The Washington herald., 1921-08-23
NeRporkoity
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NEW YORK, Aug. 22.-Behind the
scenes at q summer musical show.
1t is a dream world Of glaring
lights and painted faces. Even the
cat--every Broadway theater has
its cat-was phosphorescent and
ghostly under a mercury light. A
girl in hlmy negligee sat unabashed
on a trunk smoking a cigarette and
reading La Vie Parisienne.
A Juvenile Haunting boyish limbs
in perfect fitting breeches came up
to her and borrowed a puff which
she loaned without looking up.
Easy comradeship just as easily
broken. The comedian came out of
his cubby-hole, his face a smear of
grease paint. "How's the 'front.'"
he called. A voice in the depths
answered.: Fine. Every seats
taken" A pause. "On a hot night
like this. Impossible. Don't kid
ME. I've been kidded by experts"
In the inferno underneath were
the chorus cribs. There is a fever
ish talk in an atmosphere of cigar
cite smoke, cosmetics and human
sweat. Modesty is impossible.
Stage hands and callers running
back and forth pay no attention to
akedness. White-capped. ebony
hued maids dart in and out the
more private dressing rooms Of
principals.
Important looking coatless men
with suspenders stand about doing
nothing. Hey, Jake" one called
out don't take any gin to Miss
Blank. She's ginny now. Back to
burlesque for her IL she keeps 1t
up" In one Of the wings compla-
stage mOther-with the little far
away smile of one breathing the
incense of youths white-hot ashes.
The shrek Of a fiddle in the or
chestra pit. The shrill note of a
piccolo. Several walk to the cur
tain and glue their eyes to the little
hole. The stage door tender shuf-
fies in. his pipe in hand, and taps
at a door. In his hand is a tele-
gram. White fingers dart out,
clutch 1t and the door slams.
Opening overture" caller
screeches, rushing up and down
steps. A parade of faces with
shadowed eyes, penciled eyebrows.
rouged cheeks and carmined lips
comes up the stairs and waits in
position.
The stage suddenly clears. Con-
versation ceases. A bell rings. \
hand clasps There is drowning
roar Of music and the performance
is on.
The Hippodrome reduces its price
to $50 for best seats for the COM
ing season. Last year the same
S'"tS We're So 30. The 81 show is al
most a certainty by winter. Only
- ""c productions on Broadway are
doing a good business. The movie
houses are already planning a big
, reduction. One that has been charg-
ing 81 Is to drop to 25 cents for
best seats
New York is to have a peculiar
reaction from its craze for building
| mastodonic hotels. 4 10o-room
| hotel is to be built in an exclu-
| sive section of the East Fifties.
!ew four-room but mostly two-room
suites. The idea is for service de
luxe, something that it Is not be-
| lieved the big hotels can provide.
| The prices are only for those
with million dollar incomes. The
restaurant will be only for the pat
rons and their invited guests. 1t
is an experiment that New York
watches with interest. for IL sue
cessful 1t will result in a flock of
! similar hotels.
\ gnarled old woman with a con-
slant grin that shows black, broken
teeth walks up lower Fifth avenue
every evening at the same hour.
Her feet are bound in rolls of car
/ pct that make them six or seven
times their actual size. Four or five
shawls. In one hand she carries
shoulders. In one hand she carries
an empty bird cage. She turns over
! eastward at Thirty-fourth street
and goes back to the tenements
| from which she came. The police
man at the Waldorf corner told me
she had been coming at the same
time and over the same path for Ave
| years.