Evening star., 1932-10-16
Washington May Have
Short Theater Season
Bookings at National Run to Christmas capital
Could Look Forward to Little Theater Move
ment" and Fill Prospective Gap.
By E. de S. Melcher.

N VOW is the time for all local
M theater-minded people to
l Y stop and consider. The
theater may leave them.
Leave them fiat The National,
Washington's lone sponsor of
Broadways products, is going to
face a long and lean Winter.
Bookings for this venerable in
stitution are scarce. Word from
New York indicates that but for
the indefategable r h e !
Crothers, who seems to be able
to conjure up hit" every time
she sets pen to paper, and for the
mad and sometimes bad droll-
cries of a few musical melanges,
the season along those lanes is
likely to be sad and mournful
one-full of the cries of misspent
coin and unhappy players.
1t seems shame that with
start such as Washington has
seen, with the LIE Gallienne troupe
filling up it's Golfers averagely
well, and the Theater Guild and
the MeSSrS. Davis bouncing the
gold of the realm into their money
vaults with Mrs. Bucks admirable
THE Good Earth" and with Ed
Wynn putting vim and vigor into
this weeks Laugh Parade" that
the year should then taper off into
I a dubious and starved future. Mr..
Steve Cochran, Mr.. Rapley's willy
missionary, making the rounds
last week of the local dramatic
desks, admitted with tears in his
eyes that Broadway sages were
not sending him enough of their
wares to last much over a late
Christmas season and that even
at that there might be large and
dark holes in his theatrical pro-
grams.
This chronicling of miserable
facts may, of course, be exag-
gerated. The theater business
being full of sound and fury" and
starting up sometimes with fire
when it has seemed ready to re-
lax into permanent storage
there may be hope that shrewd
but shrinking impressarios, such
as was last seasons unheard-of
and this see sons important pro-
ducer, Arthur Bekhardt, may
spring from nowhere and goad
the theater on with their unsus-
pected tidbits. At the moment,
however, the outStretched hands
of almost outstretched actors are
said to be much in evidence
along struggling theater lanes,
and business is so far below par
that a smash hit may boast of
having its orchestra pit half full.
WHERE, say those who sympa-
wv thetically mourn the decline
of the theater, is the money 60
ing to? What is happening to
last seasons stars and the year.
before that's celebrities?
The answer is not hard to find.
A glance at a curiouSly provoca-
tive headline in Variety" makes
some of the coast clear. Says
this magazine: $4,000 Top Stage
Salary" And further down on
the page 1t lists those who are
performing here and there Tor
such nondescript earnings, and a
statement to the effect that "a
top salary of $4,000 for any stage
name in vaudeville or the picture
houses is the supposed objective
of another reported get-together
by the major booking offices on
the matter of acts and present.
dav fancy salaries"
Those who would l:now where
some of their favorite miners are
hanging out thus need only
glance over this list, which states
with unblushing pride the weekly
pittance of these eX-stage luml-
naries and what they are doing.
There is AL Jolson, who Is receiv-
ing, for instance, mere $4,000
weekly for his camera cavortings;
there is Maurice Chevalier, who
gets $4,000 a week for his pic
ture work; there are the Marx
Brothers, who earn a Seven-day
salary of but $4,000, and Lilyan
Tashman, who back few years
couldn't have earned half of
her present $5,000-a-Week salary
before the camera. Then, too,
there are such until recently un-
heard-of performers as Marion
"Kiki" Roberts, who earns $4,000
under the heading of freak"
And hen we wonder where the
money goes! The radio, those,