The sun. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1833-1916, 1906-08-05
MORE CHILDREN ON The STAGE
LARGE NUMBERS EMPLOYED IN
SPECTACULAR SHOWS.

A Phase OF tho Popular Taste That Has
Been Manifesting Itself in h Last
? Few Years MOT Many OF the Children
AfterVard Become Professional Actors.
The ohildren's dramatic booking office
10 q busy place Just low, for rehearsals are
in progress for a spectacular production OF
one Of Shakespeare's plays which will en-
ploy 100 children. This 10 probably the
largest number Of children ever used In
one play, and is one OF many eigns hat the
public likes to see children on the stage.
'Ben-Hur,' some ten years ago, with fifty
children, and "The Sorrows OF Satan with
fifty or sixty, we're about the first plays to
employ extra children In large numbers.
"Humpty Dumpty" had eighty. Beauty
and the Beast fifty, 'The White Cat
seventy.five.
With the steady increase has come an
agency devoted to the booking Of children
alone. 1t Is run by a woman; a kind faced.
motherly woman, who has children OF her
own and looks after her charges carefully.
Very few OF them are children Of actors
and actresses who are playing, although
q few belong to players who for one reason
or another have left the stage. Most OF
them are the children Of very poor people
who really need the money.
= Among the 100 children for the Shake
epeare play are five from one family, In
which the father is dead. Their salaries COM
bined will keep the family in comfort, and
the work is not hard. 1t is very seldom that
q play keeps the children on until the last
act. They are usually at home and in bed
before the play is over; and there is practi-
oally no labor In the performance.
These extra children never travel when
q big production Of this kind goes on the
road-the agent goes ahead and gathers
extra children in each city. Her method is
to 20 to the principals of schools, tell them
what she wants and invite them to send to
her any strong, healthy children who are
able to take part in the performance out
side Of school hours without injury. and who
need tho money. She always gets five or
six times as many as che needs, and at the
first rehearsal sits them out. In New
York she sometimes goes to amateur en-
tertainments, school exercises n the like.
looking for good material.
A hundred extra children In a bunch
is about as pretty a sight as can be imagined,
for they are always chosen for their grace
and beauty. They never seem TO get their
heads turned, nor to develop stage fever.
In fact, they take the rehearsals as the
English are said to take their pleasures. The
necessary discipline is naturally irksome
10 children, and they must keep still, both
as to tongues and feet.
Children are far more easy to train than
adult extras. They are more pliable, far
less s~elf-conscious. The managers only
object isto get them simplyto be themselves
on the stage, when they are sure to make a
hit. Very few of these extra children
remain upon the stage.
Extra children receive IS a week. When
they are capable of taking parts they get
$25 or S35 q week or more. Children
IN parts lave increased as much az in the
infants in Peter Pan, Mrs. Wigs Of the
Cabbage Patch" "The Primo Chap and
other productions are fresh in the public
mind.
Patch" we're from one family and all had
been extras. The mother Of one of the
Cabbage Patch children was employed
to travel with the production for the purpose
Of caring for the children. The youngsters
finished the season healthy n happy. and
without a days illness.
The five children in Peter Pam had none
Of them been extras. All started with parts.
The two little girls in THE Prince Chap
were coached for their parts by the chill
dren's booking agent.
It is a lriou thing that a child actor
almost always does we'll. There are no
sticks among them. But the charming
children Of the stage are seldom heard OF
afterward. The exquisite naturalness which
makes them delightful all disappears as they
leave the realm Of childhood, and they
have to learn all over again how to be a
grown up actor.