Los Angeles herald., 1908-05-24
OBSERVATIONS BY
A FIRST NIGHTER

nLANs are being made for the
opening in Los Angeles next fall
Il of what is promised to be the best
equipped dramatic school west of Chi
cago. The entire top floor of the Ma
jestic Theater building is to be de-
voted to this purpose and it is more
than probable that James Neill. his
wife. Edythe Chapman Neill, and Pho
sa McAllister Duffield will be assoc
ciated at the head of the faculty.
Preliminary plans were discussed by
Mr.. Neill and oliver Morsco last week
The school is to provide instruction m
the various branches of dramatic art
in music, stage dancing, fencing, ETC.
1t is to make monthly productions OF
plays, musical comedies and operas
on the Majestic theater stage, carrying
out on a larger and more elaborate
scale many of the ideas already en-
ployed by Mrs. Duffield in her man
agement of the present Burbank school
of Dramatic Art, in the Burbank Thea
ter building.
The instruction rooms, reception
rooms, assembly halls and other apart
ments will be lavishly furnished, the
arrangement being patterned after that
in one of the largest and most success
full dramatic schools of the east. Inc
local institution, however, Will merit
a somewhat more extensive deslgna-
ton than that of school 1t VIII be
in effect, a theatrical college, made up
of several schools, each offering in
struction in it's own particular branch.
Cliff Gordon, whose German sena-
tor" monologue at the Orpheum last
week was the laughing hit of the DILL
quoted Shakespeare to me the other
II. had witt
day when l asked him VINO hau WIFI
ten his speech"
""rhe plays the thing isn't it?" he
oueried. Shakespeare knew what he
was about when he wrote that. There's
q little something In personality, Out
it's chiefly the stuff you give the au-
die1ce that spells success or failure:
Now this speech of mine. | didn't
write it myself. Few vaudeville PEG.
pie do write their own stuff, though
many of them take the credit for 1t:
1t was written by Aaron Hoffman OF
New York, who writes all my acts, and
whom l put into the business. He's
paid me back for that, though. as l
really believe 1 owe most of my sue
cess to him.
when l first met Hoffman he was
a stenographer in Chicago. He looked
me up in my hotel and asked about
placing monologue he had written. l
read it over and it sounded good. So l
took him to New York and had him
write some stuff for me as starter.
The talk made good. Then he began
turning out stuff for other people. Re-
Gently he wrote The Rogers Brothers
in Panama for Max and Gus Rogers,
and Playing the Ponies for York and
Adams.
1.-The trouble with a monologue is just
this: AS soon as it is written you
have to begin rewriting it.. The life OF
a monologue is exceedingly short. 1t
must concern itself with live topics and
it must treat them in live way. That's
half the secret of success, and that's
where Hoffman comes in. After he
writes anything for me, he keeps add
ing TO it new topics, viewed from new
angles; whatever happens to be in the
public mind. The last stuff | got from
him had to do with the presidents final
message to congress and with the fleet.
Then, of course there's the presidential
campaign stuff, that has to be revised
as fast as the presidential situation de-
velops new features"