The Stage

FROM A SHORT HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN NEGRO - Benjamin Brawley

For a generation after the Civil War only in the lowest sort of minstrel show could the Negro entertainer himself find a place. About the close of the century the efforts of Ernest Hogan and others resulted in a higher form of musical comedy, and in the years 1907-11 the Williams and Walker productions, *Bandanna Land*, *In Dahomey*, and *In Abyssinia*, rose to great favor with the public. To Egbert A. ("Bert") Williams himself great distinction attached, and in the years just before his death in 1922 he was regarded by most critics as the foremost comedian of the American stage. By his appearance in "The Follies" he may also be said single-handed to have unlocked the door of the American theater to the Negro artist. Accordingly about 1920-22 Broadway was quite prepared for a new series of musical comedies that had an extraordinary vogue.

In the new day special distinction attaches to the appearance of Charles S. Gilpin in Eugene O'Neill's play, *The Emperor Jones*, in 1921. For years this actor had worked in minor productions before his great opportunity came. Especially had he assisted in the efforts of the Pekin Players in Chicago and the Lafayette Players in New York, and he had taken the minor role of Custis in the production of Drinkwater's *Abraham Lincoln*. His ultimate success was all the more gratifying because so well deserved.

In *The Emperor Jones* and in other plays has since appeared Paul Robeson, an actor so highly gifted that his possibilities seem unlimited.

The Stage

FROM: REMINISCENCES OF AN OCTOGENARIAN OF THE CITY OF NEW YORK (1816-1860) - Charles H. Haswell (1897)

In Marion near Houston Street there was (1824) a theatre in which the performers were colored.

In this season (1821-22) a summer garden, with an im-
provised theatre for the patronage of colored persons, was opened
"where Richard III", "Othello," and like pieces were presented by
a colored company.

On March 30, 1826, one Hewlett, a colored representative of "Shakespeare's proud heroes," as he himself termed it, gave illustrations of his talent at 11 Spruce Street.

At this period (1847-48) the fashion of Negro minstrelsy
must have been at its height as a popular influence. ... One of
these (performances) that I remember included in its number an actual
Negro who played the bones with great skill, and indeed the rage for
Negro delineation very largely infected the blacks so that eventually
several companies of them were performing, which went about the
country engaged in somewhat extravagant imitation of themselves.

From: HISTORY OF THE THEATRE IN AMERICA -
(1919)

Hornblow

About the time John Gilbert appeared on the stage (1828) a new and peculiarly American form of entertainment was seen for the first time on our boards and soon became very popular. This was Negro minstrelsy, which had its origin in the singing and dancing of the slaves on the plantations of the wealthy Southerners. When the master wanted amusement he sent for those among his slaves who could sing and dance. When he sent out invitations for a "small and early" it was the slaves who played the dance music. The entertaining abilities of the despised slave were soon recognized and the white actor began to realize he could make money by imitating the black man.

Thomas D. Rice (Jim Crow Rice), a New Yorker, was one of the first to win fame in this field. Born in 1808, he first appeared in Negro character at Ludlow's Amphitheatre, Louisville, Ky. Returning east, he went to Washington, where he made a great hit in his new darkie song and dance, "Jim Crow." He probably drew more money to the Bowery treasury than any American performer in the same period of time. In person he was tall and slender, and assumed the shambling Negro gait and plantation dialect with more amusing accuracy than any other of our African delineators. George W. Dixon led the way in New York with this class of entertainment, but it was reserved for Mr. Rice to naturalize and render it popular, and in consequence he was generally regarded as the father and founder of Ethiopian minstrelsy.

In 1842 E. B. Christy organized the Christy Minstrels,

-2-

who were enormously successful both here and in England. Later
Ethiopian organizations were Buckley's Serenaders, Dan Bryant's, San
Francisco Minstrels, Kelly and Leon's, the Callender Minstrels, the
Haverly Minstrels, Primrose and West Minstrels, and Lew Dockstader.
Of late years the popularity of the Negro minstrel has waned.
Public taste has changed. The Ethiopian has had to yield the center
of the stage to the girl show. Among our latter day black-face
artists, Al Jolson is perhaps the most successful in keeping alive
the tradition of the colored minstrel.

It was with blackened face and in the darkie costume of
"Jim Crow" that Joseph Jefferson, our famous Rip (1829-1905) made
one of his earliest appearances on the stage. He was then only
four years of age, and although he had been often carried on the
stage as a property baby, this was his first appearance before the
public in a distinct impersonation of his own. Rice had just made
his first hit in Washington and baby Jefferson had amused his family
and friends with imitations of the Negro dialect singer. Rice
himself was delighted with the imitation and at once conceived the
idea of using little Jefferson in a novel way at his benefit.
Blacking the child's face and dressing him so that he was/diminutive
counterpart of himself, he put him in a bag which he slung over his
shoulder, and thus laden down came down to the footlights and began
to sing:

"Ladies and gentlemen, I'd have you for to know
That I've got a little darkey here that jumps
Jim Crow"

and turning the bag upside down, he emptied the little boy head first
before the eyes of the astonished audience. "Rice," says Joseph

-3-

Jefferson in his Autobiography, "was considerably over six feet
high; I was but four years old; and as we stood there, dressed
exactly alike, the audience roared with laughter. Rice and I now
sang alternate stanzas and the excitement increased; showers of
pennies, six pence and shillings were tossed from the pit and thrown
from the galleries upon the stage."

From: GENTLEMEN BE SEATED - A Parade of the Old-Time Minstrels
by Dailey Paskman and Sigmund Spaeth (1928)

Actual Negro performers began to go into the minstrel
business in the early 70's. One of the first organizations of
colored minstrels was Callender's. The Dean of the theatrical
profession, Daniel Frohman, became their agent in 1874, and his
brothers, Gustave and Charles, became the proprietors of the show
in 1882. Charles Frohman was thus interested in minstrelsy long
before he became America's leading producer of legitimate drama.

He was also advance man and treasurer of Haverly's
Mastadon Minstrels at their inception in Chicago and subsequently
became Haverly's manager, continuing in this position until he
and his brother, Gustave, took charge of Callender's Minstrels.

Richards and Pringle's Georgia Minstrels were another
popular colored troupe that toured for years. It was this organiza-
tion that boasted as a member Billy Kersands of the enormous mouth.
Billy, it is claimed, could hide a billiard ball in one of his
cheeks and go on and do his monologue without the slightest in-
convenience.

Curiously enough, the colored minstrels applied burnt
cork to their features whether they needed it or not, and made up
with as much care as did their white imitators.

Gus Hill managed an organization of colored performers,
of whom the bright particular star was Ernest Hogan. He was the
original singer of "My Gal Is a Highborn Lady", one of the song

hits of Barney Fagan, who is still active on the stage.

Another historic combination was that of Williams and Walker, and the name of Bert Williams still represents the acme of Negro comedy and pathos. His singing of "Nobody" remains a unique achievement.

The team of Cole and Johnson is remembered with delight, particularly in such songs as "Under the Bamboo Tree".

The Negro performer is steadily becoming more prominent in stage entertainments, in vaudeville and in revues. Today we have Sissle and Blake, Miller and Lyle, and the whole tribe of jazz descendants of the minstrel tradition. J. Rosamond Johnson is still active in the concert field, and the new generation has brought such splendid Negro artists as Roland Hayes, Paul Robeson, Taylor Gordon, Julius Bledsoe, while Will Marion Cook, Harry Burleigh, R. Nathaniel Dett and others have given dignity and substance to the actual Negro music.

It is to the Negro that the white minstrel owes everything, for without the presence of the black race in this country American minstrelsy would never have existed. The pathos, the tragedy, the humour, of the Negroes, their heritage of superstition and of religious fervor, their music, their linguistic whims and fancies, have been the rich material for translation to the stage, and minstrelsy took its toll of all these elements.

Ridgeley Torrence's Plays

“An Historic
Happening”

What The Critics Say

"After a second visit I am convinced
that the plays and the singing make it the
most enjoyable show now in town."

Louis Sherwin-Globe

"As fine an enterprise as the American
Theatre has seen for years."

Frances Hackett—The New Republic

"Epoch making."

W. E. Burghardt Du Bois—The Crisis

"It seems imperative that no person
with imagination miss this."

Randolph Bourne—Tribune

"I was strangely moved by this per-
formance. It was something new, some-
thing remarkable, something altogether fine

and real."

Dr. Frank Crane-Globe

TO THE DRAMA LEAGUE

AST night I met with several of my friends to discuss the great significance of this movement in the life of the Negro and also to review the many press comments that have been made upon the product-

ion. Somehow I feel that Mrs. Hapgood, Mr. Jones
and Mr. Torrence have placed a precious jewel in our
hands, and if it should slip away from us now it will
be lost forever. Can't you help us? Won't you help
us? I believe that Mrs. Hapgood's object is to show
that there is something beautiful, something truly artis-
tic in this neglected life of the Negro. In that she has
succeeded gloriously.

A blind South has tried to make us despise everything about ourselves that is truly racial. When I left the Garrick Theatre the other night after seeing those plays portraying as they do our simple neglected lives, with a new, strange beauty, I felt as I imagine Sir Launfal felt when he returned to his Castle after seeking the world over for the Holy Grail, and found the cup at his very door.

It will mean a tremendous lot to the twelve millions that are speaking to you through me, if you will do this for us.

In closing may I beg that you forgive me for addressing you so freely. I do so only because I see with an almost prophetic vision just what these Negro Plays and Players can mean in the life of the Negro and in the life of the American people. Cordially yours,

Mary Burrill.

Ridgeley Torrence's Plays

“An Historic
Happening”

What The Critics Say

Louis Sherwin-Globe

"Epoch making."

Randolph Bourne—Tribune

Dr. Frank Crane-Globe

The Editor of The New York Times,
Sir:

New York, April 7, 1917

N Ford's Theatre, Washington, fifty-two years ago, at the climax of his life, the emancipator of the American Negro sat watching a play. Last night, at the Garrick Theatre in this city, I seemed to see Lincoln again in the playhouse—his great spirit brooding there, with infinite satisfaction, upon an event as potentially significant in the art of the race he set free as his act of emancipation, was to their political life. That event is the performance by Negro players of three plays by Ridgley Torrence, directed by Robert Edmond Jones, under the management of Mrs. Emilie Hapgood. ¶ Here is an all-American achievement, authentic in inspiration, of very deep moment both dramatically and civically. ¶ Dramatically, it is a finely harmonious co-operation between a dramatist and a director both of genius, a manager of rare initiative and imagination, and a troop of players unique and felicitous in their comic acting, varied and nobly sustained in their tragic. ¶ In the charm, distinction and vivid beauty of his scenes for these plays, Jones has outdone his own former craftsmanship, and the touch of his personal directorship orders and illuminates the ensemble. ¶ All three of Torrence's plays are works of abiding poetry, wrought from themes of our own soil by a poet whom we have long known for his ardent lyric qualities, but never till now for his dramatic mastery of characterization and insight, and the effortless expression of these in a speech for actors always naturally flowing and always redolent of poetry. For sheer, terrific tragedy, the second play "Granny Maumee" has no equal among American dramatic works and no counterpart of its kind in any literature. ¶ As it touches the life and problems of the Negro in our country, this whole production seems to me to be of immensely good significance to both colored people and white. It is indeed an historic happening. Probably for the first time, in any comparable degree, both races are here brought together upon a plane utterly devoid of all racial antagonisms, a plane of art in which audience and actor a happily peers, mutually cordial to each other's gifts of appreciation and interpretation. And this spirit is enhanced by these musicians and singers of the entr'acts, who are delightfully parts of one artistic whole. ¶ As one spectator and listener, I take the liberty, Sir, of submitting to the courtesy of your columns this brief, inadequate impression of the Garrick Theatre production, in hopes that it may lead others to enjoy there an event of really great import and promise.

Very truly yours,

PERCY MACKAYE

(aker)

["THE RIDER OF DREAMS", "A Comedy", "CAST OF CHARACTERS", "<table><tr><td>Lucy Sparrow</td><td>Blanche Deas</td></tr><tr><td>Booker Sparrow</td><td>Joseph Burt</td></tr><tr><td>Madison Sparrow</td><td>Opal Cooper</td></tr><tr><td>Dr. Williams</td><td>Alexander Rogers</td></tr></table>", "GRANNY MAUMEE", "A Tragedy", "CAST OF CHARACTERS", "<table><tr><td>Granny Maumee</td><td>Marie Jackson-Stuart</td></tr><tr><td>Pearl</td><td>Fannie Tarkington</td></tr><tr><td>Sapphie</td><td>Blanche Deas</td></tr></table>", "*SIMON THE CYRENIAN", "A Passion Interlude", "\"And as they led Him away they laid hold upon one Simon, a Cyrenian—and on him they laid the cross that he might bear it after Jesus.\" Luke 23, 26.", "CAST OF CHARACTERS", "<table><tr><td>Procula</td><td>Inez Clough</td></tr><tr><td>Drusus</td><td>Andrew Bishop</td></tr><tr><td>Acté, Princess of Egypt</td><td>Lottie Grady</td></tr><tr><td>Battus</td><td>Theodore Roosevelt Bolin</td></tr><tr><td>Simon</td><td>John T. Butler</td></tr><tr><td>Pilate</td><td>Alexander Rogers</td></tr><tr><td>Barrabas</td><td>Jesse Shipp</td></tr><tr><td>The Mocker with the Crown of Thorns</td><td>Robert Atkin</td></tr><tr><td>The Mocker with the Scarlet Robe</td><td>Thomas William</td></tr><tr><td>Egyptian Herald</td><td>Frederick Slade</td></tr><tr><td>Centurion</td><td>Jerome Osborne, Jr.</td></tr><tr><td>Longinus</td><td>Ralph Hernandez</td></tr><tr><td rowspan=\"2\">Soldiers</td><td>Jervis Wilson</td></tr><tr><td>Earl Taylor</td></tr><tr><td rowspan=\"2\">Attendants to Procula</td><td>Lisle Berridge</td></tr><tr><td>Thomas William</td></tr><tr><td></td><td>Muriel Smith</td></tr></table>", "Scene: The Garden of Pilate's House at Jerusalem.", "Time: The Day of Jesus' Crucifixion.", "(Mr. Bishop appears by arrangement with the Lafayette Stock Company).", "* (Although Cyrene was in northern Africa, the wall paintings in the vast Cyrenian tombs depict black people instead of brown.", "The Jesus' cross-bearer was a black man, as the early Renaissance painters represented him, is a fact that holds a certain suggestion bearing upon a phase of modern society).", "Costumes and scenery designed by Robert Edmond Jones.", "Scenery executed by Dodge and Castle and Lee Lash studios.", "Lighting by William Pennington.", "Costumes by Mrs. E. A. Logan.", "Properties from C. W. Miller; Siedle Studios.", "Executive Staff", "<table><tr><td>Business Manager</td><td>Lawrence J. Anhalt</td></tr><tr><td>General Representative</td><td>Mrs. James W. Johnson</td></tr><tr><td>Press Representative</td><td>Hiram K. Moderwell</td></tr><tr><td>Chief Electrician</td><td>John Horohan</td></tr><tr><td>Assistant Electrician</td><td>John Brennan</td></tr><tr><td>Carpenter</td><td>John Ellis</td></tr><tr><td>Master of Properties</td><td>John Ahearn</td></tr><tr><td>Stage Manager</td><td>Jesse Shipp</td></tr></table>", "General Musical Director J. Rosamond Johnson", "Orchestra, Members of the Clef Club", "Leader of Orchestra, William C. Elkins", "MUSICAL PROGRAMME", "Singing Overture", "First Intermission", "Characteristic Negro Songs", "Second Intermission", "Negro Spirituals", "(Note: \"Walk Together Children,\" sung before the rise of the curtain on the final play, is an old Negro spiritual developed by J. Rosamond Johnson).", "GALLERY", "EXITS 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, LEAD TO 27TH ST.\nEXITS 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39, 40, 41, 42, 43, 44, 45, 46, 47, 48, 49, 50, 51, 52, 53, 54, 55, 56, 57, 58, 59, 60, 61, 62, 63, 64, 65, 66, 67, 68, 69, 70, 71, 72, 73, 74, 75, 76, 77, 78, 79, 80, 81, 82, 83, 84, 85, 86, 87, 88, 89, 90, 91, 92, 93, 94, 95, 96, 97, 98, 99, 100, 101, 102, 103, 104, 105, 106, 107, 108, 109, 110, 111, 112, 113, 114, 115, 116, 117, 118, 119, 120, 121, 122, 123, 124, 125, 126, 127, 128, 129, 130, 131, 132, 133, 134, 135, 136, 137, 138, 139, 140, 141, 142, 143, 144, 145, 146, 147, 148, 149, 150, 151, 152, 153, 154, 155, 156, 157, 158, 159, 160, 161, 162, 163, 164, 165, 166, 167, 168, 169, 170, 171, 172, 173, 174, 175, 176, 177, 178, 179, 180, 181, 182, 183, 184, 185, 186, 187, 188, 189, 190, 191, 192, 193, 194, 195, 196, 197, 198, 199, 200, 201, 202, 203, 204, 205, 206, 207, 208, 209, 210, 211, 212, 213, 214, 215, 216, 217, 218, 219, 220, 221, 222, 223, 224, 225, 226, 227, 228, 229, 230, 231, 232, 233, 234, 235, 236, 237, 238, 239, 240, 241, 242, 243, 244, 245, 246, 247, 248, 249, 250, 251, 252, 253, 254, 255, 256, 257, 258, 259, 260, 261, 262, 263, 264, 265, 266, 267, 268, 269, 270, 271, 272, 273, 274, 275, 276, 277, 278, 279, 280, 281, 282, 283, 284, 285, 286, 287, 288, 289, 290, 291, 292, 293, 294, 295, 296, 297, 298, 299, 300, 301, 302, 303, 304, 305, 306, 307, 308, 309, 310, 311, 312, 313, 314, 315, 316, 317, 318, 319, 320, 321, 322, 323, 324, 325, 326, 327, 328, 329, 330, 331, 332, 333, 334, 335, 336, 337, 338, 339, 340, 341, 342, 343, 344, 345, 346, 347, 348, 349, 350, 351, 352, 353, 354, 355, 356, 357, 358, 359, 360, 361, 362, 363, 364, 365, 366, 367, 368, 369, 370, 371, 372, 373, 374, 375, 376, 377, 378, 379, 380, 381, 382, 383, 384, 385, 386, 387, 388, 389, 390, 391, 392, 393, 394, 395, 396, 397, 398, 399, 400, 401, 402, 403, 404, 405, 406, 407, 408, 409, 410, 411, 412, 413, 414, 415, 416, 417, 418, 419, 420, 421, 422, 423, 424, 425, 426, 427, 428, 429, 430, 431, 432, 433, 434, 435, 436, 437, 438, 439, 440, 441, 442, 443, 444, 445, 446, 447, 448, 449, 450, 451, 452, 453, 454, 455, 456, 457, 458, 459, 460, 461, 462, 463, 464, 465, 466, 467, 468, 469, 470, 471, 472, 473, 474, 475, 476, 477, 478, 479, 480, 481, 482, 483, 484, 485, 486, 487, 488, 489, 490, 491, 492, 493, 494, 495, 496, 497, 498, 499, 500, 501, 502, 503, 504, 505, 506, 507, 508, 509, 510, 511, 512, 513, 514, 515, 516, 517, 518, 519, 520, 521, 522, 523, 524, 525, 526, 527, 528, 529, 530, 531, 532, 533, 534, 535, 536, 537, 538, 539, 540, 541, 542, 543, 544, 545, 546, 547, 548, 549, 550, 551, 552, 553, 554, 555, 556, 557, 558, 559, 560, 561, 562, 563, 564, 565, 566, 567, 568, 569, 570, 571, 572, 573, 574, 575, 576, 577, 578, 579, 580, 581, 582, 583, 584, 585, 586, 587, 588, 589, 590, 591, 592, 593, 594, 595, 596, 597, 598, 599, 600, 601, 602, 603, 604, 605, 606, 607, 608, 609, 610, 611, 612, 613, 614, 615, 616, 617, 618, 619, 620, 621, 622, 623, 624, 625, 626, 627, 628, 629, 630, 631, 632, 633, 634, 635, 636, 637, 638, 639, 640, 641, 642, 643, 644, 645, 646, 647, 648, 649, 650, 651, 652, 653, 654, 655, 656, 657, 658, 659, 660, 661, 662, 663, 664, 665, 666, 667, 668, 669, 670, 671, 672, 673, 674, 675, 676, 677, 678, 679, 680, 681, 682, 683, 684, 685, 686, 687, 688, 689, 690, 691, 692, 693, 694, 695, 696, 69

