Chapter I: Part 1

THE FOOTLIGHTS FORE AND AFT

BY

CHANNING POLLOCK

WITH 50 FULL PAGE ILLUSTRATIONS BY
WARREN ROCKWELL

RICHARD G. BADGER
THE GORHAM PRESS
BOSTON

Copyright 1911 by Richard G. Badger

All Rights Reserved

The articles that make up this volume originally appeared, at
various times, in Collier's Weekly, The Saturday Evening Post,
The Associated Sunday Magazines, The Smart Set, Munsey's
Magazine, Ainslee's Magazine, Smith's Magazine, and The Green
Book Album. The author desires to thank the editors of these
periodicals for permission to republish.

THE GORHAM PRESS BOSTON, U. S. A.

TO THE LADY WHO GOES TO THE THEATER WITH ME

CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION

_Wherein, at union rates, the author performs the common but popular musical feat known as "blowing one's own horn"_

THE THEATER AT A GLANCE

_Being a correspondence school education in the business of the playhouse that should enable the veriest tyro to become a Charles Frohman or a David Belasco_

SOME PEOPLE I'VE LIED ABOUT

_Being reminiscences of the author's nefarious but more or less innocuous career as a press agent_

THE WRITING AND READING OF PLAYS

_Being a discussion as to which pursuit is the more painful, with various entertaining and instructive remarks as to the method of following both_

THE PERSONALITIES OF OUR PLAYWRIGHTS

_Being an effort to outdo Ernest Thompson Seton and Charles G. D. Roberts at their own game--which is speaking literally_

STAGE STRUCK

_Being a diagnosis of the disease, and a description of its symptoms, which has the rare medical merit of attempting a cure at the same time_

ON THE GREAT WHITE WAY

_Being an account of intrepid explorations in the habitat of the creatures whose habits are set forth in the preceding chapters_

WHAT HAPPENS AT REHEARSALS

_Being something about the process by which performances are got ready for the pleasure of the public and the profit of the ticket speculators_

THE ART OF "GETTING IT OVER"

_Being the sort of title to suggest a treatise on suicide, whereas, in point of fact, this chapter merely confides all that the author doesn't know about acting_

SOMETHING ABOUT FIRST NIGHTS

_Wherein is shown that the opening of a new play is more hazardous than the opening of a jack-pot, and that theatrical production is a game of chance in comparison with which roulette and rouge-et-noir are as tiddledewinks or old maid_

IN VAUDEVILLE

_Being inside information regarding a kind of entertainment at which one requires intelligence no more than the kitchen range_

WITH THE PEOPLE IN STOCK

_Concerning Camille, ice cream, spirituality, red silk tights, Blanche Bates, Thomas Betterton, second-hand plays, parochialism, matinee girls, Augustin Daly, and other interesting topics_

SITTING IN JUDGMENT WITH THE GODS

_Being an old manuscript with a new preface--the former dealing with a lost art, and the latter subtly suggesting who lost it_

THE SMART SET ON THE STAGE

_Wherein the author considers comedies of manners, and players who succeed illy in living up to them_

ILLUSTRATIONS

PAGE

_Plays are Put up in Packages_

_First catch your play_

_If actors roamed about at will_

_A Stalwart Individual pushing a church_

_The guild of Annanias_

_Anna Held bathing in milk_

_Sometimes things really do happen to actors_

_The Theatrical Women's Parker Club_

_It is very difficult to identify a good play_

_A woman cut her play in half_

_Clyde Fitch's ability to work_

_Augustus Thomas shouts instructions_

_Eugene Walter was lodging upon a park bench_

_Margaret Mayo built a villa_

_The malignant disease_

_"You're William A. Brady, ain't you?"_

_A wrinkled old lady confided her desire_

_How sweet to meet one's own image_

_The Great White Way is a recumbent letter I_

_The actor and the rest of the world_

_Allan Dale came three nights running_

_Gets eighteen dollars_

_If actors really "felt their parts"_

_The first time the director has seen them_

_The interruption came on the spot_

_Matches that cannot be lit_

_Ensconced in a swing and two silk stockings_

_Thought seems as material a thing as a handball_

_Gillette flicked the ashes from his cigar_

_Lady Macbeth swore that he grew during the performance_

_A playwright whose stock has soared a hundred points in a single evening_

_A Boston audience at train time_

_Trilby died in every known way_

_The author--as you imagine him, and as he is_

_Venus rose from the sea_

_Danced before a statue of Antony until it bit her_

_You need bring to a vaudeville theatre nothing but the price of admission_

_Their agents search every capital of Europe_

_Known as a stock company_

_Master Betterton had his nerves shaken_

_The actress giving time to dress-makers_

_Evening up matters on his books_

_The great actors of an earlier time_

_A play censor with a club_

_Reputable scoundrels kill by machinery_

_Comstockians wear blinders_

_The peculiarities of royal love-making_

_The lady may have come to prepare a rarebit_

_Why women sin_

_It simply isn't done_

AN INTRODUCTION

Wherein, at union rates, the author performs the common but
popular musical feat known as "blowing one's own horn."

