The Bridgeport times and evening farmer., 1919-12-15
The Seamy Side Of Broadway

New York, Dec. 13.-Everythlng Is
 being systematised nowadays. Once
 upon a time New York had the
 pleasure of seeing one new play each
 week, and on memorable occasions
 two. Now it is a memorable occasion
 when new play is not produced each
 night, and when there is a week in
 which at least three or four are not
 produced, the Rialtorites begin to
 shake their heads and predict dire
 things for everything and everybody.
 It is a difficult thing for the pro
 verbal first-nighter in New York to
 run true to form. Sometimes there
 are as many as three new plays pro-
 duced in one night, and this is what
 perpIexes him. How to see them all
 would perplex anyone. They started
 out to make the visits progressive, but that was not q satisfactory solu-
 tton, so they have called upon the managers to solve the problem.
 From the mass of suggestions made
 one comes from Richard G. Herndon,
 manager of the Theatre Parisien, the
 latest and certainly one of the brightest little playhouses in town. Let the motto be first come first served"", he declares. The managers have aa organization, and when new play is to come to New York let the producer file with the mana gers association an application for date during d stated week. The first application received for that week will have the assignment, and no other assignment will be made for that opening night until tn week has been fully assigned. Then if there Is a surplus, mutual arrangement will be made between the two applicants, and a date assigned which will make the least conflict. For instance, if
 it is a musical play. it will be asked to share the evening with a dramatic play rather than with competing play of the same class"
 Which seems reasonable if we must have so many openings each week. But after having seen some of the new plays, one wonders, one does, 1 why?
 l From away out in California, where i her beauteous person and highly eff l fecttve artistry Is being given over to 1 the inevitable ''movies', Madame | SyIva sends to the East the prize | winning moving picture advertise ment of the season. It appears on l the bill board in front of one of the i lesser pa1atial houses in a town which 1 shall be nameless.
 ! THE GIRL WHO WENT WRONG i For one night only. l Playing in New York in "ScandaP' 1 is Harry Ashford, one of the best and most talented actors who has come l to this country from England. MT. 1 Ashford has given Broadway a cat 1 aIogue of the most amusing stage 1 creations, and has won a high posi- 1 ton for himself on the native stage, l as he also achieved on the stage of l England, where he long resided. 1 While he is a comedien, generally 1 speaking, there are things which he 1 finds of serious moment, and a stage 1 full of pet animals is one of them.
 He found 1t necessary recently to 1 protest against the tnnumerable cats l and dogs which were being brought 1 into the theatre.
 1 "Why, Mir. Ashford, I thought you 1 were an Englishman, and all Eng
 lishmen love animals protested the
 owner of one perfectly darling lit 1 tie Pom.
 "They do." MT. Ashford admitted, 1 ''but they prefer to select the kind l ship, and mine, if you ask me, is a 1 Welsh rabbit"
 1 Robert RendeI, who acts with con 1 siderable skill in The Storm is a 1 musician and dancer as well as an 1 actor. But when George Broadhurst l engaged him for the Langdon Me
 Cormaclz play he was required to play the guitar, and this was an ] instrument with which he had little 1 first hand knowledge, but he set l about the task and accomplished it. 1 In the play he is required to ac- company the one girl in the cast in
 & couple of French chansoms. And so
 skiIfully did he perform this feat that 1 the New York Press found occasion to refer to 1t and compliment him.
 MT. Rendel himself thought it a feat
 worthy of mention and mentioned it. 'Tf you can do that" observed a
 friend. ''you can learn to play the
 cornet. I have a friend who started to learn 1t a month ago."
 And is he learning?" the actor In I