THE GLOBE AND COMMERCIAL ADVERTISER, NEW YORK, MONDAY, APRIL 23, 1917.

# THE NEGRO IN ART.

By DR. FRANK CRANE.

What is the future for the American Negro? Is he always
going to be an inferior race? Is he never going to emerge from
the shadow of his bondage?

Perhaps the problem is being solved by "a power not of
ourselves," by the deep purpose of nature and her slow process
of evolution.

The word problem is not good. There are no social prob-
lems, such as a labor, race or religious problem; such things
are conditions to be lived through, instead of puzzles to be
worked out.

And perhaps the Negro wants most of all to be let alone.
He does not want to be studied as a case, nor patronized, nor
helped. All he wants is a square deal, equal opportunity, and
his just deserts.

An experiment is being tried in New York, consisting of a
company of Negro actors who attempt a serious dramatic per-
formance of plays written especially for them and supposed to
be peculiarly adapted to their genius.

If a highly cultured and entirely unprejudiced foreigner
were to look for the most interesting theatre in the city, he
would find it here.

For here are real human beings trying to express them-
selves and not to depict borrowed emotions. It is the best kind
of art.

Art consists in the forthputting of one's self. It means
doing, with that freedom and naturalness that come only from
genius and long practice, the thing I can do better than any-
body else.

These Negroes play Negro plays. They are revealing the
soul of a people. They are not propagandizing. They are not
perking themselves up to be like white folks. They do not de-
mand, argue, or protest.

They are real artists. No artist has any other aim than
to show his soul by his work. There are certain qualities of
spirit, certain shades of passion and of conscience, which the
Negro can portray better than any other race. There is a
pathos, a tenderness, an edge of sympathy, a beauty of loyalty,
and a genuineness of simplicity wherein the African excels.

I think the Negro is by nature the race best suited to
Christianity.

The Negro has none of that offensive and hard pride that
stains the Caucasian. He is the exact opposite of the Prussian.

In the great democracy of art, where the prejudices of
race or speech disappear, and where "each shall paint the thing
as he sees it for the God of things as they are," the Negro is
welcome.

I was strangely moved by this performance. I felt as if I
were witnessing by far the most significant effort at self-
expression I had seen for a long time anywhere.

It was something new, something remarkable, something
altogether fine and real.

A Negro, like anybody else, can be nothing so interesting,
so great, so artistic, as himself.

(Copyright, 1917, by Frank Crane.)

THE CIVIC CLUB

12 East 31 Street

New York

The Negro Problems Group of the Civic Club
wishes to draw your attention to a

UNIQUE THEATRICAL EVENT

THE COLORED PLAYERS IN THREE ONE ACT PLAYS
by RIDGELY TORRENCE

Grannie Maumee ----- A Tragedy

The Rider of Dreams - A Comedy

Simon the Cyrenean -- A Passion Interlude

Management of Mrs. EMILY HAPGOOD

Scenery and Costumes by ROBERT EDMUND JONES

at the GARDEN THEATRE, beginning THURSDAY, APRIL 5th.

Matinees Wednesdays and Saturdays

Seats at the Box Office, 50¢ to $2.00

The first two plays are pictures of Negro life, poetic and strangely moving. "Grannie Maumee," when produced by the Stage Society three years ago, with Dorothy Donnelly in the chief part, received universally favorable criticisms. The other two are now produced for the first time. "Simon the Cyrenean" is a historical play of great beauty.

This is a rare opportunity to see the work of a distinguished American poet under unusually interesting conditions. Those wishing to take advantage of it are urged to do so at the earliest possible date as the success of such a venture is often determined by its first week audiences.

James Weldon Johnson

Chairman

MARIE STUART-JACKSON, AS GRANNY MAUMEE

“NEGRO PLAYERS,” read the large billboard outside the Garden Theatre and it read like a prophecy of a new era in our theatres. Two days later the sign was gone, the play had moved to the Garrick Theatre, quite near Broadway.

"Success," I thought. "At last something originally American!"

I went to see the performance. All the actors were negroes, the plays representative of negro life. . . . The players interested me intensely: not only had their work a fascinating realism in it; but they were not afraid of long speeches and brought besides a breath of mysticism, a touch of pure imagination on to the stage, "and put it over."

I was really disappointed, and so, I believe, were the audiences, when the show closed the same fortnight it had opened. I had intended to go again and bring friends and awaken enthusiasm, if I could, for this splendid and unique experiment.

The idea of allowing negroes to play their own plays on a metropolitan stage, to step out of the small circle of their own race and their own neighborhood, marked, I thought, an epoch.

What do we New Yorkers know about our colored fellow-citizens? We see them at work filling the humblest positions in everyday life, or we laugh at their caricatures presented on our vaudeville stages. How they live, what they think, their family life, their mental developments and their aspirations to justice and to the beautiful, are all foreign territory to us.

Negroes are dreamers. They have a sense of rhythm and color. They are gifted with a rare humor, very elementary in their joys and in their sorrows. Does not all this make for peculiar and distinctive dramatic effects? They not only follow all professions of white people, but they have newspapers of their own, and some of them are ably edited and well-written. Negro poets and musicians of no mean ability have sung the griefs and hopes of their race. Surely there must be playwrights among them?

The picturesqueness of the negro attitude is a stock subject of our funny papers. There is an originality in their color combinations, far more striking

THE NEGRO PLAYERS

AMERICA'S HOPE FOR
HISTRIONIC ORIGINALITY

By Maud Martin

than the vivid schemes of our modernists. Isn't there some negro living somewhere in the South who is admired by his fellow townsmen for his "handi-ness" in decorating dance halls during harvest time or churches for church fairs? Why not choose him to paint the scenery for a negro playhouse, to design the costumes for the actors? He will not be acquainted with the effects of Mr. Reinhardt but his designs may be not less marvellous than the admissible color-combinations on prehistoric African sculptures.

The negro actor, if not a professional with experience on our stages, will be shy, a bit bashful, when facing white audiences. You must know the negro of the South if you wish to understand his present position in our national life. The mental marks of physical bondage cannot be obliterated in three or four generations. The negro was a working

animal during business hours until seventy-five years ago. He was treated as a child in the private life of the family that owned him. Childish simplicity is one of his chief characteristics today. He sees the world with young eyes, he dreams youth's dreams, he is happy in his way. His blood is hot, his ambition pleasure-bounded.

Why did not Mrs. Emily Hapgood, who sponsored the negro players, give a chance to colored playwrights and artists?

The plays presented did not interest me at all. They were the cause of the premature death of the most promising theatrical idea which has made its appearance on the American stage.

Negroes must have the chance to stage their own plays written by their own playwrights for negro audiences. Then we may have the privilege of seeing a truly American play.

PUTTING IT MILDLY,
said Louis Sherwin
in the Globe.

IT IS A SENSATION!

He had just been
thrilled by the clever

Negro
Players

in 3 plays by Ridgely Torrence,
Staged by Robert E. Jones

AT THE GARDEN THEATRE, 27th St.,
and Madison Ave.
Best Seats by Phone—Madison Sq., 9018,
Evgs. 8:20, Matinees Wed. & Sat., 2:20.
Louis De Foe of the World said:

"Unusual! Interesting!!"

NEW
GARRICK

Theatre, W. 35th St., nr.
B'wy Phone 6224 Grel'y.
Matinees Wed. & Sat.

COLORED
PLAYERS

AND
SINGING
ORCHESTRA

"Granny Maumee!"

"Rider of Dreams"

"Simon the Cyrenian"

Staged by Robert E. Jones.

By

Ridgely

Torrence

"The plays, the reality of the acting, and the singing, make it the most enjoyable show now in town."—Louis Sherwin-Globe.

"As fine an enterprise as the American theatre has seen for years."—New Republic.

"Bill is one of the most interesting of the season."—Newspaper, Tribune.

"It seems imperative that no person with imagination miss this."—Randolph Bourne, Tribune.

"An historic happening."—Percy MacKay.

"This is nature! The Negro Players and the Torrence plays are wonderful. An event of tremendous significance."—Richard Walton Tully.

What The Critics Say

Louis Sherwin-Globe

"Epoch making."

Randolph Bourne—Tribune

"I was strangely moved by this performance. It was something new, something remarkable, something altogether fine and real."

Dr. Frank Crane—Globe

"An Historic
Happening"

IT IS A SENSATION!

Negro
Players

in 3 plays by Ridgely Torrence.
Staged by Robert E. Jones

AT THE GARDEN THEATRE, 25th St.,
and Madison Ave.

Best Seats by Phone—Madison Sq. 9018,
Evang. 8:20. Matinees Wed. & Sat. 2:20.

"Unusual! Interesting!!"

NEW GARRICK

Theatre, W. 35th St., nr.
B'wy. Phone 6224 Grelly.
Matinees Wed. & Sat.

COLORED
PLAYERS

AND—
SINGING
ORCHESTRA

"Granny Maumee"

"Rider of Dreams"

"Simon the Cyreronian"
Staged by Robert E. Jones.

By
Ridgely
Torrence

## What The Critics Say

"After a second visit I am convinced that the plays and the singing make it the most enjoyable show now in town."
—Louis Sherwin—Globe

"As fine an enterprise as the American Theatre has seen for years."
—Frances Hackett—The New Republic

"Epoch making."
—W. E. Burghardt Du Bois—The Crisis

"It seems imperative that no person with imagination miss this."
—Randolph Bourne—Tribune

"I was strangely moved by this performance. It was something new, something remarkable, something altogether fine and real."
—Dr. Frank Crane—Globe

Kindly send your remittance Now
for tickets to the Garrick Theatre

35th Street near Broadway

Seats at 50c 75c $1.00 $1.50 $2.00

PHONE GREENLY 6224

Evenings 8:20

Matinees: Wednesday & Saturday, 2:20

## TO THE DRAMA LEAGUE

LAST night I met with several of my friends to discuss the great significance of this movement in the life of the Negro and also to review the many press comments that have been made upon the production. Somehow I feel that Mrs. Hapgood, Mr. Jones and Mr. Torrence have placed a precious jewel in our hands, and if it should slip away from us now it will be lost forever. Can't you help us? Won't you help us? I believe that Mrs. Hapgood's object is to show that there is something beautiful, something truly artistic in this neglected life of the Negro. In that she has succeeded gloriously.

A blind South has tried to make us despise everything about ourselves that is truly racial. When I left the Garrick Theatre the other night after seeing those plays portraying as they do our simple neglected lives, with a new, strange beauty, I felt as I imagine Sir Launfel felt when he returned to his Castle after seeking the world over for the Holy Grail, and found the cup at his very door.

Mary Burrill.

What The Critics Say

Louis Sherwin-Globe

Frances Hackett-The New Republic

"Epoch making."

W. E. Burghardt Du Bois-The Crisis

Randolph Bourne-Tribune

Dr. Frank Crane-Globe

PHONE GREELY 6224

Evenings 8:20

New York, April 7, 1917

N Ford's Theatre, Washington, fifty-two years ago, at the climax of his life, the emancipator of the American Negro sat watching a play. Last night, at the Garrick Theatre in this city, I seemed to see Lincoln again in the life of the race he set free as his act of emancipation was to their political life. That event is the performance by Negro players of three plays by Ridgley Torrence, directed by Robert Edmond Jones, under the management of Mrs. Emilie Hapgood. ¶ Here is an all-American achievement, authentic in inspiration, of very deep moment both dramatically and civicly. ¶ Dramatically, it is a finely harmonious co-operation between a dramatist and a director both of genius, a manager of rare initiative and imagination, and a troop of players unique and felicitous in their comic acting, varied and nobly sustained in their tragic. ¶ In the charm, distinction and vivid beauty of his scenes for these plays, Jones has outdone his own former craftsmanship, and the touch of his personal directorship orders and illuminates the ensemble. ¶ All three of Torrence's plays are works of abiding poetry, wrought from themes of our own soil by a poet whom we have long known for his ardent lyric qualities, but never till now for his dramatic mastery of characterization and insight, and the effortless expression of these in a speech for actors always naturally flowing and always redolent of poetry. For sheer, terrific tragedy, the second play 'Granny Maumee' has no equal among American dramatic works and no counterpart of its kind in any literature. ¶ As it touches the life and problems of the Negro in our country, this whole production seems to me to be of immensely good significance to both races are here brought together upon a plane utterly devoid of all racial antagonisms a plane of art in which audience and actor a happily peers, mutually cordial to each other's gifts of appreciation and interpretation. And this spirit is enhanced by these musicians and singers of the entr'acts, who are delightfully parts of one artistic whole. ¶ As one spectator and listener, I take the liberty, Sir, of submitting to the courtesy of your columns this brief, inadequate impression of the Garrick Theatre production, in hopes that it may lead others to enjoy there an event of really great import and promise.

Very truly yours,

PERCY MACKAYE

2

STRAUSS MAGAZINE THEATRE PROGRAM

In the Terra Cotta Grill Room of the
Hotel McAlpin
Ernest Hussar and his
wonderful Hungarian
Orchestra

Miss Amparito Farrar, Soprano
Dancing from 9 P. M. until closing.
Exhibitions by
Mr. Tom Rector, Miss Hazel Allan,
Mr. Donald Crane and Miss
Leonora Hughes

Broadway, at Thirty-Fourth Street
L. M. BOOMER, Managing Director

GARRICK THEATRE

5

PROGRAM CONTINUED

*SIMON THE CYRENIAN
A PASSION INTERLUDE

"And as they led Him away they laid hold upon one Simon, a Cyrenian—
and on him they laid the cross that he might bear it after Jesus."—Luke 23, 26.

Cast of Characters

<table><tbody><tr><td>Procula</td><td>Inez Clough</td></tr><tr><td>Drusus</td><td>Andrew Bishop</td></tr><tr><td>Acté, Princess of Egypt</td><td>Lottie Gray</td></tr><tr><td>Battus</td><td>Theodore Roosevelt Bolin</td></tr><tr><td>Simon</td><td>John T. Butler</td></tr><tr><td>Pilate</td><td>Alexander Rogers</td></tr><tr><td>Barrabas</td><td>Jesse Shipp</td></tr><tr><td>The Mocker with the Crown of Thorns</td><td>Robert Atkin</td></tr><tr><td>The Mocker with the Scarlet Robe</td><td>Thomas William</td></tr><tr><td>Egyptian Herald</td><td>Frederick Slade</td></tr><tr><td>Centurion</td><td>Andrew Bishop</td></tr><tr><td>Longinus</td><td>Ralph Hernandez</td></tr><tr><td>Soldiers</td><td>Jervis Wilson<br>Earl Taylor<br>Lisle Berridge</td></tr><tr><td>Attendants to Procula</td><td>Thomas William<br>Jerome Osborne, Jr.</td></tr><tr><td>Attendants to Acté</td><td>Olga Hamilton<br>Dorothy Hampton<br>Samuel Tobias</td></tr></tbody></table>

Scene—The Garden of Pilate's House at Jerusalem.

Time—The Day of Jesus' Crucifixion.

* (Although Cyrene was in Northern Africa, the wall paintings in the vast Cyrenian tombs depict black people instead of brown.)