"Good wine", according to the poet, "needs no bush." With the same logic, one may argue that a good book needs no introduction.... But then--how be sure that it _is_ a good book?

Hallowed custom provides that every volume of essays--especially of essays on the theater--shall begin with a preface in which some celebrated critic dilates upon the cleverness of the author. However, celebrated critics are expensive, and, moreover, no one else seems to know as much about the cleverness of this author as does the author himself. In consequence of which two facts, I mean to write my own introduction.

One obstacle appears to be well-nigh insurmountable. It will be easy to inform you as to my merits and my qualifications, but I don't quite see how a man can speak patronizingly of himself. And, of course, the patronizing tone is absolutely essential to an introduction. Nobody ever wrote an introduction without it. I shall do my best, but I hope you will be lenient with me in the event of failure.

* * * * *

"Of the making of books there is no end."

And, even to the most enthusiastic student of the stage, it must seem that a sufficiently large number of these books deal with the theater.

At least, they deal with the drama--which is slightly different. It is in this difference that one finds some excuse for the appearance of "The Footlights--Fore and Aft." Here are a collection of papers in which the reader finds no keen analysis of plays and players; no learned review of the past of the playhouse, no superior criticism of its present, no hyperbolean prophecy for its future. The book, in fact, is unique.

One might wish, indeed, that there were more substance to these essays, which reveal the impressions of a reporter rather than the excogitations of a thinker or a philosopher. Mr. Pollock severely lets alone the drama of Greece and Rome. His field is the drama of Forty-second Street and Broadway. He has rendered unto Brander Matthews the things that are Brander Matthews', and unto William Winter the things that are William Winter's.

"The Footlights--Fore and Aft" contains nothing that might not have been set down by anyone with a sense of humor and the author's opportunities of observation. It is true that, in his case, these opportunities have been exceptional. Born in 1880, Mr. Pollock's contact with the theater began as early as 1896, when he became dramatic critic of the The Washington Post. Subsequently, he served in the same capacity with various newspapers and magazines, was reporter for a "trade journal" of "the profession", and acted, for a considerable period, as press agent and business manager. The practical side of play-making and play-producing he has learned in eight years' experience as a dramatist, during which time he has written ten dramatic pieces, among them "The Pit", "Clothes", "The Secret Orchard", "The Little Gray Lady", "In the Bishop's Carriage", and "Such a Little Queen."

Considering the narrow confines of the world he describes, its comparatively small population and its rather meager language, Mr. Pollock should not be blamed too much for a certain sameness throughout "The Footlights--Fore and Aft." There are not more than a dozen prominent managers and a score of well known playwrights in America; whoever elects to write a hundred thousand words about the theater must choose between mentioning these names repeatedly and inventing new ones. Nor is it possible to avoid the recurrence of explanations and instances. You will find something about stage lighting in "The Theater at a Glance", because it belongs there, and something more about it in "What Happens at Rehearsals", because much that follows in this account would not be clear without it. The author did not flatter himself that you would carry his first description with you through a hundred pages, and, perhaps, he didn't want you to spoil a nice book by thumbing back.

In articles written at various times for various readers, there is no reason to suppose that he devised two phrases where one would serve or searched for two examples where one would do the work. Undoubtedly, many of these reiterations were weeded out in the course of compilation, and, as undoubtedly, many of them remain. All collections of stories by the same author--especially when they treat of one subject--are marred by similarity. The remedy for this rests with the reader, who is recommended to take such books in small doses--say, one essay every night at bedtime.

Generally speaking, the matter that follows will not be found unpalatable. At least, the author gives us no reason to suspect that he is displeased with it or with himself. "The capital I's", as someone has said of another series of articles, "flash past like telegraph poles seen from a car window." Mr. Pollock scolds considerably, too, though, for the most part, in perfect good humor. Indeed, whatever their faults, it must be said that these essays display some wit, and a rather delightful lightness of touch and brightness of manner. They penetrate the recesses of the topic, giving an agreeable impression of confidence, of familiarity, and of authority.

