Evening capital and Maryland gazette. (Annapolis, Md.) 1910-1922, 1916-05-01
THE BIRTH OF A NATION
Greatest Spectacle On the Screen To-
day---Coming This Week TO
Colonial Theatre.

Premier performance March s, 1919,
at the Liberty Theatre New York.
Some of the subsequent productions
were: fremont Theatre, Boston,
Mass. beginning April /; Illinois
Theatre, Chicago, H.. starting June
5; Brighton Beach Music Hall, n. Y,
July 3; Nixon Theatre Atlantic City,
n. j., July Is.
All these were long runs of many
months the five separate companies
aggregating a total attendance OF
Z. GOO patrons weekly. Never before
has q play run half year simultane-
ously in so many cities, including also
seventeen weeks in Los Angeles and
eighteen weeks in San Francisco and
eight weeks at Ford's Opers House,
Baltimore. To exhibit here at the Co
lonial Theatre. Friday night May 3,
and Saturday matinee and night.
Produced by David w, Griffith. the
foremost of directors and pioneer Of the
new art. Suggested by Thomas
Dixon's novel, The Clansman.
The play contains {. 900 scenes; pre-
sents Is. 900 actors and 5000 horses !;
cost $500, 600 for actual production
expense, and took eight months to
produce Story divided in Two acts.
Total time of performance, 2 hours
and 80 minutes.
Some of the greatest battles of the
Civil War enacted. A reproduction
Of Atlanta as it was in 1864. built up
to be destroyed by fire in the picture
of Sherman's march to the sea. Lee
and Grant shown at Appomattox.
Ford's Theatre. Washington, repro
duced TO the smallest details for the
Lincoln Tragedy. Reconstruction pic
torializd in the actual South Carolina
scenes, climaxing with a series of wild
Ku Klux Khan rides that commandered
a county for day and cost $40, 900.
Women's dresses used II. 600 yards
and Ku Klux Khan costumes $1,000
yards Of cloth.
Night photoplay of battle scenes
invented and perfected It cost of So
600.
Wonderful artillery duels in which
real shells costing $50 apiece were
used. Miles of trenches thousands of
Confederate and Federal fighters
"war as il actually is )"
First time in the history of thea tri-
Gals for motion picture TO be handled
and presented as regular attraction.
1t requires two sixty foot cars to
transport the equipment. A regular
travelling organization of sc people
with its own stage director, crew,
must .ians, operators and mechanical
experts to readjust the theatres tC
scientific focal requirements.
Not deDer ding solely on the loca
musicians, complete symphonic or
chestra is carried. The musical score
is synchronized to the several thousand
distinct and individual scenes.
The spectacle has met strong opposi
tion at various times but has been ap
proved by every Board of Censors il
the United States and by scores anC
scores of the most eminent United
States Senators and Representatives
Governors of States, Judges. Publ
cists, diplomats, educators and clergy
men. 1t has beean viewed and com
mended by larger number of priests
and ministers than had ever previousl!
approved theatric entertainment.
Receipts and attendance have like
wise made a new page of theatriea
history. Within the first eigh
months the gross attendance was ap
proximately l, 500, 900 Receipts hav,
| dwarfed those of ben Hur" an,
every other great spectacle hithert
presented
Artistically, THE Birth of a Ma
ton" combines exquisite domestic
comedy and romance with the gran.
deur and thrill of History's creates
moments. intoxicating the lesson o
patriotism that springs from the ma
tion reborn" as the result of War be
tween the States and Reconstruction