The Waterbury Democrat., 1934-10-05
In New York
Rp PAUL HARRISON

By PAUL HAhEtASON New York--Fpom down Rich- mond way comes word that or Brudder Noah is still whacking to-
 egther . right stury ark, and Go- briel is still asking whether 1t is :. time to blow his shiny trumpet. and that there's still a great shout at the beginning of the second scene: "Gangway! Gangway fo' de Lawd God Jehovah!" All this, of course, in "The
 Green Pastures" which already has held its fifteen-hundredth celestial | fish-fry and is rounding out its | fifth lusty year as a modern dram atic miracle. The show and its all- Negro cast will travel 15,000 miles during the next few months going | through Canada, down into the near-middle west, across the south. and back to Broadway in February for a fifth-anniversary festival. Ironically enough, The Green
 Pastures" is not booked Tor the
 drouth region. Pastures weren't green enough so folks could buy l tickets.
 |
 | No One Wanted It. | When Mare Connolly wrote this
 play, based on stories by Roark Bradford, he dashed off to read it | to Jed Harris. Producer Harris turned 1t down cold. Connolly took it to the Theater Guild, but | the Guild was afaird it's subscribes
 might object to seeing the Lord impersonated on the stage-and by
 a Negro. Arthur Hopkins read the
 script, but said he didn't see how
 1t could be staged. Crosby Gaigc thought it very good--but not good enough for hi into gamble on. l Finally a fellow from Wall
 street agreed to produce it. He
 was Rowland Lawrence Rivers
 name he found once in a ghost
 'story. MT Rivers, however. un- derestimated the p.ay> almost as
 much as did the other Broadway
 producers. For although he be- lieved New York would tolerate
 Bible legends in blackface. he did
 not dream that the south would
 receive it with cheers.
 l That's what it has done. though, with box-office records chalked up
 last season in such cities as Char | lotte, Nashville, Knoxville, Mem- | phis, Atlanta and Houston. Green grow the pastures for a fable now
 immortalized, and they'll need | mounted cops in Harlem when TO-. year-old Richard B. Harrison, who
 is 'De Lawd," and his Moses lead
 their dusky brethren back to the
 promised land.
 Successful Shore.
 1 The only man who ever snored
 his way into featured spot in \
 big musical revue is Mir Robert l Wildhack. Or Professor Wild hack" would be better, because
 he's a Doctor of Sound and wears
 a gown and motar board when he l lectures each evening on the dif-
 ferent kinds of snorss. giving il- lustrates.
 A versatile fellow, the professor. | You've seen many of his magazine
 covers and posters, and his car-
 toons and gags in the humorous
 magazines. For seven straight years
 he wrote and produced the annual show of the Society of illustrators;
 even designed the scenery and
 painted 1t. For as many years he wrote and acted for shows of the
 Dutch Treat club, famous group of
 artists and writers. But nobody considered <-him potential .stagc star until John Murray Anderson discovered him. Now he's the big gest .one-man, one-act laugh on Broadway.
 Plot Formula.
 J. c. Nugent, the actor, drama. tist, has written more than I5O plays in his time. Amiable come dies. most of them, with we'll shaped plots. The other day [ learned his formula---a formula designed to offset his conviction
 that most playwrights clutter their work with too many ideas. Nugent dashes off an entire story and tells 1t to somebody, say his barber, The barber tells it to Nugent's ,, lawyer while he's. being shaved; the lawyer tells it to his secretary,
 who tells it to her fance :. and
 so on, until the yarn has passed by word -of-mouth through eight or
 ten people. The last person is
 found and re-tells the tale to Nu- gent. The final version, as it comes to him, Is Nugent's play.
 Age VIII Tell. sBroadway's chuclSing about the squelch of a certain actress who deems herself a great and beauti- ful star. and who blandiy refuses to acknowledge the last fifteen years of her age. Other members of the company aren't overly fond of her. One evening the house manager called into her dressing
 rom that lady was waiting to
 see her. "She says she was q
 schoolmate of yours,' he said. "A schoolmate?" howled a chlorine from another dressing room. ssWheel her into t