The Waterbury Democrat., 1931-05-07
By GILBERT SWAN NEA Service Writer

New York advice to stage-struck youngsters throughout the land is. at this moment: Stay home!''
 Never has Broadway been so de- luged with idle beauties. And rare- ly has there been such slim chance of getting work-even in burlesQue!
 Just the other day, 500 appli- cants tried to crash the stage doors Oe Flo Ziegfeld's theater, and look ing them over, even so old hand at producing as "Ziggy" began to wonder where this vast army of lovely lassies had come from.
 The answer may be found almost anywhere up and down the gay and gaudy boulevard. First of all
 summer is just around the corner, yet there are but three sure-f1re mu- sic hits on the big street.
 The sum total of all musical con- ccctions is but five. One. "The New Workers" has been riding to an eventual fall. "Girl Crazy" has head ed the boxoffice list. You Said It" and Sweet and Low" have pros- pered. "America's Sweetheart" has done well. The Al Jolson show. The Wonder Bar," does not employ tho average chorus. Here the girls arc used almost entirely for cafe att mosphere and are of the handsome and swanky show-girl type.
 One new music revue is heading toward town, via Philadelphia and Brooklyn. And Ziegfeld is casting for the Follies.
 Then there has been shortage of road shows, musical and legiti- mate. Few have wanted to specu- late on an expensive girl show" The losses in music productions this season has been figured around ten millions, or more. Oscar Hammer stein, who had one of the years most costly failures, wound up by seeing his fine theater placed on the auction block.
 And again, the talkies sent dozens of stage beauties out to Hollywood in those early days when music re- vues were in vogue. As everyone knows, the popularity of screen mu- siAls soon waned. Not only did the Broadway girlies come drifting back, but those California cuties who had been so widely advertised decided that they could show the main stem" something new in pulchrl- tude.
 Bit by bit, the chorus congestion has grown. Up at the Chorus Equi- ty you'll hear many sad tale of girls stranded in the big city.
 Only the other day, one of the important revue producers told of meeting, after two years, chorus beauty who had had a small army of admirers waiting for her at the stage door.
 She came to his office, shabbily dressed and obviously out of luck. The girl asked for a dollar that she might eat. Generously he gave her something like ten times that much.
 "And only a couple of years ago, they were buying her lobster New burg" he commented
 Dorothy Bryant, the secretary or Actors Equity says that the sit- uation is further complicated by producers cutting expenses to the last dime.
 In years past, show girl was just that-she was on display. She was beautiful background for any stage picture But, watching their pennies carefully, the music show magnates now ask that showgiris dance as we'll as preen. Few have gone in for dancing. To survive, they must
 The legitimate stage has passed through, another rather precarious week. "Company's Coming" ana aSchool for Virtue" are couple more of those things inflicted upon the passing season. "Twos Company" which was to be a nov city with a cast of two persons, didn't take the trouble to open.
 On the other hand Henri Bern stein's "Melo" seems to be just about what the matinee ladies have been looking for these many months. This is, even as the title suggests, with plenty of good ola s'theater"; with enough love clinch- es to satisfy the most hardened old time movie-goer, with a tragic suicide toward the final curtain and a final scene in which husband and lover sit in a broken-hearted duel or words over their dead love.