Books and plays are judged by their price and pretence. With the price of this book neither the author nor the prefacer has anything to do. It pretends to very little, and, judged by that standard, it may be acquitted.

CHANNING POLLOCK.

The Parsonage, Shoreham, L. I.,
August 25, 1911.

THE FOOTLIGHTS FORE AND AFT

I

THE THEATER AT A GLANCE

Being a correspondence school education in the business of the
playhouse that should enable the veriest tyro to become a
Charles Frohman or a David Belasco.

A man who passed as the possessor of reasonable intelligence--he "traveled for" a concern that manufactured canning machinery, and his knowledge of tins was something beautiful--once said to me: "Are plays written before they're produced?"

"No," I replied, indulging myself in a little sarcasm; "they're put up in packages and sold at the delicatessen shops. Comedies cost twenty cents a box and dramas from twenty-five cents to half a dollar. It would be a great field for you, old chap, if you could induce a fellow like Augustus Thomas to pack his plays in cans."

Even my friend the "drummer" saw through that. I'm afraid my wit lacks subtlety. Still, two or three other people of my acquaintance would have been a bit uncertain whether to take me seriously or not. Most laymen, though they wouldn't believe in the package explanation, cherish a vague idea that theatrical presentations are miracles brought into being by the tap of the orchestra conductor's wand. Managers are quite willing to foster this opinion, agreeing with the late Fanny Davenport, who felt that the charm of the playhouse lay in its mystery, and that to elucidate would result in loss of patronage. In this verdict it is impossible for me to concur. I learn something new about the theater every day, and the more I learn the more I love it. You can't interest me in a thing of which I am ignorant--at least, not unless you start to clear up my ignorance.

Henry Arthur Jones, writing about "The Renascence of the English Drama," observes: "I wish every playgoer could know all the tricks and illusions of the stage from beginning to end. I wish that he could be as learned in all the devices and scenic effects of the stage as the master carpenter.... Compare the noisy, ill-judged, misplaced applause of provincial audiences with the eager, unerring enthusiasm and appreciation of the audience at a professional matinee, where, so far as the acting goes, everyone knows the precise means by which an effect is produced, and, therefore, knows the precise reward it should receive." That's warrant enough for me.

The theater is an extremely curious blending of art and business. Its art is lodged back of the curtain line and its business in front of the footlights. Between these two boundaries the manager stands when he is directing rehearsals, and, since his work is a mixture of both things, that four feet of cement constitutes a sort of intellectual no-man's-land. The people of the stage and the people in "the front of the house" have little in common, that little being chiefly a mutual feeling of contempt for each other.

You know the recipe for cooking a rabbit--"first catch your rabbit." The same recommendation applies in the matter of producing a play. Good plays are the one thing in the world, except money, the demand for which exceeds the supply. Consequently, dramatic works cost a trifle more than "twenty cents a box." Most managers think they cost altogether too much, but there never has been advanced a completely satisfactory reason why an illiterate little comedian should be paid more for appearing in a piece that makes him a success than the author should be paid for providing a piece that all the illiterate little comedians on earth couldn't make a success if the vehicle itself weren't attractive.... Kyrle Bellew in "The Thief" drew $10,000 a week; Kyrle Bellew in "The Scandal" didn't draw $4,000; that's the answer.

If you were a manager and wanted a play by a well-known author you would go to his agent--Elisabeth Marbury or Alice Kauser--and ask if he had time to write it. Should his reply be in the affirmative, you probably would pay him $250 for attaching his name to a contract stipulating that the manuscript must be delivered on such and such a date. Before that time, he would send you a scenario, or brief synopsis, of his story. If you accepted that, you would give the author another $250; if you rejected it, all would be over between you. The acceptance of the completed "'script" would be likely to cost you an additional $500, and the whole $1,000 would be placed to your credit and deducted from the first royalties accruing to the dramatist.

Authors' royalties usually are on "a sliding scale." Such a one as we have in mind might get 5 per cent. of the first $4,000 that came into the box office; 7 per cent. of the next $3,000, and 10 per cent. of all in excess of that total. Thus, the playwright's income from a production that "did $8,000" a week would be $510. The agent would take 10 per cent. of this sum. Some dramatists receive better terms than these and some get worse; I have given the average. It is possible for an author to profit by such a property as "The Lion and the Mouse," which has been acted pretty constantly by two or more companies, to the extent of a quarter of a million dollars. Occasionally, a shrewd manager and an author without experience or self-confidence make a deal by which a play is sold outright. This is an unpleasant subject.

