Arizona republican., 1918-01-06

rate the parts are assigned, the getting of the play and assigning of the parts taking minutes where the amateur committee takes weeks. I
 Then they commence to study their lines-some with all too fat parts groaning over the task Some are slow study" and have a heck of time every week, something like the kid has when bath night approaches. The show is not rehearsed altogether but by scenes and often the first complete rehearsal is not until Monday afternoon and in one instance-the Christmas matinee for the kiddies-that was the only time the play was actually gone over until the first presentation. That is why Ed die Mitchell is so well rOunded-Worry ing over the script in prompting first nights. It fusses him almost as much as rain does a duck, for he's been at it for years and knows they will worry through somehow.
 Number in the picture group shows a stage climax. It would take a prophet to tell from the way the climax looks in street costume how it will look when the stage is set Sometimes the prophet goes wrong and then the climax has to be worked over and differently after the first performances real joy.
 Mind you, the habit of stock musical comedy is to get play with plot and then interpolate music, for it would be impossible to secure or stage current successes and to get old musical com edies and use them with original music would be to pull lot of chestnuts" so the plan is to pick dramatic play or comedy and put the music in. pick 1t to fit, if that is possible-which was not possible in Back to Nature so that the musical numbers had to be sandwiched in between acts. You see, it is impossible to break the action to put in music and when the action is in tense, as it was during two acts, be- 1 tween MT Redmond, Miss Dingwall and Mir. Kemper, a novelty way around the difficulty has to be found.
 Joe Kemper, by the by, picks prac- tically all the music, designs all of the musical numbers for ensemble effect, devises the dance steps, trains all of | the dancers does a part in the play and has nothing to do until tomorrow. | He had had wide New York experience with such men as Montgomery X l Stone, has a fine voice and is artistic l to the finger tips.
 Let's watch Kemper design ., dance. The pianist starts to play | Virginia Lee and Mir. kemper listens, standing on the stage above | the piano with the chorus girls watching him. He does nothing but swing his arms for a time. Then he l commences to dance-the pianist working like an automatic piano, do-
 ing the tune over and over agair.. Finally Mir Kemper is satisfied.
 Do that chorus and do it bit faster, please, he says, then he dances in earnest and one can quick ly see the steps he has evolved. After doing it over a couple of times
 he picks a chorus girl quick pupil,
 the music is played slowly and he
 goes over the dalce he has evolved, step by step, she following and the others watching every movement picture number l. Then they all try
 it and the unenlightened would say order would never come out of the
 mess they make However, in fif-
 teen minutes they all keep fairly
 well iii step and then they go over
 the dance until one grows dizzy
 watching them.
 Dancing costumes Well, no more
 than the law allows. The standard
 is dancing shoes, short sox, bare { legs, bloomers and athletic uppe,
 garments, for it is the pure quill when it comes to work, this light . fantastic which looks so easy iron , the front. Those kids, for the girls
 are really only kids in age. at least
 most of them. hold smarathon rec ords for dancing, for they often worl : all afternoon, dancing fairly con tinuously while MT kemper dances
 more than any two of them an( never seems to tire.
 The dances picked, they have [, be spotted" that is. placed wher, they will come in best. This is :
 bard job, apropos of which, q story } They were once putting on , melodrama-not the Redmonds. jus