The Jesus' cross-bearer was a black man, as the early Renaissance painters represented him, is a fact that holds a certain suggestion bearing upon a phase of modern society.)

Scenery executed by Dodge and Castle and Lee Lash Studios.

Lighting by William Pennington.

Costumes by Mrs E. A. Logan.

EXECUTIVE STAFF

<table><tbody><tr><td>Business Manager</td><td>Lawrence J. Anhalt</td></tr><tr><td>General Representative</td><td>Mrs. James W. Johnson</td></tr><tr><td>Press Representative</td><td>Hiram K. Moderwell</td></tr><tr><td>Supervisor of Music</td><td>J. Rosamund Johnson</td></tr><tr><td>Chief Electrician</td><td>John Horohan</td></tr><tr><td>Assistant Electrician</td><td>John Brennan</td></tr><tr><td>Carpenter</td><td>John Ellis</td></tr><tr><td>Master of Properties</td><td>John Ahearn</td></tr><tr><td>Stage Manager</td><td>Jesse Shipp</td></tr></tbody></table>

J. T. Brym, Conductor.

Orchestra, Members of the Clef Club.

Choral Director, William C. Elkins.

MUSICAL PROGRAM

Singing Overture

First Intermission

Characteristic Negro Songs

Second Intermission

Negro Spirituals

(Note:—"Walk Together Children," sung before the rise of the curtain on the play is an old Negro spiritual developed by J. Rosamund Johnson.)

6

A
CHICLE

Buy—

The
Flavor Pleases

AMERICAN CHICLE COMPANY

A
CHICLE

Doraldina's Montmartre

50th Street and Broadway, Nightly at 11 o'Clock

The Place Where the Lovers of the Bright Lights
Gather En Masse

DORALDINA

Greatest of all Hawaiian Dancers, whose gyrations are talked about
from Mexico to Monte Carlo.

Hear the CREOLE BAND in their JAZZ MUSIC—
The latest craze on Broadway.

See the Society and Modern Dancing of
CLIFTON WEBB and GLORIA GOODWIN
The greatest Ballroom Dancers of them all.

And Other Specialties.

No Charge for Admission.

A CRITICAL STUDY OF NOTHING

By George Jean Nathan

MR. ERNEST NEWMAN, brought by vocational ordinances to review the sawings and mewlings of the heterogeneous catgut scrapers and contraband philomels who every other night were posturing themselves before London audiences as musicians and singers, became one day so riled at the whole business that he publicly announced he would no longer attend any performances save those of artists who had made a reputation. After a double fortnight of unremitting theater attendance in New York—a period during which I have nightly been spectator at the performances of authors, actors and managers who have made reputations—I am of a mind to announce that I will no longer attend any performances save those of authors, actors and managers who have not made a reputation.

To the making of a reputation in New York, everything would seem to be essential but talent. One is so surrounded in the theater with famous playwrights, famous actors and famous producers—all more or less first-rate eighth-rate men—that the occasional glimpsing of an utterly unknown, utterly unidentified, intruder bursts upon the vision with a sensation as agreeable ethically as the sudden spectacle, on a dark, gloomy, rainy day in Spring, of a young woman in a soft white dress with a pink flower on her hat. It is, in no small degree, to such newcomers that the critic of the theater looks for stimulation and cheer. For years the critic has watched with leaden eye and numbed brain-pan the uninspired antics of so endless a noctambulation of celebrated authorlets and anointed dudelers

that his hope is ever for the new unknown, for the writer who has never composed a play that has run five hundred nights on Broadway, for the actor whose name has never contributed to a theater program the appearance of the first page of the *Evening Journal*, for the producer who has never been compared in the ebullient newspapers to Reinhardt or Stanislavsky or Adolph Appia. He waits patiently through a dozen plays by famous dramatists of Broadway for a play by some unknown Edward Massey, through a dozen performances by famous actors of Broadway for the performance of some unknown Opal Cooper, through a dozen productions by famous producers of Broadway for a production like that of "The Poor Fool" by some unknown amateur out of Washington Square. The fame of the American theater gives us dramas by Jane Cowl and Otto Hauerbach, acting like that of Robert Edeson and Holbrook Blinn, productions like those of "Upstairs and Down" and "Daybreak." The obscurity of the American theater gives us plays by Tom Barry, acting like that of the highly adroit amateur at the Neighbourhood Playhouse, productions like those of the beginner Hopkins' "Poor Little Rich Girl" and the beginner Williams' "Justice" and the beginner Kugel's "Old Lady 31."

In any one theatrical season in New York, it is doubtful if there are presented, out of the two hundred or so annual productions, more than four or five at most that are prosperous in the amusement of a man tutored to a point of skepticism that hiccoughs may be stopped by counting slowly up to one

presented are melodramas exhibiting
the news that a man's better nature plus
a church-organ will inevitably triumph
over his impulse to short-change the
cash register; librettos discovering the
Atellan juices in the conceit that mar-
ried Frenchmen always sneak away
from their wives on the night of the
Quat'-z-Arts ball and that the wives,
accompanied by their maids, invariably
track after them and make them jealous
by flirting with Raoul, the huzzar; and
problem dramas demonstrating that
every time a married woman is on the
point of embarking on the *Maurensic*
with her lover she is at the last moment
dissuaded from her purpose by the fall-
ing ill of her baby boy. Nowhere, not
even in the Metropolitan Museum of
Art, may one encounter so scintillating
an array of mediocrity promulgated in
so lofty and pretentious a manner.
But—"Have success," wrote Edouard
Pailleron, "and there shall always be
fools to say that you have talent." And
so it has come about that the theater,
as we of the American today know it,
is a great savanna of successful busi-
ness men who are mistaken for and
hailed as talented producers and suc-
cessful showmakers and facemakers
who are mistaken for and hailed re-
spectively as talented dramatists and
actors.

This condition of affairs is, of course,
quickly traceable to the radiant gullibil-
ity of us Americans, in the theater prob-
ably as nowhere else. No worm-medi-
cine vendor, exhorting the cross-road
yokel with his charmed philtre, had
ever so simple a constituency. Let some
Macdonald Hastings come along with
direct transcripts from the speculations
of Rochefoucauld which he places into
play form and calls "The New Sin" and
by the next sunrise the almanacs are
rich in praise of a famous new philoso-
pher dramatist. Let some A. E. Thomas
appear with an unacknowledged coun-
terpart of the French play, "Son Père,"
which he announces as a new and orig-
inal comedy called "The Rainbow," and
for months afterward we hear pater-

comedy writer. Let some clever showman like the Frederic Thompson that was, a man who in his day understood well this native gullibility and shrewdly catered to it, have his press-agent announce that he was so deep a believer in verisimilitude that he actually maneuvered the bunch-lights in the wings in such wise that the scenic trees would cast changing shadows as in the actual sunlight, and from the one end of the boulevard to the other spreads the awe. And once the Broadway species of fame, the Broadway species of reputation, fastens itself upon a person of the theater, it clings like a leech to him, self-confirmed and irremovable. The foundation for this fame, this reputation, matters not. It may be intrinsically little more than a curl, as in the case of some Della Fox; or little more than a rumor that the peculiar coiffure is designed to hide missing ears, as in the case of some Cléo de Mérode; or little more than a pair of aphrodisiacal eyes or pink pajamas or sightly limbs. Yet fame proceeds from the wake of each, a fame that overshadows mere genuine talent, mere authentic skill.

Thus, the fame of Mary Anderson
sprang less from her considerable abil-
ity as an actress than from her reputa-
tion for being a virtuous woman; the
fame of Mrs. James Brown Potter less
from her talent than from her spectacu-
lar matrimonial alliance with an affluent
and tony New Yorker; the fame of
Richard Mansfield less from his fine
performances upon the stage than from
the tales of his temperamental didoes
in the wings; and the fame of William
Gillette less from his unmistakable dex-
terity in the fashioning of adroit farce
and melodrama than from the report
that he had consumption and took long
walks at two a. m. in the solitude of
Central Park. And what was true yes-
terday is even more true today. Idio-
syncrasy and talent are as often con-
founded as monetary success and talent.
Hang the stage with strips of tar-paper
and hang the strips of tar-paper with
small slices of Salami and you are

"Shall we continue to ignore the people of this race of poets, or shall we allow them at last to arise and play for us, and make our life more musical, and greet them with the plaudits of applause?"

Clayton Hamilton in *Vogue*.

## THE COLORED PLAYERS.

HIS unique company of actors, the first group in America and perhaps in the world to give the Negro an opportunity for dignified and artistic dramatic expression, will open their second season early in the Fall. Robert Edmond Jones will again direct the plays and design the scenery and costumes. His settings for this company last season were pronounced by many critics to be his finest work. Extended engagements will be played in Chicago, in New York at a Broadway theatre, and in other large cities through the country.

In Their season at the Garden and the Garrick Theatres during the months of April and May of this year was such an artistic success as to fully justify the faith of their original sponsor, Mrs. Emilie Bigelow Hapgood, in the native gift of dramatic power in the Negro race. Not only that—letters poured in from all sources commending this enterprise as a distinct step in the intellectual development of a people, and a great constructive work in the problem of the Negro.

In "All ah wants is to dream ma own dreams and make ma own music," says the character of Madison Sparrow in "The Rider of Dreams." Not every race is so wonderfully gifted as to be able, with very little training, to express its own dreams. This is a race whose native music has swept the world, the race that has created the only real American folk music. Its possibilities in the Drama are even greater—and this movement is not in any way an imitation of white actors or plays, but an effort to bring out and create from this abundant wealth of natural material a distinctively Negro dramatic art.

In Those who help the Colored Players have an opportunity to place a new instrument in the hands of this people that not only promises a rare new beauty of pure drama, but also prestiges a great forward step along proper lines in the Negro's economic, social and spiritual development.

DESIGNS BY ROBERT EDMOND JONES FOR COSTUMES OF "SIMON THE CYRENIAN" AS PERFORMED BY THE COLORED PLAYERS.

"To do for the Negro theatrically what has been done for the Irish by the Irish Theatre movement is magnificently worth while."

Zona Gale in The Theatre Arts Magazine.

## THE PLAYS AND THE PLAYERS

HE three plays already presented were written by Ridgeley Torrence, and at least one of them—"The Rider of Dreams" has been pronounced the "first American classic of the stage." Several critics considered "Granny Maumee" as the most gripping one-act play of the year. Mr. Ridgeley Torrence, who in writing these plays has been likened to the Irish Synge, is engaged on other productions, one of them the libretto of a serious Negro Opera.

Of the players, at least two, Opal Cooper and Inez Clough were listed by George Jean Nathan among the first ten in his list of the roles most perfectly played by their actors during the present New York season.

### THE AIM
To present these and other plays—all truly Negro in Character—and so to establish a permanent company where all that is harmonious in the soul of the Negro, his music, his dancing, his wealth of emotional feeling, can be fittingly portrayed. To, firstly—give the Negro this opportunity of self expression, and secondly—permit American audiences to appreciate and realize (as one critic expressed it) the magnificence of the African race.

For the season of 1917-18 the net profits will be devoted to the newly formed Emergency Circle for Negro relief.

### THE NEED
An endowment of at least ten thousand dollars for new productions, possible temporary losses, and the immediate promotion and publicity work to assure a successful season. Every effort is being bent to make the enterprise self supporting, so as to establish a permanent Negro Theatre. To this end, five classes of supporting membership have been arranged—Founders, Sustaining, Patron, Member and Lay Member. Blanks are enclosed explaining these memberships in detail.

SCENES FROM "GRANNY MAUMEE" AND "THE RIDER OF DREAMS."

September 8, 1917

THE NEW REPUBLIC

154

answer does not change. The only natural market where the Lorraine iron ore or the product of it can be disposed of cheaply and quickly will be Germany. In case she loses Lorraine, Germany also may soon realize the force of this truth and be willing to go to Lorraine for her iron ore. She may be willing to give in exchange the coal needed by France. A commercial arrangement providing for this exchange, giving Lorraine, Meurthe-et-Moselle and Meuse a market for their iron ore and Germany a market for her coal, must result from the transfer of Alsace-Lorraine from the German Empire to the French Republic. What other solution is possible, except the creation of an independent economic unit out of the two provinces?

L. W. S.

## The Epic of the Black Man

THE Negro "singing orchestra" which furnished the music in connection with the Negro plays presented by Mrs. Hapgood at the Garden Theatre last spring served to remind the public of the remarkable fund of music which the colored race has given to America. The program was, in fact, an epitome of the Negro's musical genius. This revelation of his capacity for the most brilliant rhythmic vitality, the most lively musical humor, and the most intense emotional visualization, must have come as a surprise to most of the listeners. At least the program demonstrated how false is the superficial notion that the Negro's sole contribution to music has been rhythmic. As a matter of fact, the colored race during its sojourn on this continent has produced a well rounded folk-music worthy of comparison in range and quality to the best in Europe. This folk-music, interpreted with the aid of the modern social psychologist, becomes an eloquent record of the life of the black man in slavery.

The Negro lived for a century or more in a primitive state surrounded by a higher civilization. Being reminded every hour of the day of his inferior status he acquired a strong racial and communal feeling. And this communal feeling, this sense of a group solidarity pitted against obstacles, has always found expression in folk-art. The social group has its ambitions, its fears and its sorrows distinct from those of the individual. There is a group mind analogous to the individual mind, but distinct from it, which cherishes its peculiar deities, taboos and repressions. To the primitive European tribe the chief enemy to be fought or placated was Nature. The individual had his personal enemies and his individual problems, but the friendliness or hostility of Nature was

something that concerned the whole group. So the English peasant, in a ritual inherited from Druidical times, pays homage to a tree on May-day to symbolize the fertilization of the earth by Nature, secretly hoping that the gods will take the hint and give him a good crop. Though the individual is rarely conscious of the meaning of his folk-lore, deep in the consciousness of the group there persists the desire which continually seeks an æsthetic satisfaction in the multiplication of rites and symbols. Thus folk-art, according to the modern interpretation, is a symbol of the racial will. And thus the folk-song is not merely a song sung by many, but a song created by the group-mind to express the group desire.

It is doubtless the friction between inner desire and outer repression that generates artistic creation, either in the individual or the folk. In the case of the primitive English or Russian peasant the repression came probably from the fear of displeasing the deities of Nature. But with the Negro the case was different. He had no concern with Nature. He was fed and housed in any weather, and was unmoved by the prospects of the cotton crop. His racial enemy was the white man and his racial desire freedom. However little personal enmity the individual slave may have felt for his master, however much he may have dreaded the responsibilities of freedom, the sub-conscious mind of the group longed to be rid of its chains. But the Negro's longing for freedom was precisely the one emotion to which he dared not give open expression, under pain of the lash. Here then, was set up the folk-repression. The Negro sought a channel for artistic solace, into which he could throw the symbolism of his racial longing. He found it in the religion brought to him by Protestant missionaries or taught him by his masters. Here he was free to dream his dreams and create his visions of future happiness, for no master could punish him for praising God. Thus he "found religion," and in religion he found no mood of his simple soul unnourished.

It is, then, not so hard to understand why the Negro's folk-song is, in its superficial form, so predominantly religious. The "spirituals" of the camp-meeting show a quite unecclesiastical variety of style and mood, a variety, in fact, co-extensive with the emotional range of simple peasant life. They include lively dances, bitter laments, pæans of joy and majestic, organ-like anthems. In the Bible stories which are retold in ballad form in some of the spirituals the Negro found expression for his buoyant, genial humor. Nearly all the familiar moods of folk-song, from the gayest to the most profoundly tragic, are to be found under the religious veil which permitted the slave to live

THE NEW REPUBLIC

September 8, 1917

his own varied emotional life without interference
from his master.

The Negro has, in short, reproduced on our
continent the whole creative process which brought
forth the Russian, German and English folk-
music. This communal process, in which the group
absorbs and welds the spontaneous individual con-
tributions, parallels that of conscious composition,
but with two points of difference—that the crea-
tive contributions come from many individuals
instead of from one, and that the process of criti-
cism and selection is instinctive instead of
deliberate. It is true that the Negro found
his musical materials (scales, cadences, melodic
formulæ and the like) supplied to him ready made
in the missionaries' hymn tunes. But this civilized
music did not satisfy, much less absorb, his musi-
cal creativeness. It merely permitted him to be-
gin at a stage several centuries beyond the primi-
tive genesis of music. From the hymn tunes he
took the major scale and the elements of musical
structure. But his instinct, his native African
impulse, remained naïve and creative. He learned
no melody which he did not alter and few which he
did not improve. In that most communal of all
rituals, the "shout," the gospel melodies were
torn to bits by the Negro's religious emotionalism,
and from it they emerged—not all, but many—
re-created in rhythm, scale and feeling. The dron-
ing hymn-tunes had become rhythmic and vigorous.
Their pale sentimentalism had become transformed
in the mould of primitive scales and vitalized in the
honest sensualism of the dance. Their Italianate
melodies had been made to conform to the
rhythmic genius of the English language with a
fidelity that has not often been matched in the
history of English composition.

Read as an interpretation of the Negro's racial
soul, these songs form a sort of epic of the black
race in subjection. Pictures of a life of patient
servitude, apocalyptic visions of deliverance, croon-
ings of anguish and riotous festivals of rejoicing—
these are the fragments of a splendid composite
picture of a racial epoch. In the heat of his desire
for emotional solace the Negro seizes the most
extravagant images from the Bible. Pictures of
golden harps and fiery chariots recompense him
for his days of hopeless drudgery in the cotton
fields. One thinks of the fragmentary epic of
Jewish deliverance in the Bible, with its psalms of
lamentation and rejoicing, its songs of Moses and
Deborah. From the Negro spirituals, no less than
from the Jewish rhapsodies, we can piece together
a stirring record of a race emerging from bondage.

