Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1929-06-30
Stage Notes

RAYARD WELLER has sailed fol
- London with a plsy on which he
collaborated with Becky Gardiner. Sir
Gerald Du Maurier is planning to act
in it, with Gilbert Miller as the pro-
Queer. It will probably be a late
August production.
Eugene O'Neill's "All Gods Children
Got Wings" had its first public per-
Torrance In England at the Court
/ Theater recently. It had been privately
produced at the Gate Theater Studio
in London three years ago. The new
production was made possible by the
fact that a large number of Negro
actors and actresses were available
from the cast of "Porgy," which fin
ished its run little while back.
Taking a big wallop" at the "popu-
lar fallscy that Shakespeare has ceased
to function in our theater," Beauvias
Fox, writing in the New York Herald
Tribune, gives the following interesting
statistics as his opening shock: Mac
beth Melted more than $4,000 at the
opening performance of its Chicago
engagement. Macbeth crossed $4,000
at Monday matinee and evening per-
Torrance in Toledo, Ohio, three months
later. There was a Macbeth riot al
the first Wednesday matinee in Detroit
last January, hundreds of people with
tickets being unable to pass the crowds
at the ticket window. And on the last
day Of that Detroit engagement 10000
people paid to see the performance in
the Masonic Auditorium" No less thar
seven organizations were touring with
Is or 20 different Shakespeare plays
last season, Mr.. Fox notes. Three COM
panies, incidentally, arrived for en-
gagements in Chicago at the same time
Instead of clashing, they harmonized
their efforts and presented a four-weeB
festival"
Aarons and Freddy have announced
two Broadway musical productions fol
the coming season. The first is BY
Owen Davis, with music and lyrics BY
Rodgers and Hart The second will bt
a musical play composed by George
Gershwin, with lyrics by Ira Gershwir
and nbretto by an author not YET
named.
George White is announced as hav.
ing begun work on his new Scandals,
which will probably open in Atlantic
City in Mid-August.
The Village Troopers, who have
taken over the Provincetown Playhouse
for an experimental theater, will con.
fine their productions exclusively to the
plays Of authors who live and do theil
writing in New York. I'VE are no
looking for the great American drama,
said the director recently, but for the
great New York drama-and 1t has yet
to be written, or at least to be brought
to light"
The invasion of Paris by the ENG
disappearing spirit" largely American
is illustrated by dispatches that show
that in the past few weeks there have
been three English-speaking produc-
tions in the trio of auditoriums housed
at. the Theatre des Champs Elysees
two musical comedies in English al
other playhouses, two dramatic produc-
tions in English in yet other theaters
and a round half dozen productions
translated from the English. Paris
from an American standpoint, is re-
placing London as European headquar-
ters," one observer notes.
The ceremony of laying the founda.
ton stone of the new Memorial The
alter at Stratford -on-Avon will take
place on the second day Of the Shake
speare Summer Festival, which starts
tomorrow. There will be a 10 weeks
season. The Memorial Theater is to
be built at a cost of $750,000. 1t will
contain a large stage, an auditorium
seating 1000 persons, large foyers and
refreshment room leading to the ter
race. 1t is hoped to foster in Shake
speare's town an ideal similar to that
at Bayreuth in Germany and to send
to all parts Of the world trained COM
spanies of Shakespearean players.
John Galsworthy's new play, "Ex-
He'd" which opened in London recently
nearly caused a riot, so divided were
critics and audience alike as to its
worth. One newspaper called it Gals
worthy's worst play; another rhapso-
died about it as "the soul Of England
made articulate." The plot concerns a
conflict between q mine owner and the
miners.
John Drinkwater, English playwright,
author of this seasons Bird in Hand"
in New York, and many other successes,
is to tour Spain, lecturing on the drama.
He will compare the dramatic offerings
of New York with London.
Raymond Hitchcock, sufficiently re-
covered from his recent illness to travel,
Is to leave Chicago for a Summer at
Colorado Springs. In September he
plans to return to Chicago to reopen
Your Uncle Dudley" the play in which
he was being starred at the time he was
stricken.
Strange Interlude" is booked for the
middle of September at the Hollis
Theater in Boston. Jane Cowl and her
new play. JENNY" ended their Ply
mouth engagement week ago.
Almost $4,000 has been raised to-
ward the building of 500-seat play
house in San Francisco, report has it..
which, when completed, will be oper-
ated by an organization modelled after
the New York Theater Guild.
Maxwell Anderson's Outside Looking
In" interested Berlin greatly in the
early days of its production there last
month and promised financial as we'll
as artistic success for its author. The
tramp characters, Oklahoma Red"
Badly" and THE Arkansas Snake" as
well as the brightness of the plays set
tings at the Schiller Theater, caught
the imagination of German audiences,
especially in the contrast of unbroken
expanses of prairie with Germany's
topography where "even in the most
rugged section there is always a beer
garden just around the corner"
As COOI &c AN OrFAu RprrzR At