Evening star., 1949-10-30
Ballet Is Surprise Broadway Hit
Visiting Soders Wells Troupe and French Dancers
Are Greeted by Enthusiastic Overflow Audiences
By Mark Boron

NEW YORK.
Ballet, which usually finds a
small limited audience on Broad
way, has done an entrechat into
the standing rom only class with
the arrival of two foreign ballet
troupes.
Each is attracting overflow
audiences of both dance enthusi-
lasts and onlookers who are more
accustomed to the dimpled knee
in burlesque chorus.
The Sadler's Wells Ballet Of
London, now playing to bigger
crosses at the Metropolitan Opera
House than would a popular opera,
has sold out almost all 33 perform
ances here before it begins a
tour of American and Canadian
cities. When 1t departs Novem-
ber 6 for its brief tour of Wash
ington, Richmond. Philadelphia,
Chicago, East Lansing. Toronto,
Ottawa and Montreal it will have
crossed more than 100000 for
four week on. Broadway.
The sexy. less classical lies
Ballets De Paris" which Lee
Shubert brought into the Winter
Garden Theater to supplant
Bobby Clark in his musical "As
the Girls Go" (Which moved to
another theater), crossed $16,600
in four performances: That is
more than some of the regular
Broadway hits gross in a whole
week.
Settled For Ruin.
Where it was expected that the
French LES Ballets De Paris
might last for three performan-
ces, or at most a week, before
going on tour, it has now settled
down for an indefinite New York
run. Show managers at the VIM
ter Garden say that only portion
of the audiences thronging to the
French ballet are ballet-wise en-
thusiasts, the others being show
igoers who may not know ballet,
but who do know good entertain
ment when it is framed only in
long silk ballet stockings and
scanty costumes.
Surprising to Broadway ticket
brokers has been the tremendous
demand for tickets to the more
formal Sadler's Wells troupe
which opened with a ballet of
full-evening length, Sleeping
Beauty" Later it changed its bill
to an evening of four shorter
ballets.
One of the outstanding numbers
done by the Wells group is "Fa-
cade," a melange of. dance bits
in which MORA Shearer delights
not only with her superb dancing,
but also with her talent for comic
mimicry.
Popularity Spreading.
In the choreography of Ham
let" an tmpressionistic study of
the tragedy. Robert Helpmann did
both the staging and danced the
lead. His performance and that
of Margot Fonteyn as Ophelia are
exciting.
Among signs that this unex-
pected popularity of ballet is
spreading beyond the confines Of
Broadway is that the troupe had
an advance sale of $4,000 for 10
performances in Chicago even be-
fore the program was announced.
The performance at East Lansing
was completely sold out and 80
per cent of the two performances
in Washington were sold out with
in a few hours after the dates were
announced.
When LES Ballets de Paris"
opened it was planned to change
the dances every other night to
maintain pace with the London
group. However. when the re-
sDonse at the box Office became
SO enthusiastic, it was decided
.t',e-e was no necessity for change
in bills So the flaming French
dancers are continuing in their
same programs indefinitely as long
as this sudden rage for ballet on
Broadway continues.
The French company appeared