The Birmingham age-herald., 1910-10-02

 personates a regular officer who was the hero of the march to Pekin. In the action of the play he is called upon to live up to the hero's reputation for daring and bravery.
 This is the fourth time that "The Round Up" has played Boston. The present run Is at the Boston theatre. The show opened Labor Day, playing to $4700 on that day. The receipts for the first week were $18,385. Quoting figures is not exactly dramatic news but it shows how the American public will support a show when theatre goers find one that they like.
 One of the seasons chief offerings at the Jefferson will be the two-act musical comedy, "The Soul Kiss, which brings out the services of a large force of funmakers, singers and dancers, numbering in all cast of 60 people. The comedy has distinct plot and -abounds in many comic scenes and colorful stage views.
 | John Cort signed contracts last week whereby he obtains control of the Broad way theatre and the Tabor Grand Opera house, Denver, Col, for a period of ten Il years, from Peter McCourt, who has for many years been in possession of those | theatres. The arrangement also gives | MT. Cort control of the bookings of the theatres which go to form the Silver | circuit
 With the exception of the Mason Opera house. Los Angeles, Cal, the Salt Lake theatre, Salt Lake City, Utah, and the | Columbia theatre in San Francisco, John Cort now controls all theatres playing travelling companies in North Dakota | O.. I< -I- ington, British Columbia, Oregon, Cali fornia, New Mexico Nevada, Idaho Utah, Wyoming and Colorado. In addi- ton he has theatrical holdings In Iowa and Illinois affecting 22 theatres. Learning to Be Playwright | It is not generally known that many | of the modern and successful American dramatists, who were newspaper men be- fore they dropped that job to become writers of plays took a course on the stage to learn the workings of 1t and the practical technique of the region be- | hind the scenes.
 | When George Ade was writing Stories of the Street and Town for the Chicago Record Herald, he used to occasionally appear in one of the Henderson extrava- ganzas as a super, to the great joy of George Bowles, and later took trip | material and absorb atmosphere. When John T. McCutcheon was in the Philip pines, first with Dewey and later with Lawton, Ade took the trip to Luzon to 1 see his chum, and on his return wrote | "The Sultan of Sufu.'
 Eugene Walter, after a successful war on the cadets of the coast, joined a trav- | cling show as property man at '20 per" What Walter don't know about the | d IL aAef Nf | "props'' isn't worth knowing.
 l For a time, the brilliant Charming Pollock, used to lead the mob in Pretty Peggy" and later appeared as a super fin "The Three Rosebuds," at the same time he was handing out stuff to the papers telling what a great show he was with.
 John T. McNally dined on the sacred cod, worked on the Boston Herald, haunt ed the stage of the Fremont theatre, and finally started writing musical plays for the Rogers Brothers.
 Winchel Smith, author of ''The Fortune Hunter" familiarly known as Billy is another brilliant writer from the land | of the wooden nutmeg. He used to work on the Hartford Courant.
 l Smith wandered to that den of iniquity on Manhattan Island, became bad ac- tor and changed his vocation to that of an A. No. l stage manager. what mas happened to him since Conan & Harris grew more than opulant since the advent of ..The Fortune Hunter is too recent to mention.
 When Edward Locke was chasing the festive story for the Pittsburg Dispatch, he used to hang around the vaudeville | theatres watching "acts' and absorbing technique. Incidentally he took an in terest in the fact that the glass factories were employing child labor at the fur naces. Then he wrote a series of arti- cles showing how child life was blown in the bottles of commerce and in the window glasA used in the houses of the land. The toll demanded by death was appalling, and the Pennsylvania legisla- | ture was forced to pass stringest laws regarding the employment of children. Then Locke turned around and wrote .0The Climax" his first series play. which is such a wonderful success. | Joseph M. Weber was the only New York producing manager to realize that Locke had written a great drama in "The Climax" that it's short cast with, one scene for the three acts made the gam ble one of little risk. These things show ed how the former Pittsburg newspaper writer had absorbed the essence of vaude- vile sketches, compactness and a story bristling with incidents.
 l It is said that Weber bought realty worth S25O00 from his share of the profits of the companies which he had out last