The Waterbury Democrat., 1933-04-18
-In- NezC York
1v PAUL HARRIsON

New York-Few theater-goers, arriving well-fortified from flavor full dinners, ever give Q thought to I the distasteful stuff actors are obliged to consume on the stage. For even if the stage food happens l to be well-prepared-wh is sell dom, because property men are
 not inclined to worry about cuisine 1t becomes distateful after few
 hundred helpings.
 About the biggest eating-and = | drinking show. on Broadway now
 is Design for Living" and the
 cast of it's seems to be getting a little pale around the gills. Every
 night and matinee, for example, Alfred Lunt and Noel Coward must simulate @ pleasant giddiness after I consuming a quart of water, color l ed with caramel, which is supposed | to be brandy. Then there always has to be a fresh rice pudding, sent from Dinty Moore's around | the corner. Lunt doesn't like rais- ins, and he had a pretty bad time of it for several days before Dinty's | was persuaded to send plain pud- dings.
 Coffee, fresh from the property mans own peroculator. is the only thing that doesn't pail. After that, | though, the actors have to drink | "sherry," which is more. water coi- ored with more caramel. They smoke & lot of cigarets, too, cou- ple of cartons a week, but never yet have been supplied with their three favorite brands on stage. This same property man recalls that his toughest problem was to find substitute for the many glasses of sodium bicarbonate that Lynn Fontanne was supposed to drink in the comedy, Caprice" After a few nights of the real thing the actress, near to tears. announced that she simply could- mt down another swallow. A doc- tor finally was called in and saved the play with sugar of milk, which
 looks like bicarbonate.
 Lunar Lunching.
 Another current dining table play is Three Coronered Moon.' which has coffee and milk fin the first act, string beans and coffee in the second act, and more coffee In the third. The beans are can ned and cold, and the glasses of milk are real, but the coffee is represented by plain water in cups that have been painted black inside. The director insisted on the water, so that Cecilia Doftus, Ruth Gordon and the rest would have to handle the cups convinc-
 ingly.
 The first act of Another Lam
 guage," which recently closed, was
 full of synthetic potato salad con-
 cocted by the property man from
 slices of pared apples. A lot Of olives also were supposed to be consumed, but since these were
 real olives most of them were snitched by the cast before the curtain went up. They dreaded having to eat olives before an audience anyway, because the seeds usually smothered their enuncia- tion. Every actor has nightmares about being caught with a mouth- full of food when his cue comes. He also lives in terror of choking
 on something, or getting the hi- coughs.
 Speaking of theater fare, there's picnic dinner served backstage at the Lyric after every matinee of Run, Little Chillun." When Hall Johnson's all-Negro drama was in rehearsal, many of the 17f Harlemites couldn't afford restau- rant meals, or even subway fare to their homes. So the producers had big pots of mulligan cooked LID, brought in heaps of sandwiches and milk for the pickaninnies, and fed them all right there. Now that the singers and actors faith in the play has been justified, they could take separate taxis to Har- lem if they wanted to. But the mulligan custom is still maintain ed, as a sort of thanksgiving feats.
 A Golden Melody.
 Success stories: A party back stage at the Casino theater tne other night celebrated the flfieth performance of George Whites Melody" and proved it the f1f- teenth successive hit he has pro. duced since his first Scandals, in 1919 ... Years ago young playwright named James Hagan was spurned by producers and movie companies when he offered them a play called "One Sunday Afternoon."J He only asked $5Oo, but one frank agent told him 1t wouldn't bring dime. Recently he dug 1t out of q truck, landed it with the firm of Peters and Spiller, and saw it become an overnight hit on Broadway The other day g. film company forked
 over $26,O0O for the movie rights. - - -