An interpreter of folk-psychology like Jung
might easily trace the imagery and symbolism of
the spiritual to its source. But the evidence at

hand is sufficient to suggest the outlines of the
interpretation. Occasionally, even, the symbols
rose above the border-line of consciousness.
Colonel Thomas Wentworth Higginson once told
how a regiment of black soldiers in the Civil War
sang a song with the refrain, "The Lord will call
us home." And a darky drummer boy volunteered
this explanation: "Dey tink de Lord mean for
say de Yankees." Nor were those white men of
Georgetown, S. C., wholly dense when they jailed
a number of Negroes for singing a spiritual with
the line, "We'll soon be free,"—though Colonel
Higginson, ignorant of Jung, testifies that "the
song had no reference to slavery." Veiled refer-
ences to slavery are absent from scarcely one of
the spirituals. The slaves must have been think-
ing sub-consciously of their social, not of their
spiritual, estate when they sang, "Nobody knows
the trouble I see," or "I don't want to stay here
no longer." In anguish they crooned:

"Bendin' knees a-achin',
Body rack'd wid pain!
I wish I was a child of God,
I'd git home bimeby."

Yet there is defiance in this song:

"You may bury me in the East,
You may bury me in the West,
But I'll hear the trumpet sound in that morning."

And there is heroic confidence, like that of an army
marching to victory, in that most splendid of the
spirituals:

"Walk together, children,
Don't you get a-weary,
Dere's a great camp-meetin' in de promised land."

What are the words "home," "trumpet," and
"camp-meeting" but sub-conscious symbols of that
word which was to the slave the most precious and
the most dangerous of all—"freedom?"

Yet when freedom was at last gained there were
no more songs about it. There are few enough pre-
served from slavery days. The work of collect-
ing was largely done by amateur, unscientific hands
and along with the few masterpieces there is much
trash. But after all only a few isolated regions
have been drawn upon, and perhaps unskilled in-
vestigators have failed to glean the songs which
were closest to the Negro soul. It is not too late,
perhaps, for a research expedition in charge of a
thoroughly equipped colored musician, such as
Mr. J. Rosamond Johnson, to rescue the vanishing
folk-lore of the black people, and especially the
neglected secular song. Such an expedition offers
a fine opportunity to some patron of music who
wishes to have part in securing to America her
richest native musical heritage.

HIRAM KELLY MODERWELL.

The Crisis - February, 1921

Men of the Month.

“THE EMPEROR JONES”

CHARLES S. GILPIN, now playing in "The Emperor Jones," is that most remarkable being—a man who has seen his dream come true. As a little boy he longed for an opportunity to display his rich dramatic gift. But as one member of the Provincetown Players' Company puts it, "for years he has had within himself the power to mount to the top of the ladder and there has been no ladder."

Gilpin in spite of learning early that such opportunities as came his way for acting, paid him but poorly, could not keep away from the stage. Thus we find him alternating between the theatre and other callings of a more practical nature. He has been printer, barber and porter, interspersing these activities with parts in variety shows and entertainments in churches and music halls.

In 1896 he joined the Perkus and Davis Great Southern Minstrel Barn Storming Aggregation, but its insolvency was quickly shown. He retired then, as he thought, permanently, but in 1903 he yielded again to his ruling passion and joined the Gilmore Canadian Jubilee Singers for the season of 1903-1904. He enjoyed this experience greatly, for no one objected to his color. In 1905 he acted with the Williams and Walker Company. Thence he drifted to the Pekin Players in Chicago, where he had a chance at everything from the veriest slapstick acting to Grand Opera. This company consisted of some forty members of whom eleven were finally selected for playing serious drama—and Gilpin was one of them. But the death of the manager of the Pekin Players sent Gilpin back to vaubville in the South.

He could not find work among the New York managers, who saw only his dark skin, and back he went to the "road"—the railroad—as a Pullman porter.

In 1919 he played the part of the faithful old slave in "Abraham Lincoln."

But Gilpin was meant for something bigger than the portrayal of a purely racial part. His is a genius to interpret universal characteristics—the qualities which lie at heart in all men.

Eugene O'Neill needed such an actor for the leading part in his "The Emperor Jones". For once Fortune was kind and brought together the man who had the part to give and the man who could act it. "The Emperor Jones" is a great play but it took Gilpin to show New York how wonderful it was, and incidentally how rich and subtle was his own interpretive genius.

The critics for once all agreed. Heywood Broun writes in the New York *Tribune*:

CHARLES S. GILPIN, IN "THE EMPEROR JONES."

power.

Professor Kerlin, author of that admirable book, "The Voice of the Negro", declares that the real leader of the Negro

is a momentous discovery, coming as it does when for the first time in history the Negro seems determined to shape his own career.

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THE CRISIS

The Emperor is played by a Negro actor named Charles S. Gilpin, who gives the most thrilling performance we have seen any place this season. He sustains the succession of scenes in monologue not only because his voice is one of a gorgeous natural quality, but because he knows just what to do with it. All the notes are there and he has also an extraordinary facility for being in the right place at the right time.

The New York *Globe* quotes Kenneth MacGowan:

But without the fine playing of Charles S. Gilpin, the Negro actor, as Emperor Jones, the whole play would fall to the ground and the most striking of the silhouette scenes come to nothing. Gilpin's is a sustained and splendid piece of acting. The moment when he raises his naked body against the moonlit sky, beyond the edge of the jungle, and prays is such a dark lyric of the flesh, such a cry of the primitive being as I have never seen in the theatre.

And Alexander Woolcott tells us in the *New York Times*:

> They have acquired an actor, one who has it in him to invoke the pity and the terror and the indescribable foreboding which are part of the secret of "The Emperor Jones."

Gilpin has transcended race and country. His playing in "The Emperor Jones" is a universal appeal.

THE late Rt. Rev. Charles Henry Phillips, of Nashville, Tenn., is known as the pioneer bishop of the Colored Methodist Episcopal Church, having established churches in Indiana, Ohio, Arizona, New Mexico and California. Bishop Phillips was licensed to preach at the age of 20, in 1878. He has lectured both in America and abroad, and in 1898 he wrote the "History of the C. M. E. Church." Bishop Phillips has been a delegate to every General Conference since 1886 and a representative at conventions in London, England, in 1891 and 1901; at the convention in Toronto, Canada, in 1911, he was elected one of three secretaries. In 1902 he was elected to the bishopric with the largest majority ever given a candidate for this office.

Bishop Phillips was born in Milledgeville,

Ga., January 17, 1858, being the tenth child of Reverend and Mrs. G. W. Phillips. Among Bishop Phillips' six children are Dr. Charles H. Phillips, Jr., of St. Louis, Mo., and Dr. J. T. Phillips of Nashville, Tenn.

JOHN W. LEWIS of Morrisville, Pa., is a director of the Chamber of Commerce and one of the largest stockholders of the National Bank and Trust Company. In addition to considerable real estate holdings, he operates the largest modern garage in the county. In one year Mr. Lewis built 50 houses; the accompanying picture is one of three blocks owned by Mr. Lewis.

MR. W. H. WALTON, a Negro, is known as a window-dresser, connected with O. H. Berry & Company at Richmond, Va. Mr. Walton's unique ideas have gained favorable comment from tradesmen and the press and the conventions of the International Display Men's Association.

The Granite Enclosure Cemetery Plot is an original design by Mr. Walton and is considered one of the handsomest and costliest in Richmond.

JOHN H. LEWIS is president of Morris Brown University, an A. M. E. school at Atlanta, Ga. He was born at Oglethorpe, Ga., in 1881, and was educated at Morris Brown University, the Yale University Divinity School and Chicago University. For four years he was principal of Payne Institute; he taught for a number of years at Morris Brown, at the same time being pastor of Trinity Church, South Atlanta. In 1918 as pastor of the A. M. E. Church at Springfield, Mo., his congregation of 150 members raised $10,000 for building purposes; in addition Mr. Lewis served as principal of Lincoln High School in that city. Finally he was transferred to Pasadena, Cal., where he was minister to one of the most progressive and influential churches of the West. He was elected President of Morris Brown last summer when the former president became a bishop.

## LONELINESS

WINIFRED VIRGINIA JORDAN

I CANNOT make my thoughts stay home;
I cannot close their door;
And, oh, that I might shut them in,
And they go out no more!

For they go out, with wistful eyes,
And search the whole world through;
Just hoping, in their wandering,
To catch a glimpse of you!

THE NEGRO IN DRAMA

sw

ROLLIN LYNDE HARTT

sw

Ga., January 17, 1858, being the tenth child of Reverend and Mrs. G. W. Phillips. Among Bishop Phillips's six children are Dr. Charles H. Phillips, Jr., of St. Louis, Mo., and Dr. J. T. Phillips of Nashville, Tenn.

him at. And that prayer in the forest—that agonized prayer! He put into it the complete realization of what he was saying as an artist, and as a human being.”

It takes an actress fully to measure the triumph. "Soliloquy is the most difficult thing a player can handle; every Hamlet finds this the great test. Yet Gilpin never made you nervous—you never felt that he was having a hard time to wade ashore with it. And he 'got it over' in the dark—a most difficult feat. I doubt if Salvini could have played the 'Emperor!' I don't know any one but Gilpin who could. Let alone other exactions, what a strain on the voice! The average actor in the average cast feels that strain, though it is shared by anywhere from ten to twenty-five people, so that each gets time to rest his voice. Gilpin has almost none. Yet throughout the play it responds to every nuance of his thought."

A modest genius is Gilpin. Invited to the actors' banquet, he came with the intention of not staying. Interviewed by newspaper men, he declared in effect, "Many a Negro could play the 'Emperor'," and later on, in the Dressing-Room Club down under the establishment, a Negro said to us: "We have a lot of Gilpins." But it was in none too expectant a mood that we visited the Lafayette Theatre in Seventh Avenue near 131st Street, Harlem. The more fools we. Prepared for crude melodrama, we found—but first to describe the theatre.

It is a spacious affair, handsome and scrupulously cared for. Posters outside announced the Lafayette Players (stock company, all black) in "The Love of Choo Chin". With charming courtesy, a colored girl sells tickets. A mannerly girl usher, wearing Chinese dress in honor of Choo Chin, showed us to our box. The orchestra (colored) consisted entirely of young women. On the drop curtain, cheerful nymphs (colored) disported themselves in a familiar enough drop-curtain Eclogue. The audience (all black) was remarkable chiefly for its air of very pleasing refinement.

BECAUSE she has been an actress and is now writing pageants and little plays, I asked Mrs. Hartt to share my study of the Negro in Drama. So these impressions are not a reporter's merely, nor at all a professional critic's; I saw through the eyes of an artist, and if an artist may perhaps be a trifle too generous when appraising the genius of fellow-craftsmen—at the moment, that is—pray note that some little time has gone by since we saw Gilpin in "The Emperor Jones", and went to an astonishing matinee at the Negro theatre in Harlem, and chatted with Negro players, Negro scenario writers, and Negro moving picture producers in their Dressing-Room Club at the Harlem Community House established by Community Service. Yesterday—calmly I think—we reviewed our exploits.

Every theatre-loving New Yorker—and every theatre-loving sojourner in New York—knows the "Emperor Jones", black scapegrace lording it over a West Indian island "not yet self-determined by American machines". During the opening scene, revolution breaks out. From then on, we see the Emperor fleeing. Solitary. At night. Through the forest. Far away, a tom-tom reveals where his enemies are preparing the silver bullet which, as he has boasted, alone can kill him. He is visited by awful "hants". A bravo at first, he becomes more and more horror-stricken. Finally, he shoots himself. The play is practically all Gilpin. Gilpin soliloquizing. On a stage nearly dark.

Mr. Robert Bridges remarked to me the other day, "I'd hate to see a white man try it. Salvini might have succeeded. No living white man could." To the actress, Gilpin is amazing: "Never before in my whole experience have I seen an actor carry so difficult a rôle. He was forced to people the stage with imaginary characters. If he had not had an extraordinary imagination, you would never have felt the reality of the foes who filled him with terror. He lived his part, in absolute sincerity; there was no trick of technique you ever caught

power.

tate, he has also discovered a momentous discovery, coming as it does when for the first time in history the Negro seems determined to shape his own career.

THE CRISIS

172

THE NEGRO IN DRAMA

69

What wonder? Among the 150,000 Negroes
in Harlem, university graduates abound.

"The Love of Choo Chin" is a play within a play. The Prologue introduces a rich American just back from China. To an old crony of his, he relates his adventures. Yes, there was a girl. The drama itself tells the story our hero tells his friend— how he fell in love with Choo Chin; how Choo Chin rejected him in order to marry an odious Celestial, who, otherwise, would take her father's life; and how the detestable alliance was happily forestalled—happily indeed, as it turned out that Choo Chin was really the daughter of Americans slain during the Boxer Uprising. The Epilogue resumes the confidences between our hero and his friend. Finally enters the girl in American dress. So the hero presents his bride, and all ends sweetly.

It is a pretty play. We were told afterward that only the huge popularity of "East is West" prevented its becoming a tip-top Broadway success. The Lafayette Players staged it splendidly, with elaborate scenery, correct costuming, careful stage direction, and an exercise of fine artistic conscience throughout. "I never saw a better performance by a stock company anywhere," remarked the lady at my side. "What dignity and sincerity in the entire cast!"

However, it was at one point quite uproariously amusing—to us. White folks can black up, but black folks can't white up, and the rich American traveller was unequivocally a Negro. We could forget that. We could not forget, however, that his English butler, who dropped his *h*'s, was also a Negro. Oh, a lovely Negro! Black! This, as Hashimura Togo would say, was "very tough projectile for white folks to chew", though the audience took it beautifully, and there is now and then a much more hilarious absurdity on our own stage—to wit, an Englishman attempting Negro dialect.

Except as regards color, that black man played the English butler to perfection. With your eyes shut, you would have been completely deceived, so imitative is the Negro voice. To be sure, we noticed once or twice on the part of other performers a tendency to lapse into Afro-American. Once or twice only. Faultless diction was the rule. And such deep, rich voices! How flexible! How carrying and enduring! Said

Mrs. Hartt, "If a white player had any one of those voices, he'd be made!"

She was especially delighted with Evelyn Ellis, the leading lady, and praised "her wide and unusual range of talent, her ability to play an emotional *rôle* coupled with a charming sense of comedy; her absolute control of her body; her gesture; her voice, in its delicate modulations; her sympathetic understanding of the poetic lines of the play. Throughout the entire performance I failed to detect one instance of false reading." And before the second act was over, she said, "I'm going to write to her".

"Wouldn't you like to meet her?" I asked. "I think it might be managed."

During an entre-acte, I stepped to the rear of the house, and said to one of the ushers, "The lady in the box with me was formerly Miss Helen Harrington, of the Co-burn Players. Could you arrange for her to meet Miss Ellis?"

The little usher went behind the scenes, and returned, presently, with word that Miss Ellis would come to our box after the performance.

See how our mood had changed. In a Negro theatre, we had no longer a sensation of being among people of an alien race—perhaps because art knows no color line, perhaps also because the audience, black outwardly, seemed white inwardly, and, without overdoing the matter, responded appreciatively to nobility of phrase and sentiment, as well as to humor, in a most exquisite drama.

When Miss Ellis came to us, she stood at the curtained doorway of our box, and consequently the white actress turned her back to me while talking with the colored actress. I overheard only this—Miss Ellis saying, "Oh, you don't know how much that means to me!"

Out in Seventh Avenue, afterward, I asked, "What did you say to that colored girl?"

"I said, 'Miss Ellis, you are a very great artist.'"

And so she is. Some day a dramatist with enough genius will write a play about an octoroon, and a manager with enough genius will give Evelyn Ellis the leading *rôle*. There'll be a fortune in it.

On our way home, the white actress said, "I want to cry." It was a mood I could

THE CRISIS

THE CRISIS

62

THE NEGRO IN DRAMA

63

perfectly understand. All that talent, all that refinement, all that charm, and—colored! I had been in the same mood, once, after an hour with Miss Helen Keller; came away saying to myself, not, "How magnificent that a creature born blind and deaf has achieved such a triumph!" but instead, "How tragical that a splendid, beautiful, gifted woman—so radiant and sweet—must endure such limitations!" Which was of course quite the wrong point of view, as regards Miss Keller. By and by, it will be the wrong point of view as regards Miss Ellis. Shut out from our world, the Negroes are fast making a world of their own. It holds great promise. Who knows but that it may one day equal ours? When that day arrives, what honor will crown the Negroes who, despite hardships that would break the spirit of a less forgiving race, have promoted the growth of artistic sensitivity among their people!

In the upper Seventh Avenue district, Community Service started the Harlem Community House to foster Negro jollity and Negro genius. Gilpin used to come there to hobnob with Negro actors. In the Dressing-Room Club, a page about Gilpin from a Sunday paper adorned the bulletin board, when I was there. A framed photograph of members of the Drama League at their banquet showed Gilpin among them. In a kind of an office, Marian S. Nicholas was devoting her spare moments to collaborating with Leigh Whipple upon scenarios. Upstairs, P. A. McDougall conducted a dramatic school. After an evening in that center of creative, as well as interpretative, activity, Mrs. Hartt remarked, "Nothing in all my life has been so interesting as this experience of discussing the drama with intellectual Negroes." And with charmingly courteous Negroes, I may add. When we entered the Dressing-Room Club, a group of Negro actors were seated about a table playing cards. Instantly, every man rose.

There is a lot to talk about in such a group. Gilpin is now on the road. Here in New York it is reported that his manager has in hand a musical comedy, "Nobody Knows", with a cast of thirty Negroes, among them Creamer and Layton, the song writers. Not long ago the Colored Players' Guild of New York presented "The Niche", by Dora Norman, and "The Pitfalls of Ap-

pearance", by G. A. Woods. Both writers are members of the Guild. "Put and Take", a Negro revue, ran for several months in New York. "Shuffle Along" still occupies the Music Hall on 63rd Street. Negro students at Moorehouse College, Atlanta, recently presented "Hamlet". And at the time we visited the Community House, pupils of its dramatic school were rehearsing a pageant. We begged to look in on them.

