The Waterbury Democrat., 1938-12-31
In New York
BY GEORGE ROSS

New YOrk, OeC. S1 - BrOaQWay doesn't know much about Jerome H. Cargill. Yet he handles more theatrical matter per year than the Shuberts, Sam H. Harris and Max Gordon combined.
 The reason Cagill is no fa- miliar name on Broadway is that he produces shows everywhere else but Broadway. And he does mt use professional actors. In fact, there is not an amateur actor around the country who does not know, or hasn't heard, the name some time in his career.
 Cargill'S theatrical business is pre- senting amateur shows all over the United States, for sweet local char ity. Some are small societay produc- tions. Others are Community Pag- eants of tremendous size.
 For example, recently Cargill al- ternated between a village show with cast of fifteen people and the New Haven Tercentenary which employed 4,000 actors of varied heights, ages, complexions and de- 6ACCo VI nVGAA15 eoACAe'
 Biggest "Name" Impresario
 As a snowman, Cargill probably has more distinguished Americans working for him than any New York rival. For his actors are re- cruited from the columns of Who's Who, the Directory of Directors and the Social Register from here to San Francisco, and he boasts that he hasn't had temperamental clash with one of them.
 He says that this enlistment of important folk in his presentations accounts for the current wave of So- ciety singers and actresses in the night clubs, theater and talkies. Maybe he's right. We won't take the credit away from him.
 One of Cargill's theories is that successful municipal or charit- able show depends wholly upon the quality of the material.
 So he goes out for the best that he can obtain in the market. Some of the writers who are on his pay roll include George s. Kaufman, Will Irwin, Jr., Kendall Burgess, Norman Zeno, Newman Levy, Ar thur Pearson and Marjorie Fielding, literary coterie to strike envy in the heart of any story editor in Hol- lywood.
 His directors (for Cargill can't get around to all these far-fiung en- terprises hinself) are drawn from the ranks of Broadway's top-flight men. He argues that an amateur actor can be whipped into shape for decent performance, if the direc- tor is experienced snowman.
 
 No Hicks in the Sticks
 The style, too, of the amateur show is changed, says Cargill. More over, he is proud of having helped to change it.
 Gone, he says, are the awkward dancing troupes of little girls dress ed in hometown gauge and per- forming pathetic tableaux of elves and fairies. And gone, too, are the boring recitations of civic virtue by a clubwoman draped in a capacious American flag.
 Broadway doesn't hold the na- tional monopoly of sophistication. The most modest hamlet in the hinterland now demands swift pace, fashionable clothes and wit that hasn't hibernated in a musty Joe Miller joke book.
 It's flung business. In a year he has put on colossal enter tainments in Connecticut, Cincin- natl (its 15Oth anniversary cele- bration), New Hampshire, Texas, Iowa and Michigan. The casts in his shows, during the last season numbered 10000, his audiences over a million, and the scattered boxofIices took in sums well over the seven figure mark.
 Nor does the future look idle for him. In 1899 he has been commit