Evening star., 1912-11-03
BY AUGUSTIN MACHUGH

comment of each pyrelcler who looked at it q do not
believe manager stopped to SO lowly tas9 "but its
got Indian its leading figure, and that makes 1t too
much like Robert Blossoms Strongheart." That the
play wasn't anything like "Strongheart, save for the
fact that its hero an Indian, didn't matter.
Back the manuscript, and back went to acting
| was fiat broke again The rejection of "'rhe Blood
Yoke didn't altogether take the heart out OF me- but
it did discourage me. I'll admit that freely needed
money. | had to make money. | was hungry,
and needed overcoat 1t winter. My acting
job this time promised me only few dollars a week.
and cast over in my mind way to augment this small
revenue But no prosac industry appealed to me- The
play bug had me in its death clutch. And thought If
can't land regular play, IL set out to land vaude
willie sketch Out came my pencils and paper, and in
due time out my little sketch.
Il shall get at least five hundred dollars tor 1t by sell
ing it outright, promised myself. got fifteen BM
had sold it! That the thing. So set about writ
ing another. My mounting in the heavens. If
only fifteen dollars worth! And the play bug got
tighter hold As | was working on this second
SKETCH lost my acting job through the busting up of
in Springfield Massachusetts,
When the company closed, had eighteen dollars to
One of the other actors had five, another had
thirteen, and third had twenty He was rlch But
we had to work had an idea. approached Pat Shea
manager of the theater, and told him | would write
two sketches week and act them myself with the other
three actors. He putting in moving pictures at the
time he needed filler acts at cheap price and
showed him how he could get them. No actor was to
get a salary over TWENTY-FIVE dollars week. | forget
whether to play eight ten times each day.
1t didn't We should have played every fifteen
Shea
laughed and laughed and laughed. | laughed back
And he ended by daring me to ahead did, and tor
a stretch of twelve weeks wrote two paylets every
week and acted IN them.
| wrote meodrama, drama, farce comedy, tragedy,
everything under the sun, and made scarcely enough
money on which to eat and get bed Presently found
myself owing three weeks bill at the hotel
1t may interest YOU to know-f you will allow me to
dgress and skip the intervening years to my "ar
rival"tha two of the sketches referred to here are
going to be produced soon in elaborated hreeact shape
in New York
must get back to that hotel bill. 1t important
Just then, in the nick of time, along came man who
offered hundred and fifty dollars to dranatlzc
"Heens Babies | jumped at the chance, did the
work in a week, and paid my bill What became of my
dranatization, Heaven only knows Certainly 1t never
produced or heard of again
ALONG toward the seventh week of my sketch-writing
tournament against time, the play bug, 50 far as
it related the longer form of pay-the regular play
it is caed-lgin called to me. Oh, wasn't an eX-
ceptonal case! Don't think of it. There were and are
ot G @r p s' esd M 1he oS a Wc S ad pe
pared couple of years before when travelling through
the Southwest got busy this scenario in between
writing sketches and finished the play Back to New
York in due time and to the battle This at the
time when plays with small casts were in great demand
| knew this and by the use of the telephone and nu-
meroS conversations it, down my original cast
first from eighteen to en then from to eight, then
from eight seven, and finally from to six.
| made the rounds of the managers offices IN high
hope. But everyone turned "The Fox down cold, on
the ground that it "too much like Paid in Full.
This deduction based two facts: first because
a in play stole some money; and secondly, be-
cause his sister went plead with his boss for mercy
And if YOU remember Paid in Full, believe you will
agree with me that justified in swearing aloud on
the public highway when | heard the managers crltl-
cisms. William \. Brady, Cohan & Harris, and the
other managers to whom | submitted "The Fox all
resorted the paid in Full criticism. suppose, by
this same token if had laid dagger on the table III
of the play, they would have said it was too
much like "AIacbeth, if had used screen in an
other the charge would have been made that my play
altogether much like THE School tor Scandal
And "The Fox" together with "The Kings Master,
"rhe Blood Yoke and my treasured dramas in pdr7o