Having carried the leading rôle in Percy MacKaye's Gloucester pageant, "The Canterbury Pilgrims", and having written pageants of her own, Mrs. Hartt is a trained critic in such matters. As the teacher explained his pageant (he had created it, himself), I wondered what she would say. What she did say was, "Excellent! The real thing—pure pageantry, conceived with a fine handling of symbolism, and a sincere and lovely reaching out for beauty." The author, by the way, is a devoted student of Keats. As for his pupils—young girls from fourteen to eighteen years old—they showed "an unusual reverence for art. More, indeed, than is common among white students. Nobody giggled. On the whole, it was as creditable a performance as you will find in any dramatic school, and in one respect it was exceptional. All had fine voices." But I think that the white author of pageants was especially impressed by our Negro writer's method—his adoption of a poetic theme and his endeavor to elaborate it with scrupulous consistency. The Negro mind loves simplicity, directness, the dominance of one idea. Its aim is purposive—even didactic.

In drama, whether for stage or screen, it is not content with mere dramatic genre-painting. It burns to say something. Downstairs, Miss Nicholas read us the scenario she and Leigh Whipple had written. The theme was reincarnation. From beginning to end, the story developed that theme. Another photo-play, "The Slacker", written by a Negro, and produced by Negroes, with Negro actors, for Negro audiences, made loyalty its theme. Shown throughout black America during the War, it sought to offset German propaganda among Negroes. "Why fight for a country that oppresses you?" cried German agents. Here was black America's answer.

In the Dressing-Room Club we saw a

power.

tate", he has also discovered in his own is a momentous discovery, coming as it does when for the first time in history the Negro seems determined to shape his own career.

Ellis, the leading lady, and praised "her wide and unusual range of talent, her ability to play an emotional rôle coupled with a charming sense of comedy; her absolute

NO account of the Grand United Order of Oddfellows in the United States could be complete without a mention of Peter Ogden. As it happens no account of Peter Ogden would be possible without mention of the Grand United Order of Oddfellows for unfortunately very little is known of him save his connection with that order. But that connection was of a nature so far-reaching and so important that the telling of it makes an interesting story.

As far back as 1842 a group of colored men constituting the Philomathean Literary and Musical Society of New York City organized a new association whose purpose was to gain from the Independent Order of Oddfellows a dispensation to form a lodge. Ulysses B. Vidal, James Fields and other illustrious members of this organization waited as a committee on the Grand Master of the Independent Order and preferred their request.

They were flatly refused and refused without a doubt on account of color.

Into the midst of these negotiations Peter Ogden—for all that one is able to learn of his early life—dropped like a bolt from the blue. He was already at this date a man of considerable training, apparently self-taught, and he had added to this the experience which comes from having frequently crossed the seas. But more than that he was a man of decided convictions and “noted for his earnestness in any cause he undertook”. In some way he became acquainted with the purpose of the members of the Philomathean Institute and from the outset strove to influence them against petitioning the Independent (American) Order of Oddfellows. It was much better, he assured them, to be connected with England and the Grand United Order and to enjoy thereby the benefits accruing from association with the fountain-head. He himself already belonged to the English Order through affiliation with Lodge No. 448 in Liverpool.

62

THE CRISIS

gaudy poster advertising that film, and Negro actors are prouder of it, even, than of the photographic group showing Gilpin at the Drama League's banquet. "The Slacker" got results—tangible, measurable, and nobly patriotic. They glory in it.

The walls of the Dressing-Room Club were covered with photographs. Chronologically arranged, they would have illustrated the Afro-American's progress from mere vaudeville clowning and stage minstrelsy upward through silent drama into the realm of complete and finished art. The Negro was never by nature a buffoon. He was never supremely a comedian. White folks blacked up are always funnier. It is in serious drama that he has come into his own. And it is in serious drama, whether spoken or silent, that he finds himself a power.

race today is the Negro press. It has grown enormously. The literate Negro family today takes from one to five Negro newspapers. But what of the illiterates? Throughout black America, Negro theatres and Negro movie houses are rapidly multiplying, and Negroes, unable to read, see Negro plays performed by Negroes in establishments owned and managed by negroes. They see Negro films. And a Negro film producer said to us in the Dressing-Room Club, "I'm working just now on a photoplay called 'Toussaint L'Ouverture'. It's a sermon. If a film isn't a sermon, I don't want anything to do with it." Within a very few years, the Negro theatre will become as influential as the Negro press—more influential, possibly. If, as Professor Kerlin declares, the Negro has "discovered his Fourth Estate", he has also discovered his Fifth. It is a momentous discovery, coming as it does when for the first time in history the Negro seems determined to shape his own career.

Gutmann-Konzerte

Kassa: I., Kärntnerring 3 — Telephon 4889 (10—1 und 3—5 Uhr)

April:

Freitag 20. Sören Rönn (Kopenhagen). Liederabend.
Kleiner Konzerthaus-Saal.

Sonntag 22. Angelo Kessissoglu. Konzert mit Orchester. Dirigent: Rudolf Nilius.
Großer Musikvereins-Saal.

Montag 23. Sinfoniekonzert. Dirigent: Kenneth H. Bennett. Mitwirkend: Paul de Conne.
Großer Musikvereins-Saal.

Mittwoch 25. Juliusz Wolfsohn. II. Klavierabend.
Großer Musikvereins-Saal.

Mittwoch 25. Helene Vierthaler. Liederabend. Kleiner Konzerthaus-Saal.

Mittwdch 25. Roland Hajes. Liederabend. Kleiner Musikvereins-Saal.

Donnerst. 26. Bronislaw Huberman. Konzert mit Orchester.
Karten vom 16. d. giltig.
Großer Konzerthaus-Saal.

Donnerst. 26. Annie Tuma. II. Liederabend. Mittlerer Konzerthaus-Saal.

Montag 30. Bronislaw Huberman. II. Konzert.
Karten vom 18. d. giltig.
Großer Konzerthaus-Saal.

Montag 30. Russischer Opernabend.
Mittlerer Konzerthaus-Saal.

Mai:

Donnerst. 3. Alfred Piccaver. Konzert mit Orchester. Dirigent: E. Granelli.
Großer Konzerthaus-Saal.

Donnerst. 3. Clara Rabinovitch (Newyork). Klavierabend.
Mittlerer Konzerthaus-Saal.

Donnerst. 3. Milka Giaja. Klavierabend. Kleiner Konzerthaus-Saal.

Freitag 4. Gianni Pavovich (Violine). Mittlerer Konzerthaus-Saal.

Freitag 4. Mimi Harden. Tanzabend. 1/2 8 Uhr. Saal der Secession.

Mittwoch 9. Louise Wandel. Klavierabend. Kleiner Musikvereins-Saal.

Sämtliche Veranstaltungen beginnen, wenn nicht anders angegeben
um 7 Uhr abends.

Achtung auf unsere weltbekannte Schutzmarke!

Grammophon Spezialhaus G.m.b.H.

Wien I, Graben 29 a (Trattnerhof II)

Grammophonhaus Ludwig Grünfeld

Wien I, Getreidemarkt 10

!! Apparate und Platten in unerreichter Vollendung !!
Von allen großen Meistern Neuaufnahmen erschienen

["## Two Men at the Grosvenor.", "The Grosvenor Galleries open to-morrow with an attractive two-men show. Mr. Glyn Philpot and Mr. Davis Muirhead are artists of different outlook and different effects, but they have one thing in common. Both have a sense of beautiful paint. As a result they consort in Bond-street harmoniously together. Mr. Philpot's contributions here are chiefly old acquaintances—his latest work has doubtless been reserved for the Academy. And it is pleasant to see again things like \"A Family,\" the \"Student with a Book,\" from the same group a,and various \"Italian Soldiers\" and \"Negro Heads.\" Certain of the old seem to have improved with the passage of time, as well-painted canvases will. The large \"Coast of Britain,\" for example, strikes one as being more transparent in colour and more lucid in design than when shown at Burlington House a year or two ago. New to us, however, is \"Roland Hayes Singing,\" and there is nothing finer on the walls.", "—Mr. David Muirhead is at his best in his water-colours, of which there is a room with fifty excellent examples. His landscapes in oils, too, are often fresh and spontaneous, and at the same time deliberately designed—the beautiful \"Chelsea Reach,\" for instance, one of the most recently painted. His laudable striving for quality in paint, however, sometimes produces the defect of a worried surface, and this is especially noticeable in some of the portraits.", "## MR. ROLAND HAYES.", "### RECITAL, WIGMORE HALL, APRIL 10th.", "Dies Bildnis ist Bezauberned Schön (\"Die Zauberflöte\")", "The Self-Banished (\"Amphion Anglicus\") ... Mozart (1791)\nWhen I am Laid in Earth (\"Dido and Aeneas\") ... Blow (1700)\nWould you gain the Tender Creature (\"Acis and Galatea\") ... Purcell", "Le Repos de la Sainte Famille (\"L'Enfance du Christ\") ... Handel (1720)", "Ariette de la Fée Urgéle ... Berlioz\nLes Cloches ... Duni (1765)\nChanson Cerises (Cinq Chansons Characteristiques Japonaises) ... Debussy", "", "Der Neugierige ... Yoshinori Matsuyama\nDie Forelle ... Schubert\nVerborgenheit ... ... ... ... ... ... ...

scope for his abilities. His rendering of "Onaway, awake beloved," the only solo in the first part, was greatly appreciated and earned well-merited applause, as did the solos in the third part. Miss Coleridge Taylor sang with great expression and feeling, and with Mr. Notley gained the appreciation of the large audience. The conductors were Lieut. P. S. G. O'Donnell, M.V.O., and Mr. Douglas Durston. Mrs. J. F. Coleridge Taylor, who was present with her son, presented a portrait of the composer to the society. It is announced that Mr. Hayes has consented to give a song recital in Plymouth at an early date, and that the Society is rehearsing S. Coleridge Taylor's sacred cantata, "The Atonement," and hope next season to present a performance, for the first time in the West of England.

Musikalisches aus London.

Von Robert Pollak.

London, die Siebenmillionenstadt, ist seit mehr als zwei Jahren ohne Opernentempele. Die Zeiten sind zu schlecht. Man bringt das Geld für die Erhaltung dieser künstlichsten Kunstgattung nicht auf, und im Covent Garden Opera-House kann man berühmte Sänger jetzt nur auf der zitternden Leinwand sehen oder, wenn gerade eine minderwertige Operntruppe dort gastiert, zitternde Sänger auf den berühmten Brettern hören. So pilgert der Opernfreund seit drei Jahren nach dem kleinen Theater im Vorort „HammerSmith“, wo noch immer „Beggars Opera“ von Jon Gay ungeschmückte Zugkraft ausübt. Dieses entzückende Werk, die berühmtefte der jogenannten „Ballad Operas“, schwebt, wie alle Werke dieser Gattung, ihren Melodienhaft aus altenglischen Volksliedern. Sie entstand in Jahre 1727 und hat seit einer einige Auferstehungen erlebt. Die jüngste Aufführung ist sowohl in der Anfনenierung als auch in der amüsfanten, etwas marionettenhaften Darstellung sehr gelungen. Wenn man noch einiger Mozart-Aufführungen im „Old Vic“, einer alten Bude am rechten Theminseufer, gedenkt, die zwar in der von Edward Dent sorgfältig redigierten textlichen Neubearbeitung, aber mit unzureichenden künstlerischen Mitteln herausgebracht wurden, so ist die Bilanz der Operngenüsse gezogen. Es geht uns wahrhaftig besser als den Londonern!

Das Konzertleben zeigt äußerlich dasselbe Bild wie vor dem Kriege. Gemessenen Schrittes wandeln immer noch „Sandwichmänner“ die Regentstreet auf und ab und tragen auf gekrümtem Rücken und eingefallener Brust die Namen der großen und kleinen Interpreten durch die wogende Menge. Doch sieht man näher hin, so wird man einer neuen Errscheinung gewährt. Nicht auf den Aufsichten, denn bezeichnenderweise künden sie nie das Programm des Konzertes; der Engländer oder besser die Engläderin, denn nur spärlich finden sich die Männer in den Konzerten, die gewöhnlich nachmittags abgehalten werden — ist weniger musikverständig als „fond of music“ und fragt nicht lange nach dem Programm, das der weniger wäßrlos Genießende nur aus der Zeitung erfahren kann. Dort also merkt man, daß sich fast auf allen Programmen der Name irgendeines englischen Komponisten findet. Besonders die ausländischen Künstler machen gern ihre Verbeugung vor der englischen Muse und erwerben sich durch diese Höflichkeit die Sympathie des Likums und der Kritik. Man ist mit Recht sehr stolz auf die heimischen Komponisten und auf die Tatsache, in die Reihe der musikalischen Nationen vorgerückt zu sein. War es für den gebildeten Musiker vor dem Kriege ausreichend, sich etwa mit den Werken von Edward Elgar, Bartok und Cyrill Scott bekanntzumachen, so stößt er jezt auf eine ganze Reihe ihm unbekannter Namen und Werke, die seine Neugierde reizen. Er kann letztere um so leichter

befreiden als, wie schon gesagt, viele dieser Werke allabendlich zu hören sind und fast alle in prächtigen Ausgaben vorliegen. Die englischen Verleger unterstützen die jungen Komponisten tatkräftigst und tragen natürlich zur Verbreitung ihrer Werke auch im Auslande bei. Den fremden Künstlern werden meistens in liebenswürdigster Weise Freiezemplare zur Verfügung gestellt.

Es würde den Rahmen dieses Aufzahes übersteigen, auf die künstlerische Auslese der englischen modernen Musik des näheren einzugehen. Nach stückiger Bekanntschaft mit

dem Kreis der Jungen und Züngften scheinen mit Holst und Bax die Bedeutendsten. Leider hatte ich keine Gelegenheit, die „Planeten“, das unsangreichte Werk von Holst, zu hören und kenne nur eine sehr klangschöne Suite für Streichorchester. Eine Symphonie von Arnold Bax, die Albert Coates dirigierte, ist ein Werk von tragischer Größe, tragisch selbst im Scherzo, das eher ein Totentanz ist, und tragisch der Aushang im Trauermarschtempo. Seine Thematik ist irländischen Ursprungs. In der ersten Violinsonate (eine zweite ist kürzlich erschienen) zeigt er eine lebensfrohere Seite seiner Natur, wenngleich auch da, im Scherzo, Gebeine klappern. Der Krieg steckt ihnen allen noch in den Gliedern.

Die Violinsonate ist sowohl für die modernen englischen, als auch für die französischen Komponisten eine sehr beliebte Ausdrucksform. Elgar Scott, Gossens, Ireland, York Bowen, Dale, Morgan haben eine oder mehrere Violinsonaten geschrieben, ebenso wie die zeitgenössischen französischen oder in Frankreich lebenden Komponisten Florent-Schmitt, Honegger, Milhaud, Tansmann, Nohozinszky, Grovlez, Roussell, Thirion, Roparz, Fevrier und andere. Die Geiger haben alle Hände voll zu tun — ob auch die Hörer?

Sowohl in London als auch in Paris habe ich Gelegenheit gehabt, festzustellen, daß die Jdee der Salzburger internationalen Musikfeste ungebeurteilte Sympathie begegnet; in Paris konnte ich zufällig der Gründung des französischen Zweiges der internationalen Musikgesellschaft bewohnen. Paul Ducas übenahm den Vorsitz; man beprach in erster Linie Fragen administrativer Natur, machte die Mitglieder mit den Statuten der Gesellschaft bekannt und wählte einen Delegierten für die in London abzuhaltende Komiteeerstung, die der bekannte Kritiker und Musikwissenschaftler Edward Dent präsidierte. Von London werden also von nun an die künstlerischen Direktiven für Salzburg kommen, dort werden Vertreter jedes Landes die zur Aufführung empfohlenen Werke ihrer Landsleute Werke, die nicht älter als 15 Jahre sein dürfen) zur Prüfung vorlegen. Paul Ducas hat den — in unferen Tagen — herzlich empfundenen Vorschlag gemacht, bei jedem dieser, der Internationalen Moderne gewidmeten Feste, den Genius loci ehrend, auch ein Werk Mozartis zur Aufführung zu bringen.

Man spricht von Desterreich, dem „Waterland der Musik“, mit der größten Verehrung und zeigt für unsere wirtschaftliche Not das größte Mitleid. Ich kann es mir nicht versagen, hier der Persönlichkeit des österreichischen Gesandten in London, Franckenstein, zu gedenken, der es sich zur Aufgabe gemacht hat, die durch den Krieg gewürften Beziehungen österreichischer Künstler zum Londoner Publikum wieder herzustellen, indem er sie in den prächtigen Räumen des Geschandchaftspalais am Belgrave Square mit den Spißen der Londoner Gesellschaft in Kontakt bringt. Der Dank der Künstler ist ihm gewiß.

Die Vorliebe für österreichische Musik sezt nicht immer Kenntnis von Land und Leuten voraus. Eine Sängerin, die das Bedürfnis fühlt, sich bei jeder Gruppe ihres Programms in die Tracht des Volkes zu werren, dem der Komponist der betreffenden Werke angehört, trug in einem ihrer Konzerte Lieder von Schreker und Wellesz in Titolerhöftost vor. Einen anderen Scherz leistete sich ein wohlbekannter Pignist; er kündigte einen Klavierabend in „Cissöll“ an und spielte nur Stücke, die in dieser Tonart ge-

Colonial Theatre

SELWYN and WHITE.......Lessees and Managers

Broadway and 62nd Street, New York

ROBERT V. NEWMAN...........House Manager

NOTICE: This Theatre, with every seat occupied, can be emptied in less than three minutes. Choose NOW the Exit nearest to your seat, and in case of fire walk (do not run) to that Exit.

