Orleans County monitor. [volume] (Barton, Vt.) 1872-1953, 1918-04-10

|
floor, and the bartender in q dirty
shirt with his sleeves rolled up, asleep
| with his head on the bar.
| Enter Abe. Sambo and key, and the
fun commences.
| One of the characters in the second
act was named Broadway Kate, and I
had an awful job to break in one Of
the Tommies to act and talk like q
woman.
| Another character was Alkali Ike, an
Arizona cowboy, who just before the
close of the play comes into the saloon
and wrecks it with his revolver.
We had eleven three-hour rehearsals
before I thought it advisable to pre-
sent the sketch to the public.
The whole brigade was crazy to
| witness the first performance. This
performance was scheduled for Friday
night and everyone was full of antici-
patton; when bang! orders came
through that the brigade would move at
two that afternoon. Cursing ana
binding was the order of things upon
the receipt Of this order, but we
moved.
That night we reached the little vii
lage of S. and again went into rest
billets. We were to be there two
weeks. Our company Immediately got
busy and secured the village for a
suitable place in which to present our
production. Then we received another
shock.
A rival company was already estab-
ushed in the village. They called
themselves 1.-THE Bow Bells" and
put on a sketch entitled, "Blighty-
What Hopes" They were the divi-
siOnal concert party.
We hoped they all would be soon
in Blighty to give us chance.
This company charged an admission
Of a franc per head, and that night
our company went en- masse to see
their performance. It really was good.
had a sinking sensation when
thought of running my sketch in op-
position to it.
In one of their scenes they had q
soubrette called Flossie. The soldier
that took this part was clever and
made q Incorporating and chic girl.
We Immediately fell in love with her
until two days after, while We were
on a march, we passed Flossie with
cher" sleeves rolled up and the sweat
pouring from "her" face unloading
shells from q motor lorry.
AS our section passed her I yelled
out: "Hello, Flossie; Blighty-What
Hopes?" Her reply made our love die
out instantly.
"Ah, go to Hi"
This brought quite a laugh from the
marching COLUMN directed at me, and
instantly made up my mind that our
sketch should Immediately run in OPP
position to 'BHghty-What HopesT
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 a swanky
place in which to produce our show.
After taking off my equipment, and
followed by the rest Of the section, I
went over to the building he had picked
out. It was a monstrous barn with a
platform at one end which would make
an ideal stage. The section got right
on the job, and before night had that
place rugged out in apple-pie order.
The next day was Sunday and after
church parade we put all our time on
q dress rehearsal, and it went fine.
I 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
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
program would be given 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 p. m.
At 5 :15 there was mob in front Of
our one entrance and 1t looked like
big night. We had two boxes each ac-
commodating four people, and these
we Immediately sold out. Then a
brilliant idea came to key COhenstein.
Why not use the rafters overhead, call
them boxes, and charge two francs for
seat on them?- The only difficulty
was how were the men to reach these
boxes, but to key this was mere de-
tail.
He got long ropes and tied one end
around each rafter and then tied lot
Of knots in the ropes. These ropes
would take the place Of stairways.
We figured out that the rafters
would seat about forty men and sold
that number of tickets accordingly.