The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1904-12-03
CROP SHORTAGE.
Yield of Chorus Girls Is Small
This Season.
Styles Have Changed and Chorus
Personals Must Also.
THE BLONDES MUST GO
Black and Brown Hair Now the
Fashion.
The West Is Looked to to Furn.
ish Material.


Is not often that a crop report comes
out OF the west laden with such sig
nifcance as that from Chicago the other
day, conveying the intelligence of
shortage in the supply of chorus girls.
Broadway was touched by it, and when
Broadway is affected New York is af-
fected, and when New York, why, of
course, the world.
The portentous news was to the ef-
feet that the producers of musical COM
edies in Chicago-and Chicago has
grown lately to be a chief source of this
sort of dramatic product-have this
season been put to much and unusual
trouble to fill the stages with girls of
the physical endoWmentS required of
the present taste in such matters. Just
how the deficiency in raw material
should be accounted for, the managers
by no means are able to conjecture.
But there it is.
Within the past two seasons most of
the choruses in musical comedies have
been recruited largely from the west.
This was due to two things. In the
first place, to repeat, Chicago has been
producing many musical comedies. 1t
has come to be recognized as the home
of certain sort of musical comedy,
just as London is the home of another
sort. The difference between Three
Little Maids and THE Tenderfoot'
could be between plays of the same
general description; and the one could
not possibly have been more typical or
atmospheric than the other.
There has come, then, series of
these productions, bringing to New
York phalanxes of fresh beauties of the
vigorous western makeup You have
only to think of THE Prince of Pill
SEN" Peggy From Paris,' THE Sui
tan of Sulu,'' The Maid and the Mum
my The Royal Chef and others to
recall that there was a sort of distinc-
tive comeliness in the arrays of chorus
fv-I- fn6 tF1n oor<l-
BILE taste in the book of THE Chef,
for particular example, and all the ex-
cruciating blatancy of the score, could
not dull our SensibilitieS to the pres
ence of a chorus the prettiest and fresh
est seen in this town in many a sea
son And they were enlisted, every one
of them, in Chicago.
But not only the Chicago plays got
their choruseS outside of New York. |
The Shuberts last season decided they |
did not want New York girls for their |
musical plays, and they even went so
far as to establish recruiting agencies
in cities Of the smaller class, some of
them in New York state, it is true, but
mostly in the middle west. So it hap
pened that most of the faces long IA
miliar in the front rows before the
footlights of New York theaters have |
disappeared; and if that mere state |
ment covers many a little tragedy 1t Is !
only another proof of the price that |
somebody must pay for the entertain |
ment of the world.
Ihere mas taken place a OeclOSQ
change in the style of girl that is want |
ed before the footlights. Big blondes
are almost out of it now; and if we
could but know how many a light of
other nights of glory now sits weeping |
in her hall bedroom while she waits for
her hair to resume its long forgotten
chestnut or raven hue!
The age limit has in the past year |
dropped in a way to give many cor |
seted heart the wallops. One Chicago |
manager has made it an iron rule that |
no girl who has more than one years |
experience in chorus work elsewhere /
can secure a place in his companies; /
another has set an age limit of p years, |
which he keeps to as closely as posi- |
BILE; and it is well known that in THE |
Royal Chef'-which is referred to so
frequently here only because it had an
excellent and typically western chorus
there was but one girl who was past
"a and she held her place only by rea-
son of her abilities as an actress.
1t has been noted with almost an
invidiOus perSistency in the public |
prints and the mouths of the idle that
the career of the chorus girl is short.
Questionable jokes have been made
upon her fondness for fine raiment and
her adaptability to ninety horsepower
auto cars. Her fluffy hair has figured
in thousands of smart paragraphs.
Her conversation has filled the purses
of ungrateful humorists. There is
need for warm words in her defense,
for she is, or should be, a subject for
sympathetic rather than sarcastic
comment.
If one were but a ViIlon to indite a
ballad of pity for the choruses of yes
ter-year! And now to think that
while the rest of the world is per-
mitted to grow old in the long-sanc-
toned way, she, alasi must not only
stop having more birthdays. but must
recall some of those she has had-not
only cease growing old, but grow
younger to suit the rules of the trag-
ically commercial managerl
To return to the western product:
there is another reason still why the |
girls from Minnesota and Michigan
are popular with the stage directors.
They are usually active and eager in L
their work; they enter into the drill
ing with enthusiasm; they find a good