THOMAS J. DRENNAN, Fire Commissioner.

Ev'gs at 8.30—THURSDAY MIDNIGHT—Mat. Wednesday at 2.30

WEEK BEGINNING MONDAY EVENING, APRIL 28, 1924

GEORGE WHITE
presents

America's Foremost Colored Comedians

MILLER and LYLES

Former Stars of "SHUFFLE ALONG" In
The World's Greatest All Colored Entertainment

"Runnin' Wild"

Book by F. E. Miller and A. L. Lyles
Music and Lyrics by James Johnson and Cecil Mack
John T. Rick's Orchestra

Dances Staged by Miss Lyda Webb
Scenery by Law Studio Costumes by Brooks Mahieu
Shoes by I. Miller, Inc.

Gowns for Bridal Number designed by Chas. Lemaire.
Executed by Miss Juliet

Hosiery by Nat Lewis, Inc.

Cast
(In the order of appearance)

Uncle Mose...................C. Wesley Hill

Uncle Amos...................Arthur D. Porter

Tom Sharper...................Lionel Monagas

PROGRAM CONTINUED ON SECOND PAGE FOLLOWING

Egyptian Deities

Plain End or
Cork Tip-25¢

"The Utmost in Cigarettes"

Always preferred by the socially great

18

THE MAGAZINE THEATRE PROGRAM

Just What You've
Been Wanting!

—This attractive, black, flexible-
cover binder for your theatre
programs.

Keep your programs in this orderly and available form, and you will have an interesting record of many delightful evenings spent at the theatre.

Also an instant answer to the
frequently puzzling question: "In
what production did I see —?"

Sent Prepaid for $1.00

NEW YORK THEATRE PROGRAM CORPORATION

108-114 Wooster Street-New York City

This Booklet
Explains—

What the Theatre Does For the
Advertiser!

How it reduces the cost of advertising and why!

Why New York is considered a difficult market
and why it actually isn't!

Many erroneous impressions and corrects many
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writes for it!

New York Theatre Program Corporation

Telephone
5500 Canal

108-114 Wooster Street, New York

20

THE MAGAZINE THEATRE PROGRAM

Form Your Own Opinion
At the Theatre To-Night

DECIDE for yourself the economy of Theatre Programs for your advertising.

Visualize the fifty-nine other theatres in New York playing to the same kind of people as those in whose company you are.

Congregated in these theatres on this and other events are practically all your prospects in the entire metropolitan territory.

Some are not immediate prospects, certainly, but they are more immediate than those who cannot afford the theatre at all.

Observe the advertising in your own program. Select indiscriminately five or six people typical of the audience and watch them read that advertising either before the show or during intermissions.

There are many people, of course, who are as far away from being able to attend the theatre as they are from buying your goods, and, in any other medium, it costs just as much to advertise to them as to those who are able to buy immediately.

Theatre Programs reach only immediate and near prospects. By eliminating all the others, your advertising cost is proportionately reduced.

Thus, Theatre Programs provide a form of advertising reaching the greatest number of the kind of people in whom the advertiser of quality products is interested, and reaching them at the lowest cost.

108-114 Wooster Street New York City

Publishing Programs of the 60 legitimate New York theatres—aggregating 1,600,000 circulation monthly

COLONIAL THEATRE

PROGRAM CONTINUED

Scene 3

1 "Ghost Ensemble"..................Ghost Assn.

Scene 4

1 "Love Bug"..................Misses Hall, Spencer and Starr

2 Fisticuffs..................Miller and Lyles

Scene 5

1 "The Sheik of Alabam' Weds a Brown Skin Vamp" Danny Small and Chorus

2 "Charleston"..................Entire Company

3 Grand Finale..................Entire Company

Girls of the Chorus—Misses Lyda Webb, Percy Wiggins, Amey Roden. Anita Thompson, Marie De Voe, Hazel Anderson, Jessie Wallace, Leila Bregden, Therese West, Beatrice Williams, Bessie Allison, Norma Davis, Dorothy Irving, Vivian Harris, Alice Allison, Adelaide Jones, Gwendolyn Graham, Ruth Lambert, Leronya Bradley, Isabelle Washington, Anita Reveri.

Boys of the Chorus—Ralph Cooper, Charles Saltez, Arthur Mason, Joseph Wilson, Monte Hawley, Chick Johnson, William Thompson.

ACT I.

Scene 1—Market Place, Jimtown.

Scene 2—Railroad Station.

Scene 3—Four Corners, St. Paul, Minn.

Scene 4—Rondo Street, St. Paul, Minn.

Scene 5—Cabaret, St. Paul, Minn.

ACT II.

Scene 1—Levee, Jimtown.

Scene 2—Street, Jimtown.

Scene 3—A deserted barn. Jim-
town.

Scene 4—Street, Jimtown.

Scene 5—Country Club, Jim-
town.

POP MATINEE SATURDAY
BEST SEATS $2.00

Executive Staff for "Runnin' Wild" Inc.

Clarence R. Gray..................Manager

Robert V. Newman..................Publicity Director

Paul Floyd..................Stage Manager

Frank Whitten..................Carpenter

Edward Condon..................Properties

John Sample..................Flyman

S. Wm. Amdurs..................Electrician

Clarence Wells..................Asst. Electrician

Mme. Catherin-Yarborough........Wardrobe Mistress

COLONIAL THEATRE

23

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OTICE on any wet day the
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Isn't this element of safety, plus
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worth a moment's consideration?

*It costs *no more to buy a Kelly*

KEEP
SMILING
WITH
KELLYS

## The Circumstances of Roland Hayes's Remarkable Rise to Fame

When Roland Hayes sang in Boston in 1918, the public and press were deeply stirred by an extraordinary voice suddenly revealed to them, and an interpretation of the negro spirituals such as they had never known.

Mr. Hayes undertook in 1919 a tour of the United States, singing in New York, Philadelphia, and other Eastern cities, traveling as far west as California. Everywhere the same reception awaited his wondrous art.

The following season he went to Europe.

In London he sang to capacity audiences in fifteen recitals and was acclaimed the outstanding newcomer of the year.

He sang by royal command before King George V in Buckingham Palace.

Concerts in various other English cities repeated his initial successes.

Before returning to America he sang in Paris with the historical Colonne Orchestra under Pierné. Paris was as warm as London in its praise.

## From the Innumerable Tributes in the English Press

ERNEST NEWMAN, England's Foremost Critic, in the *Manchester Guardian*:

"The only really good new tenor who has come along lately is the negro Roland Hayes. His voice is genuine, pure, warm, and rich, and his artistic instincts are of the finest. He is one of the three or four singers we have in England today whom I would hear from choice as distinct from professional necessity."

*Plymouth Herald* (Oct. 13, '21):

"Mr. Roland Hayes, who so completely brought a very large audience under his spell in Plymouth Guildhall last evening achieved his triumph, as he has already done in London, by relying entirely on his rich endowment as an artist to further the cause he has so much at heart —the manifestation of the universality of poetic and musical expression, and of the fact that the negro as well as the white man has a valuable contribution to make to the world's treasury of song. He sang with compelling sincerity of spirit and perfection of vocal technique."

*London Daily Telegraph* (Oct. 10, '21):

"The fact remains that this negro singer fascinates by the extraordinary charm of his style, the ease of his delivery, and his simple sincerity, whilst only too many of the others depress by the total absence of all these virtues and by the labouring of their utterance."

*Halifax* (Dec. 9, '21):

"Mr. Roland Hayes, the negro tenor, received a warm welcome to Halifax and proved himself splendidly equipped both in voice and technique, and whatever the style, sentiment and quality of the music he offered, he sang freely out of a warm and thoroughly human heart."

*New Age* (May 5, '21):

"The highest tribute we can offer Mr. Hayes is to say that while singing these he might have been a statue shaped by the hands of his own race through long centuries, for the ultimate purpose of transmitting the soul of the race. It was the soul of his race which sang through Mr. Hayes in these childlike yet tragic spirituals; sang of barbarities committed and endured, and of a faith running like a gold thread through the gloomy web of wrongs."

*Time and Tide* (May 6, '21):

"Mr. Hayes can hold his own with any tenor I have heard in my long life, not only as regards beauty of voice and perfect intonation, which are rare natural gifts, but in things which are the marks of high musical culture."

*Llandudno Advertiser* (Sept. 9, '22):

"Not a sound whilst he was singing, and it is safe to assert that he stirred the souls of many in the audience as they had not been stirred for many a long day."

*London Times*:

"At the end of the recital a curious thing happened. Nobody moved or took his eyes off the platform. They had had reality before them, and it was gone. He is one of the greatest living artists in the field he has chosen."

(SEE OVER)

Colonial Theatre

SELWYN and WHITE....... Lessees and Managers
Broadway and 62nd Street, New York

Ev'gs at 8.30—THURSDAY MIDNIGHT— Mat. Saturday at 2.30

WEEK BEGINNING MONDAY EVENING, JANUARY 28, 1924

GEORGE WHITE
presents

America's Greatest Colored Comedians

MILLER and LYLES

Late Stars of "SHUFFLE ALONG"
In their Latest Musical Comedy

"Runnin' Wild"

Music and Lyricists by James Johnson and Cecil Mack
John T. Rick's Orchestra

Cast

(In the order of appearance)

Uncle Mose...................C. Wesley Hill
Uncle Amos..................Arthur D. Porter
Tom Sharper..................Lionel Montagas

For field or function

Egyptian Deities

"The Utmost in Cigarettes"

Plain End or Cork Tip—25c.

30

THE MAGAZINE THEATRE PROGRAM

COLONIAL THEATRE

PROGRAM CONTINUED

<table><tbody><tr><td></td><td>Scene 3</td><td></td></tr><tr><td>1</td><td>"Ghost Ensemble"</td><td>Ghost Assn.</td></tr><tr><td>1</td><td>Fisticuffs</td><td>Miller and Lyles</td></tr><tr><td></td><td>Scene 4</td><td></td></tr><tr><td></td><td>Scene 5</td><td></td></tr><tr><td>1</td><td>"Juba Dance"</td><td>Chorus</td></tr><tr><td>2</td><td>"Jazz Your Troubles Away"</td><td>Entire Company</td></tr></tbody></table>

**Girls of the Chorus**—Misses Lyda Webb, Percy Wiggins, Amey Roden, Anita Thompson, Marie De Voe, Dorothy Rhodes, Hazel Anderson, Jessie Wallace, Leila Brogden, Therese West, Ela Thomas, Marguerite Howard, Beatrice Williams, Bessie Allison, Noma Davis, Dorothy Irving, Vivian Harris, Alice Allison, Adelaide Jones, Swendolyn Graham, Ruth Lambert, Leronya Bradley.

**Boys of the Chorus**—Ralph Cooper, Charles Saltez, Arthur Mason, Joseph Wilson, Monte Hawley.

ACT I.

Scene 2—Railroad Station.

ACT II.

Scene 1—Levee, Jimtown.

Scene 2—Street, Jimtown.

Scene 3—A deserted barn, Jimtown.

Scene 4—Street, Jimtown.

Scene 5—Country Club, Jimtown.

<table><tbody><tr><td>Clarence R. Gray</td><td>Manager</td></tr><tr><td>Robert V. Newman</td><td>Publicity Director</td></tr><tr><td>Paul Floyd</td><td>Stage Manager</td></tr><tr><td>Frank Whitten</td><td>Carpenter</td></tr><tr><td>Edward Condon</td><td>Properties Flyman</td></tr><tr><td>John Sample</td><td>Electrician</td></tr><tr><td>S. Wm. Amdurs</td><td>Asst. Electrician</td></tr><tr><td>Clarence Wells</td><td>Wardrobe Mistress</td></tr><tr><td>Mme. Catherin-Yarborough</td><td></td></tr></tbody></table>

COLONIAL THEATRE

23

The man in the street an
automobile tire is mostly
hole—inside and out. He
doesn't know much about how it
is made. But you can take the
estimate placed upon Kelly-
Springfield Kant-Slip Cords by
thousands of the most exper-
ienced motorists as a correct
measure of their value.

It costs **no more** to buy a **Kelly**

KEEP
SMILING
WITH
KELLYS

And while we still are on the subject of this "Dixie" star and her work, we may as well jump to her wonderful leadership of a "Wooden Soldier" burlesque, in the second act, and to her singing of a plaintive "I'm a Little Black Bird Looking for a Blue Bird," with which she completed her conquest of last night's audience.

"Dixie to Broadway," as a whole, is rather more pretentiously constructed than other revues of its order. There are touches of substantial artistry in

stone. Featured dancers include Johnny Nit, Byron Jones and Lew Keene. And there is a corps of trained girl dancers, the Plantation Steppers, which revealed the color line in possession of its own Tiller-esseque talent.

Lew Leslie presents "Dixie to Broadway." Unless the signs fail which usually indicate real warmth in a first-night reception, he has started a busy season at the Broadway.

REB 03 '90

THE BROADHURST THEATRE

15

GOTHAM
INVISIBLES

PATENTED NOV. 7, 1922

SPATS FOR WARMTH
UNDER SILK STOCKINGS

By makers of GOTHAM GOLD STRIPE Silk Stockings

PROGRAM CONTINUED

ACT I.

Scene 1—Prologue—Evolution of the Colored Race

Scene 2—"Put Your Old Bandanna On"

Danny Small, Maud Russell, the Plantation Chocolate Drops
and the Plantation Steppers

Scene 3—"Dixie Dreams"
FLORENCE MILLS and Company

Scene 4—"A Few Steps in Front of the Curtain"
The Plantation Steppers

Scene 5—"Treasure Castle"
By Tom Howard

SAM HAMTREE HARRINGTON
SLIM SHELTON BROOKS
CHARLIE DANNY SMALL
SVENGALI WILLIAM DE MOTT

Scene 6—"He Only Comes to See Me Once in a While"
CORA GREEN

Scene 7—"Jungle Nights in Dixieland"
FLORENCE MILLS and the Plantation Chocolate Drops

Scene 8—"Prisoners Up-To-Date"
Byron Jones, Lew Keene, Johnny Nit

Scene 9—"The Right of Way"
By Walter De Leon and Lew Leslie

THE COP WALTER CRUMBLEY
THE VICTIM HAMTREE HARRINGTON
MR. AND MRS. SHELTON BROOKS and MAUD RUSSELL
MISS HIGH HAT. CORA GREEN

Oldsmobile used in this scene from the New York Oldsmobile Co.

PROGRAM CONTINUED ON NEXT PAGE

HORTON'S ICE CREAM
1851

The Premier Ice Cream of America
For Seventy-three Years

New York

12

THE MAGAZINE THEATRE PROGRAM

PROGRAM CONTINUED

Scene 10—"Mandy, Make Up Your Mind"

THE GROOM...................FLORENCE MILLS
THE BRIDE..................ALMA SMITH
BRIDESMAIDS—BILLY CAIN, E. MOSES, GWENDOLYN GRAHAM,

ANITA RIVERA, JERRY CLARKE, MARIAN TYLER
4 MAIDS OF HONOR—MAUD RUSSELL, LILLIAN BROWN,

EVA METCALF, AIDA WARD
4 BEST MEN—DANNY SMALL, JUAN HARRISON,

RALPH LOVE, CHARLES FOSTER

Scene 11—"Hanging Around"

HAMTREE HARRINGTON and CORA GREEN

Scene 12—"Jazz Time Came from the South"

FLORENCE MILLS, Alma Smith, Billy Cain

Scene 13—"Jazz Time Came from the South"

Entire Company

ACT II.

Scene 14—"If My Dreams Came True"

Juan Harrison

Scene 15—"If My Dream Came True"—1st Episode

"GEORGIA COHANS"—WILLIE COVAN, BYRON JONES,

CHARLIE WALKER

2nd Episode

EVA TANGUAYS—ALMA SMITH, BILLY CAIN, CATHERINE PEARL,

E. MOSES, L. MOSES, GWENDOLYN GRAHAM, ANITA RIVERA

3rd Episode

GALLAGHER & SHEAN—U. S. THOMPSON, LEW KEENE,

DANNY SMALL, RALPH LOVE, BROWN and WILLIAM DE MOTT

4th Episode

BELASCO'S KIKI—MARIAN TYLER, THERESA WEST,

E. MEADOWS, JERRY CLARKE, ANITA RIVERA,

AIDA WARD, EVA METCALF, NATALIE CALDWELL

5th Episode

BERT WILLIAMS................SHELTON BROOKS

6th Episode

GEORGE WALKER................SNOW FISHER

Scene 16—SHELTON BROOKS

Scene 17—"Darkest Russia"

KATINKAS—DANNY SMALL and the PLANTATION CHOCOLATE DROPS

WOODEN SOLDIERS—FLORENCE MILLS and PLANTATION STEPPERS

Scene 18—"The Sailor and the Chink"

Winifred and Brown

THE EPISCOPAL ACTORS' GUILD

Headquarters: "Little Church Around the Corner"

Date

Also

INAUGURAL BENEFIT
the KNICKERBOCKER THEATRE
In the "par
DAY EVENING, NOVEMBER 23

In appre
Rogers Peet ca
a little album in

STAR BILL

Prices: $1.00 to $5.00

No tax

## PAUL GREEN

BY BARRETT H. CLARK

IN ABRAHAM'S BOSOM," the first of Paul Green plays to be produced by a professional company, is the work of a young man who is practically unknown in the theater world. He is not a theater man, and I rather think—no matter what measure of success may attend the performance of his other plays—he will never become one. He is too much a part of the section of the country he comes from, too deeply implicated in its traditions and the spirit of its people, to fit into another world.

It was just nine years ago that Mr. Green wrote his first play, a youthful topical affair for use by the Senior Class at the University of North Carolina. He had had no special training at that time, and possessed no particular attitude for writing plays. The two years previous to this first attempt were spent teaching in a small country school in his native county.

