Gunnison news-champion., 1918-04-12
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shock. The saloon looks like n pig.
pen. two tramps lying drunk on the
fror. and the bartender In dirty
shirt with his 1r,.s,-s rolled up, asleep
with hls head "n m" bar.
Enter Abe. Suu.bo and key, and the
fun commences.
on. II the characters in n" second
u~' was uum"4 EnngdNay Kate. and !
% 4 rn awful JN +" break in On" q.
the TrmmIr- To act and JaIk like
So oman,
Another character was AIkHll Ike. an
Arizouu cowboy, who Just before the
clus,. ~ the play comes into the saloon
and wrrcE, {, With his revolver.
We had eleven three hour rrh"arsals
h,.fur" Thought It advisable 10 pre-
sent fh, sketch Z" the public.
TIL" whole brigade WAS c-nzy to
wIIuv~- the FIRST performance. This
performance was scheduled for Friday
night and everyone was full Of anticl-
pu'lun hen hang orders mp"
through 'uul rlrbrlgnde would move at
r,.o lhut afternoon Cur>.ug and
| hlluIlng was the order of things upon
rtr receipt Of this order, but We
m0vci
That night ~ reached the little vii
| la-r of s. and again went into rest
| blIlrts. We were to hc there two
/ weeks. our company Immediately got
| busy and secured the village for II
suitable place In which to present our
urndu,riou. Then we received another
| shock.
\ rival company was already estab-
| lshed In the village. They called
'lrnsrlycs 'sThe Bow Eens," ant
pot - sketch entitled. "E!lghty-
WhHt iionrsf' They were the div
| sluunl concert PARTY.
| "" hnlr"I they all would be soor
| Ia Highly 10 Civ" us % cIruuc".
1n.s company charged an udm.<sI"n
I ui frame p,f head, and that night
! our company went ~ mus-. To- s,.r
| their performance. Il really wus good
! lad q siuslug sensation when !
Thought ~ running my sketch In oI,
position To- ii.
In one of their scenes they had u
~'NIlft '.E(' 'slfH'fl I'A-NA''r fttr Nftl'll'R
. that took this part wns clever and
made Incorporating and chic girl.
( We Immediately fell in lave with her
/ until two days after. while we were
( on IA march, we passed Flossie with
her" sleeves rolled up and the sweat
pouring from her" face unloading
shells from O motor lorry.
/ As our section passed her / yelled
| out: Hello, Flossie; Blighty-What
/ HopesI" Her reply made our love die
[ out instantly.
( "Ah. go to HI"
This brought quite laugh from the
marching column directed at me, and I
J instantly made up my mind that our
sketch should Immediately run In op-
/ position to "Blighty-What HopesT
Z When we returned to our billet from
/ the march, Curley Wallace. my the
| atrical partner, came running over TO
me and said he had found swanky
/ place In which to produce our show.
After taking Off my equipment, and
7 followed by the rest of the section, l
| went over to the building he had picked
out. II was a monstrous barn with n
platform at one end which would make
an ideal stage. The section got right
On the job, and before night had that
| pluce rlgged out in apple-pie order.
( The next day was Sunday and after
4 church parade we put all our time on
/ a dress rehearsal, and 1t went fine.
| ] made four or five large signs an
nouncing that our company would open
/ up that evening at the King George the
/ Fifth theater, on the corner of Ammo
street and Sandbag terrace. General
admission was one-half franc. First
| ten rows In orchestra one franc, and
boxes two francs. By this time our
| printed programs had returned from
London, and further announced that
on the night Of the first performance
! a program would be gwen free Of
charge to men holding tickets costing
franc or over.
| We had an orchestra of seven men
and seven different instruments. This
orchestra was excellent, while they
were not playing
| The performance was scheduled to
start at 6 p. IN.
At 5:15 there was a mob in front of
our one entrance and 1t looked like
| big night We had two boxes each ac-
eommodating four people, and these
we Immediately sold out. Then a
brilliant idea came to Ikey Cohenstein.
Why not use the rafters overhead. call
them boxes, and charge two francs for
A seat on them? The only difficulty
vas how were the men to reach these
aoxes. but to Ikey this was mere de-
tall.
He got long ropes and tied one end
around each rafter and then tied a lot
Of knots In the ropes. These ropes
would take the place Of stairways.
We figured out that the rafters
syould seat about forty men and sold