The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1906-05-27
DRAMATISTS OF FUTURE.

perhaps somewhere amid the hustle
and hustle of New York, is lurking the
man who viii be TO the stage of TWEEN
~ years from now what Clyde Fitch or
Augustus Thomas is to our stage to-
day. His most intimate acquaintance
do not know him as the chTysalis of
great dramdtist; of all the people in
the world only one Suspects it of the
young fellOW-and that one is himself,
says Claiming Pollock in the Chicago
Inter-Ocean. The manager or man
ayers who risk their money and their
regulations on him must be for the
present unaware of the fact that they
are performing the same service for the
pIaygoing public that Carnegie or Nor
gan performs for the art-lOving public
when he buys a great painting and pre-
sents it to Il city.
There are many things. however. that
| this young dTdmatist will be obliged to
| learn before he comes to his own, and.
chief among them, he must learn TO
| learn. We embryonic writer's are ter
ribly willing to entertain the fallacy
| that we are born fully matured- We
are compelled to COnCede that black
smiths and masOns must learn their
! trades, but we feel that the art of writ
/ ing is a thing which comes TO us like
/ breathing, Epictetus said. No great
! thing is brought to perfection suddenly
|
/ If you tell me that you at this minute
must have a fig | will answer you that
/ it requires time The tree must first
/ blossom and bear fruit and then the
/ fruit must ripen. If not even the fruit
! Of a fig tree is created suddenly and in
one hour. do you hope to possess the
/ fruit of the human mind in so short a
( time and without trouble
The idea that theatrical mana gers in
y71eYTea not vgiliIur holm This
fruit in ripening is an unjust one. not
warranted by facts. For ten years 7
have been reading plays for various
firms. and I know that every manu-
script offered to the average producer
is as carefully judged as its merit war
rants. When il is considered how large
a proportion of the pieces submitted
are absolutely worthless. showing
neither talent nor training. 7 marvel
that so much attention is given to this
work Of separating the wheat from the
chaff.
It is always an exceedingly difficult
task to identify a good play. it IS
never in the least difficult to tell
/ bad one. If the method Of describing
| his primal scene does not betray the
/ hopeless amateur. one has only to read
| the first ten pages of his script i'm or
/ der 10 be assured Of the Uselessness Of
/ further peTusGl. Amateurs do not can
not, write acceptable plays. Some
/ newspaper training and an imagination
may be schooling enough for the author
( Of magazine stories, but the man who
produces a dramatic work at all worthy
! of coasidera ton must know so many
/ things about the craft of Shakespeare
/ that it were an endless task to mention
/ tenth Of them. Poets are born or
/ made according to the field they OCCu-
I by. but playWTightS must be born and
[ male. There isn't the least use dwell
/ ing on this fact again, however To the
/ end Of time men and women who
/ wouldn't think Of trying to fashion a
/ frock without serving an apprentice
/ ship with some modiste will go on en-
/ deavOrins to turn out dramas without
/ the least knowledge of how il should
! be done
! Everybody writes plays Two or
/ three months ago an ambitious indi-
| vidUal walked into my Office and an
nounced that he had come from ROch-
/ ester to read me an original tragedy.
1 told him that he should not have gone
10 so much trouble and expense. It
wasn't any trouble or expense he re-
piled. Il had to come any way. I'm a
| conductor on the New York Central"
Theodore Burt Sayre, who did Tom
{ Moore and who is the reader" for Mr..
F'rohman, told me not long ago that his
mCSt persistent visitor was a policeman
/ who had composed a farce in six acts.
He also showed me a letter, the author
of which declared: 4 seen menny plays
that cost a dOler and wasn't one-tU-
tire with my play Every manager
in New York has received a certain
/ Brooklyn shoemaker. who feels certain
that he has produced a, comic opera in
finitely superior to the best efforts of
/ Gilbert and Sullivan. Of the would be
dramatists in the learned professions
I should say that physicians are rarest
as playrights; that journalists provide
the best material, and that CleTgymen
produce the most and the worst.
With so many CindeTelIas attempting
to crowd their feet into the shoes of
PinerO and Jones. there can be no limit
to the number of manuscripts submit
ted to prominent manager each veeI
The general idea, I believe. is that pro-
dUcers are quite buried under piles OF
plays. This is not absolutely true. Such
an office as that of Sam :. and Lee
Shubert, in the Lyric theatre. or OF
Charles B. Dillingham;, in the knicker-
booker theatre building, is the destina-
ton of from six to Ten manuscripts q
day, About a third Of the lot come
from agents. and these invariably re-
| ceive quickest consideration, since the
! "read der knows that IF they We're 11f.
terIy without merit they would no
have been sent him. The crop of round
and fat packages fGctuates with pub
lished conditions. The manager whs
makes money out Of the work of al
unknown author IS sure &c receive fa-
more than his share of manuscript.
] during the next year or two. William
A. Brady got 1000 plays a month from
obscure writer's Immediately after tn,
production of Way Down East"
/
As Narrated by a Survivor.
Chicago TribuueD