"Born on a farm near Lillington, N. C., March 17, 1894," he tells us in his slender autobiography. "Farmed in the spring and summer and went to country school a few months in the winter. Later went to Buie's Creek Academy, from which he was graduated in 1914. Taught country school two years. Entered the University of North Carolina in 1916. Enlisted in the army in 1917. Served as private, corporal, sergeant and sergeant-major with the 105th Engineers, 30th Division. Later as Second Lieutenant at Paris. Served four months on the Western front. Returned to the University of North Carolina in 1919. Was graduated from there in 1921. Did graduate work at his alma mater and at Cornell University. At present is a member of the faculty at the University of North Carolina."

This instructor in Philosophy is, in my opinion, something more than a young and very promising native playwright. He has shown skill and dramatic power and an un-common gift for the delineation of character in half a dozen short plays, particularly in "The No 'Count Boy," "White Dresses," and "The End of the Row;" he has written comedy and tragedy, folk-lore and fan-

tasy; he writes understandingly and affectionately of the people and fields and plains among which he has passed most of his life. He is not simply a bright young man with a future.

He is a poet, in the fullest sense of the word. True, he has not yet reached the culminating point in his development, and there is much in his entire output (more than thirty plays) that is hastily contrived and carelessly executed; yet he is a poet.

Paul Green sings of his native land, of cotton fields and tobacco plantations; of "niggers" and whites, most of them suffering like dumb animals, but all of them endowed with at least a spark of that divine fire which all poets find in their creations.

While it is true that Mr. Green has so far found inspiration largely in the tragic aspects of life, he cannot, I think, be called a pessimistic or cynical writer, for his concern is with the manifestations of beauty: the world is to him a spectacle of wonder, and not a social machine to be tinkered with. He is still young enough to be able to stand reverently in the presence of tragedy, and be moved by it not because

it is tragedy, but because it tests the human soul to the breaking point. "In Abraham's Bosom" is a beautiful play not in spite of the fact that it has to do with terrible and pitiful and heartbreaking things, but literally because of that fact. "The Field God," another full-length play of Mr. Green's (already contracted for and scheduled for early production in New York), is likewise characteristic of the writer's ability to penetrate straight to the heart of a tragic subject and find in suffering not the end but the beginning of spiritual beauty.

Paul Green never "poetizes" his characters; he is about as sentimental as Hardy. His power lies in a love of beauty for its own sake, a deep understanding of humanity, and a fine and unaffected love of the soil. That he can write plays at all seems to me extraordinary—he is that rarest of phenomena, an outsider who understands as much as the professional insider, yet brings to the theater all that the clever purveyors can never hope to have.

The production of "In Abraham's Bosom" is an event in the annals of our new American Drama.

## The Whitney Studio Club Galleries

Under the direction of
Alexander Brook

14 West 8th Street
NEW YORK CITY

HAVE just opened their own Shop where visitors may purchase at Studio Prices water colors, drawings and prints by members of the Club. They will find in The Shop a constantly changing exhibition.

Paintings are lent as well as sold. The Galleries are open every day from 10—6.

## AMERICAN LABORATORY THEATRE

RICHARD BOLESLAVSKY

145 East 58th Street

“SEA WOMAN'S CLOAK”
*Monday and Tuesday Evenings*
“THE TRUMPET SHALL SOUND”
*Wednesday and Thursday Eves.*

“THE STRAW HAT”
*Friday and Saturday Eves.*

“TWELFTH NIGHT”
*Saturday Matinees*

1926-27 subscription lists now open

Address Richard S. Aldrich, Bus. Mgr. Phone Regent 2311-2312

2

(continued from page 1)

Scene 5—Same as Scene 2, an autumn evening, three years later

Intermission of two minutes

Scene 6—On a road, near the school house, an hour later

Intermission of two minutes

Scene 7—Same as Scene 5, about thirty minutes later

Stage Manager—Samuel Selden

Costumes by Evelyn Clifton

Scenery built by Joseph Roig—House Carpenter

Mogens Petri, Electrician

Scenery painted by Herbert Lutz

Properties—Rupert Carr

The most intelligent dramatic criticism in New York
is being written by

JOSEPH WOOD KRUTCH

Author of the brilliant psychological biography,
"Edgar Allan Poe: A Study in Genius"

Every Week in
The Nation

20 Vesey Street

New York

If you wish to see a sample copy of The Nation, tear out and mail this page
with your name and address.

THE CRISES
A Monthly Magazine

Devoted to the Interests
of the Negro Race

Published by
The National Association
for the Advancement
of Colored People

Edited by
W. E. BURGHARDT DUBOIS

Sample copies sent on request

15 cents per copy
$1.50 per year

Address: 69 FIFTH AVENUE
NEW YORK, N. Y.

LAURA ELLIOT

Teacher of

VOICE

SONG
MUSIC

Neighborhood Playhouse
Teaching Staff

SPEECH
DRAMA

43 WEST 52nd STREET
Phone Circle 0590

BEFORE AND AFTER THE PLAY

La Chanterelle

139 MacDougal Stree

S. W. Cor. of Washington Square

A Club sponsored by well-known
artists. A cuisine to satisfy the
taste of the most sophisticated
gourmets.

Table d'hote

A la Carte

Before the Theatre

A GOOD DINNER
(6-8 o'clock)

Minetta
Colony Inn

25 Minetta Lane

After the Show

Ivory Tower

23 Minetta Lane

Turkish Coffee

Tea

Oriental Service

Music

IMPERIAL THEATRE

11

GOTHAM FASHION NOTES

"WHAT you have heard is really true. Gotham is going to make Gold Stripe stocks to measure at their new shop, soon to open on Fifth Avenue, near 47th Street."

Silk Stockings that Wear

PROGRAM CONTINUED

was the voodoo or gris-gris worship of the time. This worship was brought into New Orleans, as into no other part of the South, by the Negroes from Santo Domingo, Martinique and other Caribbean states. In "Deep River" the cabalistic chants and idioms used are taken authentically from notes by Lafcadio Hearn and other scholars who have endeavored to discover more of voodoo significance than ever they found. The choral influences in the second act are taken from Hearn and from accounts of the time left in newspapers. The "Heru Mande" and "Ah tingonai ya" themes were set down by Hearn as an eyewitness at a voodoo ceremony. The songs of the voodo queen are taken from newspaper accounts. The words are a bastard idiom of Congo, Spanish and French. The Creoles, until the advent of General Jackson as the hero of the battle of New Orleans, never tolerated the parity of other American breeds. Kentuckians, Tennesseans and others of Teutonic stocks filtering down into the city were always hostilely regarded as proponents of a democracy not to be countenanced in the Creole scheme. Only the War of Secession, when all strains of the South were confederated to defeat the oncoming of the democratic idea, brought an end to Creole glory. The abolition of slavery ended forever the quadroon half-world that French and Spanish society had created for the more favored quadroon women bearing strains of Negro blood.

ARTHUR HOPKINS

Cast

(In the order of their appearance)

<table><tr><td>TIZAN</td><td>JULIUS BLEDSOE</td></tr><tr><td>OCTAVIE</td><td>ROSE McCLENDON</td></tr><tr><td>SARA</td><td>BESSIE ALLISON</td></tr><tr><td>JULIE</td><td>GLADYS WHITE</td></tr><tr><td>HENRI</td><td>ROLLO DIX</td></tr></table>

HORTON'S ICE CREAM

1851

For Seventy-five Years

1926

IMPERIAL THEATRE

13

Dance and Dine in Luxury

NO COVER CHARGE

Chinese and American Foods of the finest, cooked deliciously and well served at modest prices. Splendid Dance floor and Snappy Music.

Two Convenient Places on the Rialto -

CHIN LEE CHIN'S

49th St. and Broadway - 44th St. and Broadway

PROGRAM CONTINUED

<table><tbody><tr><td>PAUL</td><td>ANDRE DUMONT</td></tr><tr><td>JULES</td><td>DAVID SAGER</td></tr><tr><td>GARCON</td><td>FREDERICK McGUIRK</td></tr><tr><td>M. BRUSARD</td><td>LUIS ALBERNI</td></tr><tr><td>HUTCHINS</td><td>ARTHUR CAMPBELL</td></tr><tr><td>MUGETTE</td><td>LOTTICE HOWELL</td></tr><tr><td>COLONEL STREATFIELD</td><td>FREDERICK BURTON</td></tr><tr><td>HAZZARD STREATFIELD</td><td>ROBERTO ARDELLI</td></tr><tr><td>HERCULE</td><td>ANTONIO SALERNO</td></tr><tr><td>THE ANNOUNCER</td><td>FRANK HARRISON</td></tr><tr><td>MOTHER OF MUGETTE</td><td>LOUISA RONSTADT</td></tr><tr><td>THE QUEEN</td><td>CHARLOTTE MURRAY</td></tr><tr><td rowspan="3">WAITING WOMEN</td><td>KATHERINE PARKER</td></tr><tr><td>CARRIE GILES</td></tr><tr><td>CORA GARY</td></tr><tr><td></td><td>ALBERTA DOUGAL</td></tr></tbody></table>

Ensemble

Ada Bary, Maria Bary, Lucia Bianco, Mignon Brezen, Nadine Corona, Helen Dmitrieff, Nadine Dubinsky, Helen Eastman, Anne Elliott, Galina Estravich, Marion Fritz, Helen Godain, Muriel Harmon, Betty Harms, Danny B. Hayden, Helen Heed, Ann Honeycutt, Martha Jobson, Annette Kates, Maria Kurietzki, Lonna Lea Hamlin, Rose Malowista, Erna Miru, Gladys Morgan, Anna Prinz, Norma Quinlan, Eva Rodriquez, Elizabeth Schaefer, Grace Morgan, Mignon Spence, Ida Von Lindon, Marion Lou Williams, Ruth Witmer.

Wallace Banfield, Lee Borough, George Brown, Sidney Coryell, William Culloo, Gordon Davis, George Dorrence, V. Dubinsky, Robert L. Duenweg, James Garrett, Lynn Gearhart, George Gordon, Anton Hooft, Leonel Koslin, Effim Liversky, Aylward Martin, Charles V. Maynard, Francis G. Miller, Wm. Montgomery, A. Mravin, Walter Owens, Walter Palm, Basil Prokopenia, Earle Sanborn, Leonard Saxon, Rosco Snyder and Maurice Staw.

SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 21, 1926

Oddments and Remainders

By Percy Hammond

The Dissonances of "Lulu Belle"

THE Negro aristocracy of New York is irate over Mr. Belasco's production of "Lulu Belle." Colored novelists, poets, publicists and musicians murmur against the play as a libel on their race, flinging dirt in an inexcusable manner. Its characters, they say, are the riffraff of Afro-America, and the exhibition of their deviltries an unfair indictment of an entire people. The struggle to uplift a downcast species is difficult enough, they complain, without the handicap of Mr. Belasco and his spectacular calumnies.

This New York group of colored bluebloods, as you may know, is a distinguished one. Among its members are men and women skilled in nearly all the arts from the Charleston to free verse. Many of them can sing, dance, act and write better than most of us, and consequently they have a modest pride in their accomplishments. Aiding them in their endeavor to justify themselves is a band of prominent N. Y. white folks, who, led by Carl Van Vechten and other intrepid abolitionists, clasp them hand in hand and help them over the rough places. Soirees are given in what is known as the exclusive residential districts, at which the fine flower of a remote Ethiopia mingles in friendliness and appreciation with songbirds from the Metropolitan Opera House, financiers, essayists, novelists, playwrights, players and critics. The movement to adjust the distance between the dark belt and the local salons was proceeding smoothly until Mr. Belasco and his accomplices in "Lulu Belle" came along with their villifications.

I like to be of assistance in the quandaries common to the conflict of Drama with Life. This caligraph is ever at the disposal of harmony among the warring elements. But I fear that in the present quarrel the colored brethren are too sensitive. It is a fact that Miss Lenore Ulric as Lulu Belle is not pleasant propaganda. At the Belasco she is a swart viper, weaving her cankerous way from Harlem to Paris. Her companions are weak and depraved, their behavior scandalous. "Lulu Belle" is not a pretty picture of a lady of color, or of the circles in which she wiggles.

It is not, however, more defamatory to the blacks than several other successful Broadway plays are to the whites and yellows. "Cradle Snatchers," for instance, exceeds it in its traduction of blonde life, and "The Shanghai Gesture" is a bitter, unjust lampoon of the Chinese character and practices. The Scandinavians may well consider themselves insulted by "Hamlet" and "Hedda Gabler," and the Jews and Irish by "Abie's Irish Rose." France has reason to complain of "A Night in Paris" and "A Weak Woman"; England of "The Vortex," and Middle Europe of "The Goat Song." So the Negroes, like other persons, should take the abuses of the drama laughingly, and not waste their time in protest.

the drama lovers in his reproduction of a Saturday night at the Ente Grotto, a scarlet spot in the heart of Harlem. Some of the detail is photographic, but much of it is gaudy fibbing. The prizefight, for instance, is a bizarre forgery, to be believed in only by the artless or rough diamond type of playgoers. Yet in that haphazard fresco Mr. Hull acts the fastcinated lover in a way truthful enough to make amends for its shams. The scene is full of vivid persons, dark and white, and it is said to compare favorably in its idiosyncrasies with any night club of its kind in the off-stage metropolis.

Until its last act, "Lulu Belle" is merely a big, good "show," if you know what that means. When it reaches Paris, however, it becomes a regular play. In the voluptuous nest of Lulu Belle and her vicompte in the Avenue Marigny dramatic things transpire without the handicap of spectacular humbug. There Miss Ulric makes herself an evil congress of all the wicked women in the world, white, pink, smart or purple. Mr. Hull as the shabby instrument of retribution is as tragic a figure as you will see in any Times Square playhouse—a fine impersonation. He murders her, I think, without one false motion, either on his part or that of Miss Ulric.

30

THE NEW YORK THEATRE ADVERTISING MEDIUM

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ROGERS PEET COMPANY

Broadway
at Liberty

Broadway
at Warren

Broadway
at 13th St.

Herald Sq.
at 35th St.

New York
City

Fifth Ave.
at 41st St.

Tremont at Bromfield, Boston, Mass.

Date Theatre Star

Also Impression

In the party were

Feeling that a collection of the Rogers Peet cartoons might make an interesting record of
plays seen, we shall be glad to provide a little album for these clippings. Write to, or call
at any of our "6 Convenient Corners."

BELASCO THEATRE

31

DOWN SOUTH...

Down East, whichever way the tide of fashion flows, you'll find Gotham Gold Stripe Silk Stockings. They're everywhere because they wear. Prices from $1.85 up.

Silk Stockings that Wear

PROGRAM CONTINUED

<table><tr><td>MRS. ROYAL WILLIAMS</td><td>EDNA THROWER</td></tr><tr><td>EUGENE FRISBIE</td><td>SMOTHERS WARD</td></tr><tr><td>MT. VERNON JACKSON</td><td>GEORGE CALLENDER</td></tr><tr><td>A BARTENDER</td><td>SAMUEL BOLEN</td></tr><tr><td>MRS. JACKSON</td><td>MATTIE V. WILKES</td></tr><tr><td>ELMER JACKSON</td><td>OSWALD EDINBOROUGH</td></tr><tr><td>GEORGE RANDALL</td><td>HENRY HULL</td></tr><tr><td>MRS. GEORGE RANDALL</td><td>SYBIL BRYANT</td></tr><tr><td>WALTER RANDALL</td><td>THOMAS TRISVAN</td></tr><tr><td>VIOLET RANDALL</td><td>MARGARET PETTY</td></tr><tr><td>CLARENCE DE VOE</td><td>SEIFERT PILE</td></tr><tr><td>BROTHER STALEY</td><td>J. LOUIS JOHNSON</td></tr><tr><td>SISTER SALLY</td><td>VIRGIE WINFIELD</td></tr><tr><td>SISTER BLOSSOM</td><td>ANNIE RHINELANDER</td></tr><tr><td>LULU BELLE</td><td>LENORE ULRIC</td></tr><tr><td>SKEETER</td><td>PERCIVAL VIVIAN</td></tr><tr><td>VANGIE BOWTELLE</td><td>GOLDYE M. STIENER</td></tr><tr><td>POLICEMAN HEALY</td><td>EDWARD NANNERY</td></tr><tr><td>UNCLE GUSTUS</td><td>LAWRENCE EDDINGER</td></tr><tr><td>MRS. TRUMBULL</td><td>EVA BENTON</td></tr><tr><td>DR. J. WILBERFORCE WALKER</td><td>WILLIAM ST. JAMES</td></tr><tr><td>DUKE WEAVER</td><td>FRED MILLER</td></tr><tr><td>HAPPY</td><td>J. W. JACKSON</td></tr><tr><td>MOKE</td><td>ALLAN WAITHE</td></tr></table>

HORTON'S ICE CREAM

1851

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For Seventy-five Years

1926

34

The Breakers

Atlantic City
New Jersey

On the Ocean Front

Joel Hillman, President.

AMERICAN and EUROPEAN PLAN

Sea Water in all baths. Restaurant
facing Ocean. Orchestra. Dancing.

Afternoon Teas.

Hydro Therapeutic Baths.

Golf.

GARAGE

Sent Prepaid for $1.00

BELASCO THEATRE

35

"In Style to Your Fingertips"
with

"Wear-Right"

FOREMOST IN GLOVES

Novelty Kid and Chamoi Suede Gloves

At All Good Stores

PROGRAM CONTINUED

ACT II.

The top-floor front of a certain Harlem boarding house.
Summer.

ACT III.

Saturday night at the Elite Grotto.
Autumn.

ACT IV.

Five years later. 27 Avenue Marigny, Paris.
Winter.

Play Produced Under the Personal Direction of MR. BELASCO.

During the action of Act III., Miss Ulric will sing "Lulu Belle."
Music by Richard Myers. Lyric by Leo Robin.

Art Direction and Costumes by George Hadden.

