The Birmingham age-herald., 1907-06-10
LURE OF VAUDEVILLE
J. D. H. in the Pittsburg Post.

J. D. H. in the Pittsburg Post
 N T the present time there is nc V end of discussion relative to the I good, bad and indifferent in vau- deville. The prominence of the subject is largely due to the rivalry that is now going on in various cities between the two largest firms of managers in the theat- r,eal business. The cost of the various bills that are being presented in the the- atres located in cities where contests are being waged is astonishing, for hardly one will fall below total of s6oOo a week. and from that they run close to 5000 It is not unusual to know that on a single programme there are indi- vidual acts that get as high as sS5oo week, and that for no more than three quarters of an hour actual work day, or little more than twenty minutes each afternoon and each evening.
 When the management of vaudeville paid it's first performer s10oo a week, the fact was heralded all over the country, and it was thought that the high water mark of extravagance had been reached. Now such salary Is encountered so fre- uuently that 1t occasions little comment. The vaudevillians who are drawing s50o and $500 a week are as common as stroll ling players along Broadway at this sea- son of the year.
 It would strike the unpreJudiced opserv- CT that this is the harvest time of the vaudevillian, and that he is making his hay while the sun of managerial extrav- agance is shining. Just think of med iocre singer, who would not actually be worth more than $2O0 and a maid a week in regular production, getting 5000 a week for singing three songs! Imagine another singer. who never in her life got more than $500, drawing s6oo to $500 from the paymaster each Saturday night!
 Then again there is the mono1ogist, the chap who comes to the center of the stage and tells stories someone else has writ ten for him, and who works twenty min utes twice day and at the end of the week gets nice fat wad that totals up anywhere from $500 to 800. The man on the outside may declare that the player who receives these large sums Is getting that which he does not deserve, but that is open to argument
 Many of these high-priced people, most of them in fact have a certain and a large clientele. They draw to the theatre hundreds and hundreds of people each week who might not otherwise go. They have a well defined personality, flash of definite sort of talent that is bound to please some portion of an audience and that is the main effort and aim of vaude- vile, to give bill that is so varied that everyone will feel that he has been given a quid pro quo for what he has paid
 For instance. I know one blackface team that Is well worth what they re- ceive, although they have been doing one act almost uninterruptedly for fifteen years. Personally I know every joke; I know every movement, and every express sion, and yet I never fail to go and see them and to laugh at what they say and do. There are monologists who have hard ly varied their batter in five years, and yet they draw people to the theatre just because their stuff is well known. Those who pay their money to hear such men would resent the elimination of the good old sure fire" stuff and the substitution of that which had never been heard be- fore.
 It frequently happens that some legiti- mate star is paid an enormous salary for a few weeks in vaudeville. The aved age person can't understand why the management of mixed-bills theatres will be apparently so foolish as to waste money by paying as high as szoo for each performance of a twenty-five minute play let Those on the inside understand that it is one form of advertising. In the first place the presence of a star of the legitimate in vaudeville bill will bring into the theatre many people who have never been there before. The entrtain- ment will be novel, 1t will be varied and