New-York tribune., 1920-06-06

~HH looh upon the pretty young
A> thing standing there on the
~ stage in the spotlight, all red
lips and pink cheeks and white arms!
Nor would you think it of him. the
Wavy-haired, white fingered, handsome
faced youth doing the dance steps be-
side her
They're farmers. Real, dyed in the
wool farmers! The kind that get up at
sunrise every morning through the
summer, feed the chickens, do the
let's see, what is it?-the chores. ard
all that sort of thing, and then have a
breakfast of ham and eggs and corn
cakes and syrup and black coffee. Just
plain farmers. They live near New
York. Of course. They couldn't move
away so far they couldn't get back to
Broadway every week or so, because
their producers and song publishers
and all those people have to keep in
close touch with their artists. But
they really are farmers
This year, more than ever before.
=
musical comedy, the drama, farce and
vaudeville, are making their way to
the county in large numbers Bay
side, Great Neck, Douglaston, Long
Island, and Greenwich, and throughout
New Jersey, for that matter, and up
state, on the Sound, and in fact every
where away from the city's heat, they
are going, great numbers of them, many
of them forming their own little colo
MES and making the trips together.
1t is a concerted move. The actors no
longer choose Broadway as their place
of rest. They choose cows and pastures
and cool trees.
The time was. according to Florenz
Ziegfeld jr., who has handled theatrical
stars for many, many years in New
York, and they include everv type.
small town, regular" New York. etc
that you could not force an actor to
leave Times Square or Forty seventh
Street over the week end Each Of
them actually believed that the in
dustry would 90 lame should re or she
desert the old stand for one night.
Consequently the actors and actresses 5
used to line up along in front of the
Palace Theater Building and in front
Of the Strand Theater Building, inside
of which is hundred or more upset
theatrical agents headquarters, and
would stay there from early in the
evening until like time in the morn
ing Even the girls, half made up
and half ready to "go on" at minutes
notice, should an agent come racing
out and engage them, stood there for
hours with their partners"
Of course, there still are great num-
bers Of actors who appear to feel that
port, but the number is decreasing.
Even those fellows who play small
towns up in Vermont and in Nova
Scotia are beginning to learn that real
happiness and real rest lie not within
the scorching rays of a summer sun
thrown back into their faces by cob
blestones and red brick and tile, but
in the green pastures of New Eng.
land farm
Yes, it may be rented or bought OIL
occupied under Amy old kind of ar
rangement, and there are many "acts'
living in shady little homes, with
robins building their nests in the
porch corners this summer.
One of the unique phases of thi.
lies in the sudden and almost IN
believable change that comes over tn,
average legitimate actor when h,
boards his suburban train at. nigh
after the show and starts homeward
Many of them, of course, are "layin,
off" for the summer and do not go t,
New York moro than once or twice ,
month.
Great Neck is the Mecca for summe
vacation actors. One Of them who ha
been playing in musical comedy fc,
so long that every little giddy girl oil,
enough to sit up and look at n pictur,
has vowed she expects to marry hin
some day, stalks about through th'
village streets in overalls, a hoe owe,
his shoulder and his curly hair pro
truding through shabby straw ha.
For one lock Of that hair many a gis