Scenes constructed by Charles Carson.

Electrical effects by Louis Hartman.
Properties by Matthew Purcell.

Miss Ulric's gowns executed by Bergdorf & Goodman.

Miss Ulric's hat and head ornament in Act IV. from Odna Brandeis.

Miss Wayne's and Miss D'Tyl's gowns and wraps from Henri Bendel.
Flowers by Philip Roman.

Band under the direction of Earl Bumford.

Patrons at out-of-town points desiring to reserve tickets for the
Belasco Theatre in advance, or to secure them for delivery to friends,
may order and remit for same, and arrange for their delivery, through
Western Union Money Transfer, at a small additional cost.

BELASCO THEATRE

39

Congregated in these theatres on this and other even-
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metropolitan territory.

Thus, Theatre Programs provide a form of adver-
tising reaching the greatest number of the kind of
people in whom the advertiser of quality products
is interested, and reaching them at the lowest cost.

Djer-Kiss

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© 1925, A. H. S. Co.

A LITTLE NEGRO THEATRE

Today, as the renaissance of art comes among American Negroes, the theatre
calls for new birth. But most people do not realize just where the novelty must
come in. The Negro is already in the theatre and has been there for a long time;
but his presence there is not yet thoroughly normal. His audience is mainly a
white audience and the Negro actor has, for a long time, been asked to entertain
this more or less alien group. The demands and ideals of the white group, and
their conception of Negroes, have set the norm for the black actor. He has been
a minstrel, comedian, singer and lay figure of all sorts. Only recently has he begun
tentatively to emerge as an ordinary human being with everyday reactions. And
here he is still handicapped and put forth with much hesitation, as in the case of
"The Nigger", "Lulu Belle", "Emperor Jones", "Black Boy", "Deep River" and
"In Abraham's Bosom".

In practically all this drama the "defeatist" motif is uppermost. The dramatist looking the Negro's problem full in the face sees but three possible endings to the play: lynching, suicide or degeneracy. This is singularly one-sided and incomplete and the complete dramatization of the American Negro will never be evoked until Negro audiences begin to demand the picturing of their own life by Negro dramatists and Negro actors without the straight-jacket of the white producer.

For this reason, a new Negro theatre is demanded; and it is slowly coming. It
needs, however, guiding lights. For instance, some excellent groups of colored
amateurs are entertaining colored audiences in Cleveland, in Philadelphia and else-
where. Almost invariably, however, they miss the real path. They play Shakes-
peare or Synge or reset a successful Broadway play with colored principals.

The movement which began last year in Harlem, New York City, lays
down four fundamental principles. The plays of a real Negro theatre must be:
*One: About us.* That is, they must have plots which reveal Negro life as it is.
*Two: By us.* That is, they must be written by Negro authors who understand from
birth and continual association just what it means to be a Negro today.
*Three: For us.* That is, the theatre must cater primarily to Negro audiences and be sup-
ported and sustained by their entertainment and approval.
*Fourth: Near Us.* The
theatre must be in a Negro neighborhood near the mass of ordinary Negro people.

Only in this way can a real folk play movement of American Negroes be
built up.

The playhouse of the K. P. L. N. T. is in the basement of the 135th Street Branch of the New York Public Library. It has been equipped by the joint effort of the Public Library and the Players. It already has some decoration by Negro artists and will in time receive more. It is a free stage. Any one who has a play or any group which wishes to give a play is invited to use the playhouse, under certain easy conditions which the Library and the Players will formulate. We hope by plays, lectures and informal social gatherings to make this room a place of wide inspiration for all dark people everywhere and for all their friends.

Persons interested in this movement or wishing to join it or help it will write
the Chairman.

— OVER —

8

Sent Prepaid for $1.00

THE STAGE

A Style that smiles its satis-
faction at any stage of the wear-
ing!

Quality in everything men and boys
wear. Prices moderate.

Mail Order Shopping Service.

ROGERS PEET COMPANY

Broadway
at Liberty

Broadway
at Warren

Broadway
at 13th St.

Herald Sq.
at 35th St.

New York
City

Fifth Ave.
at 41st St.

Date

Theatre

Star

A'so

Impression

In the party were

✓ Feeling that a collection of the Rogers Peet cartoons might make an interesting record of plays seen, we shall be glad to provide a little album for these clippings. Write to, or call at any of our "6 Convenient Corners."

10

PROGRAM CONTINUED

ON THE FIRST NIGHT MONDAY, MAY 2nd, 1927

MISS HELEN ARTHUR
of the

NEIGHBORHOOD PLAYHOUSE
Will Make the Opening Address for the
FIFTH ANNUAL TOURNAMENT

MONDAY EVENING, MAY 2

THE UNION PLAYERS
of Bay Ridge, Brooklyn

present

THE DRUMS OF OUDE
By Austin Strong

Cast

<table><tr><td>Captain Hector McGregor</td><td>David W. Taylor</td></tr><tr><td>Lieutenant Alan Hartley</td><td>Donald Helm</td></tr><tr><td>Sergeant McDougal</td><td>Robert L. Neill</td></tr><tr><td>Stewart, the sentry</td><td>Alexander Ballantyne</td></tr><tr><td>Two Hindustani Servants</td><td>H. Arthur Eade and Charles Fields</td></tr><tr><td>Mrs. Jack Clayton, Hartley's sister</td><td>Elsie H. Neill</td></tr></table>

Scene

The Interior of a Palace in Northern India, occupied by British troops.

Time

Evening.

The setting designed, built and painted by the Union Players.

Eligible for one of the Samuel French awards

THE KRIGWA PLAYERS
LITTLE NEGRO THEATRE
of Harlem

present

THE FOOL'S ERRAND
By Eulalie Spence

Cast

<table><tr><td>Cassie, a busy-body</td><td>Ethel Bennett</td></tr><tr><td>Sister Williams, the minister's wife</td><td>Marian King</td></tr><tr><td>Doug, father of Maza</td><td>William Jackson</td></tr><tr><td>Parson Williams</td><td>Ira Reid</td></tr><tr><td>Maza, daughter of DoDug</td><td>Doralyne Spence</td></tr><tr><td>Jud, a suitor of Maza</td><td>Malcolm Dodson</td></tr><tr><td>Freddie, another suitor</td><td>William Holly</td></tr><tr><td>Mom, mother of Maza</td><td>Ardelle Dabney</td></tr><tr><td>Brefhren and Sisters of the Church Council—Minnie Brown, Inez Bennett, Louise Robinson, George Lee, Samuel Carthan, Levi Alexander</td><td></td></tr></table>

Scene

The Living Room of Doug's Home.

Time

The Present.

THE FROLIC

11

PROGRAM CONTINUED

THE ASSOCIATION PLAYERS

of the 92nd Street Y. M. H. A.

present

CONFESSION

By Kenyon Nicholson

Cast

<table><tr><td>Germaine</td><td>Ethel Leventhal</td></tr><tr><td>Mme. Bertharde</td><td>Ruth Zakrow</td></tr><tr><td>Skeet</td><td>Henry Chuck</td></tr><tr><td>Walt</td><td>I. Feil</td></tr></table>

Scene

"Buvette du Bon Temps," a cafe, near an American Rest Camp on the outskirts of Bar-la-Duc, France.

Time

A rainy night in August, 1918.
Produced under the direction of Myron E. Sattler.

TUESDAY EVENING, MAY 3

THE UNITY PLAYERS

of Montclair, New Jersey

present

THE GIANT'S STAIR

By Wilbur Daniel Steele

Cast

<table><tr><td>Til Jessup</td><td>Percita West Gardner</td></tr><tr><td>Mrs. Weatherburn, her sister</td><td>Florence Wolff Klaber</td></tr><tr><td>Edwin Dane, the Sheriff</td><td>Fortescue Metcalf</td></tr><tr><td>Cantpole</td><td>Lewis Kimball</td></tr></table>

Scene

Kitchen of the Weatherburn Farm situated at the upper end of a mountain valley.

Time

Seven o'clock of a stormy November night.
The play directed by Percita West Gardner.

Antiques by Mr. and Mrs. H. L. Patteson, Ye Olde Mille, Riverdale, N. J.

PROGRAM CONTINUED ON PAGE 15

16

PROGRAM CONTINUED

WEDNESDAY EVENING, MAY 4

THE BROOKSIDE OPEN AIR THEATRE

of Mount Kisco, New York

presents

THE IMMORTAL BELOVED

By Martia Leonard

Cast

Anton Felix Schinler, friend and biographer of Beethoven, Charles Haubiel
A Lady..................................................Jane King

Scene

In Carlsbad, July, 1862.

THE INDIANAPOLIS THEATRE GUILD

of Indianapolis, Indiana

presents

THE SECOND ACT

An original one-act play by Maurice C. Tull

Cast

Phylis Wray..................................................Eleanor Tull
Mary MacDowell............................................Betti Black
Bridget ......................................................Georgia Fricker
Walls ........................................................Joseph Henninger
Lady of Beautiful Dreams..............................Elizabeth Wetzel
Demon of Dreadful Dreams..............................M. C. Tuil
Helen Gibbs................................................Ruth McInnis Todd

THE FROLIC

17

PROGRAM CONTINUED

Scene

An impressionistic furnished room

Time

Midnight to 12:30 A. M.

The play directed by the Author.

Production in charge of Clara Nixon Bates.

THE GARDENS PLAYERS

of Forest Hills, Long Island

present

HISTORY AS WAS

In Three Private Peeps

By Maurice Marks

Cast

I.

<table><tr><td>Ramese I.</td><td>Morton Savell</td></tr><tr><td>Secretary</td><td>Cameron Shipp</td></tr><tr><td>A Dancer</td><td>Lucile Fulton</td></tr><tr><td>Starret</td><td>Homer Croy</td></tr><tr><td>Slaves</td><td>Calvert Cole and William Hampton</td></tr></table>

II.

<table><tr><td>Cohen</td><td>Harold Dobrer</td></tr><tr><td>Stenographer</td><td>Blanche Lopez</td></tr><tr><td>Sir Walter Raleigh</td><td>Walter Claypoole</td></tr><tr><td>First Tailor</td><td>Anthony Leonard</td></tr><tr><td>Second Tailor</td><td>Maurice Mayer</td></tr></table>

III.

<table><tr><td>Napoleon</td><td>Lawson Paynter</td></tr><tr><td>Sergeant</td><td>Clarence Perry</td></tr><tr><td>Soldier</td><td>Frank Heinz</td></tr><tr><td>Josephine</td><td>Arlene Kiliani</td></tr></table>

Scenes

As indicated.

Time

Early and later.

Musicians—Salvator Gioe and Al Cohen

Directed by Bertha E. Mandel.

THE FROLIC

21

PROGRAM CONTINUED

THURSDAY EVENING, MAY 5

THE CHARLOTTE HIGH SCHOOL PLAYERS

Charlotte, North Carolina

present

JAZZ AND MINUET

By Ruth Giorloff

Cast

<table><tr><td>Mrs. Van Hayden</td><td>Martha Dulin</td></tr><tr><td>Eleanor Prudence Van Hayden</td><td>Alice Houston Quarles</td></tr><tr><td>Prudence Van Hayden, the great-great-aunt</td><td>Nancy Watts</td></tr><tr><td>Richard Townsend, Eleanor's lover</td><td>Lawrence Miller</td></tr><tr><td>Robert Trowbridge</td><td>Marshall Pritchett</td></tr><tr><td>Nettie, the modern maid</td><td>Jane McLaughlin</td></tr><tr><td>Lucy, maid of Colonial days</td><td>Frances Martin</td></tr><tr><td>Milord Devereaux</td><td>John Everett</td></tr></table>

Scene

Living Room of Mrs. Van Hayden's Apartment.

Time

Now and 150 years ago.

The play was directed by Ethel Rea and Luisa Duls.

THE MEMPHIS LITTLE THEATRE

Memphis, Tennessee

presents

THE DELTA WIFE

By Walter McClellan

Cast

<table><tr><td>Hamer Mathes</td><td>Clifford Penland</td></tr><tr><td>Cora Mathes</td><td>Allison Davant</td></tr></table>

Scene

A Room of Mathes' cabin, just behind the Levee in the delta of the Great River.

Stage Manager—Walker Wellford.

The play directed by Colin Clements.

The New York Times

WEDNESDAY, JULY 13, 1927.

# 'RANG TANG' OPENS AT ROYALE THEATRE

## New Negro Revue Is Elaborate in Production and Trappings— Miller and Lyles the Stars.

RANG TANG, a revue in two acts. Book by Kaj Gynt; lyrics by Jo' Trent; music by Ford Dabney; dances arranged by Charlie Davis; produced by Walker and Kavanagh. At the Royale Theatre.
Principals—Miller and Lyles, James Strange, Inez Draw, Lillian Westmoreland, May Barnes, Zaidee Jackson, Ed Thompson, E. Alexander, Josephine Hall, Evelyn Preer, Gilbert Holland and others.

Harlem continued its invasion of the Broadway stage last night with the presentation of a blackamoor folderol bearing the enigmatic title of "Rang Tang" at the Chanins' comfortable new Royale Theatre. Miller and Lyles are the stars of this particular extravaganza, and at the outset it may be described as the most elaborate, from the standpoint of production and trappings, of all the negro shows which have been staged hereabouts recently. Whether or not it is the most entertaining is another matter.

Except for the circumstance that it is played throughout by performers varying in color from ebony to light tan, "Rang Tang" might be considered to be an effort by the Shuberts, George White or Rufus Le Maire, so pretentious and ornate is its investiture. It is quite slavish in its imitation of the Times Square girl-and-tune hippodromes, even to the extent of dividing its ensemble into show girls, ponies and ballet. It has some scenic effects upon which Mr. Ziegfeld would not cast a scornful eye, and much of it is carbon copy of something pretty elegant at the Winter Garden.

However, this painstaking reproduction of the Broadway spectacles works against it in the long run, for, smothered in scenery, "Rang Tang" becomes unqualifiedly sluggish and tedious at times and lacks the spontaneity that might be gained from a more informal projection. Indeed, there was around the entertainment last night the suspicion that it might be, in the language of Mr. Van Vechten, passing.

The piece has a plot which is tenuously adhered to. It takes the two stellar comedians from Jimtown, U. S. A., to Africa and back again for a grand finale in a Harlem night club. The book also gives Miller and Lyles the chance to revamp and rework most of their old material, and it is usually when they are so doing that they are at their funniest. Venturing abroad with new lines and situations they are often pretty sorry, although they stage a scene adrift in mid-ocean in an airplane which has its moments.

Last night's audience seemed particularly to revel in the dancing and war cries of a chubby miss with a complacently vacant expression, who was more or less definitely identified as one May Barnes. All the "hoofing" was speedy and expert; first-rate dancing is a concomitant of all negro shows. There were also songs by the fuzzy-haired Zaidee Jackson, Evelyn Preer and Daniel L. Haynes which seemed to bring forth an appreciative response and an interlude of spirituals was popular.

Comparisons with Monday night's negro troupe are perhaps inevitable. "Rang Tang" in its attempt to be refined and gorgeous loses a good deal of the distinctive racial quality that "Africana" possesses through sheer unpretentiousness and a native lack of inhibitions.

ROYALE THEATRE

Forty-fifth Street, West of Broadway

Telephone Chickering 0144

CHANIN THEATRES CORPORATION, OWNERS

IRWIN S. CHANIN, President

HENRY I. CHANIN, Treasurer

HARRY D. KLINE, Managing Director

FIRE NOTICE: Look around NOW and choose the nearest Exit to your seat. In case of fire, walk (not run) to THAT Exit. Do not try to beat your neighbor to the street.

JOHN J. DORMAN, Fire Commissioner,

WEEK BEGINNING MONDAY EVENING, JULY 18, 1927
Matinee Saturday

Midnight Performance Every Wednesday

WALKER & KAVANAGH

present

MILLER and LYLES
—in—
“RANG TANG”

Book by Kaj Gynt—Lyrics by Jo' Trent—Music by Ford Dabney

Dances arranged by Charlie Davis

Orchestrations and Vocal Arrangements by Russell Wooding

Settings and Costumes Designed by Olle Nordmark

Entire Production Staged by F. E. Miller

Orchestra Under Direction of Mr. Dabney

ACT I.

Scene 1—PUBLIC SQUARE, JIMTOWN

A.—DAYBREAK

Mrs. Jenkins .................................... Lillian Westmoreland
Laborers, Washwomen, Cottonpickers.

B.—BARBER SHOP BUSINESS

Customer ........................................ James Strange
Villagers ........................................ B. Jackson, A. Allen, E. Thompson
"Everybody Shout"—Sung by Villagers and

Jimtown Quartette (S. Mason, J. Willis, C. Todd, A. Allen)

Dance Specialty—Crawford Jackson

"Sammy and Topsy"—Sung by Inez Draw and May Barnes

Magnolia ............................................ Zaidee Jackson

Mrs. Jenkins .................................... Lillian Westmoreland
"Brown"—Sung by Zaidee Jackson and Jimtown Dandies.

"Pay Me"—Sung by Jimtown Business Men

STEVE JENKINS, A. Barber .................... F. E. MILLER

SAM PECK, Another Barber .................... A. LYLES

Sheriff ............................................ Edward Thompson

C.—"SAMBO'S BANJO".................... Sung by Zaidee Jackson and Banjo Ensemble

Scene 2—LOAFER'S LANE, JIMTOWN

A.—MISSING.................................... Mrs. Jenkins, Alice and Villagers
"Some Day"—Sung by Miss Josephine Hall and

Jimtown Trio (J. Willis, Miss Revels, Miss Simmons)

B.—SPIRITUALS.................... Sung by Jimtown Glee Club
(Special arrangement by Daniel L. Haynes and Clarence Todd)

Scene 3—ADRIFT

A.—THE AVIATORS .................................... MILLER & LYLES

16

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Date Theatre Star

Also Impression

In the party were