bill. He instances
| a vaudeville program of seven acts, contain
ing no less than five dramatic sketches. He
tells of another of nine acts, containing
four sketches and four monologues Such
arrangements, Mr. Cressy considers bad
form, and he contends that there is no
act no matter how pleasing it is, that can
not be ruined completely by placing a con-
ficting act before it.
Milton Mobiles declares that the steady
advancement of vaudeville in the past eight
years indicates, in his judgment, practical
ly limitess possibilities. He thinks that
the passing of the serio-comic and the
gradual elimination of the slap-stick as a
laugh producer are among the most prom
Using signs, though he confesses the slap
stick dies hard. He thinks that Grass il
literacy is another bane Its antidote is
educated stage supervision. Charles Leon
ard Fletcher believes that the future of
vaudeville rests almost entirely in the hands
of the performer, as upon him is the re-
Sponsibility of producing the new ideas. He
thinks the time will come, and very soon
too, when the variety actor of the old
school will be forced out of vaudeville alto
gether. Intelligence, enterprise, application
and refinement he considers qualifications
necessary today to place the performer in
the category of "the survival of the fttest."
Clayton White says he fails to find any
difference between the audiences of vaude-
vile and legitimate theaters. His view Is
that the future depends upon the actors
and managers equally. In his opinion the
time is ripe for thirty-minute comedies. and
he concludes that just so long as the maya
zine of short, popular stories shall be in
vogue that long will vaudeville, with the
intermingling of bright specialties and good
music, popular and profitable.
A FAvoRITE ENTERTAINER Eddie
Foy, the principal comedian in "Pfff. Paff.
ic of CT
of the present day. He was born in Chi
cago, and when child played circus
clown TO entertain his schoolmates. Early
in his stage career he played over a greater
portion of the west, and mostly in 'grotesque