"How does the dramatist know the receipts of his play?" you ask. From a copy of the statement by which the manager knows. Did you ever hear of the operation called "counting up?" About an hour after the performance begins, the affable young man who takes your money through the box office window counts the tickets he has left, and subtracts the number of each kind from that which he had originally. The result is the number sold. That number is written on a report handed to the manager of the company appearing in the theater by which the young man is employed. He and the young man then count the sold tickets taken from the boxes into which you see them slipped when you give them to the official at the door. That result should be precisely the figure on the report. If it is greater the young man pays for the difference; if it is less nothing is said, since some people who bought tickets may have remained away. The statement of what has been disposed of, at what price, and with what total, is then signed jointly by the representative of the house and the representative of the company. Each keeps a copy of this statement and an additional copy is sent to the agent of the author. The transaction seems simple, but, if you will think the matter over, you will see that it is a nearly perfect method of preventing dishonesty.

The contract made between manager and author ordinarily provides that a play must be performed before a given date and so many times a year thereafter, in default of which all rights revert to the dramatist. One of the first requisites of a production now-a-days is scenery. Consequently, supposing still that you are the manager, you turn over your manuscript, act by act, to a scene painter, or to a number of scene painters, expressing your ideas on the subject, if you have any. The scene painter reads the play, formulates some ideas of his own, familiarizes himself with the time and place treated, and makes a model of each setting. The model is a miniature, usually on the scale of an inch to a foot, and it incorporates the necessaries described by the author with the luxuries imagined by the manager. Moreover, it is as accurate and beautiful as skill can make it. If the producer approves of the model a bargain is struck, a builder constructs the frame work which is to hold the scenery, the painter covers the canvas, and, for a while, at least, the matter of settings is off your mind. The setting of an act may cost $500 and it may cost $5,000. Generally, it comes to about $1,000.

In a play of modern life the actors are supposed to furnish their own costumes. Sometimes, when the dresses are to be exceptionally elaborate, this rule is varied. Should your property be a romantic drama or a comic opera, however, you have a conference with a costumer. The great producers, like the Shuberts and Klaw and Erlanger, maintain their own establishments, but this hardly will apply in your case. Now you will see costume plates instead of scene models--little paintings on card-board that frequently are exhibited in front of the theater in which the piece is running. These once passed upon, the contract for making the clothes will be let. Naturally, the cost is governed by the number of persons to be clad and by the nature of their garb. The gowns worn by one woman in the production of a Clyde Fitch society comedy came to $3,100. The costumes for a comic opera may foot up $20,000, irrespective of tights, stockings, slippers and gloves, which principals and chorus girls are obliged to find.

Engaging a company is a simple matter in comparison to what it used to be. A few years ago you would have been compelled to choose from thousands of applicants and to make personal visits to an actors' agency--say, Mrs. Packard's or Mrs. Fernandez'. Now metropolitan casts are composed chiefly of well known people. You have seen these people often, you know what they can do, you select them with an eye to round pegs and square holes, and you write to them or their representatives. In a week your cast is ready. Salaries range from $400 a week, paid to a popular leading man or woman, to $20 a week, the stipend of a player of bits. Chorus girls usually get $18, though especially handsome "show girls" are worth as much as $60. Your star probably insists on having from $300 to $500, and a percentage of the profits.

A stage manager is the man who does the thinking for actors. He directs rehearsals, devises "business" and effects, and often has a great deal more to do with the play than the author himself. Any author will tell you that this was true in the case of a failure; any stage manager will tell you it was true in the case of a success. In all seriousness, a stage manager is a mighty important individual. If actors roamed about at will in a play, as most laymen suppose they do, you couldn't tell a first night performance from a foot-ball game. Every actor in a piece knows just where he must stand when a certain line is spoken, and when, how, where and in what manner he must move to get in position for the next line. Smooth premieres are not accidents; they are designs. Sometimes, as in the case of David Belasco, producers are their own stage managers. Frequently, as with Charles Klein, authors stage their own plays. Almost always they have something to do with it.

The chorus of a musical comedy or a comic opera rehearses apart from the principals, and begins earlier. Putting on a piece like this is more difficult than putting on a legitimate comedy or a drama, and such a director as Julian Mitchell or R. H. Burnside may be paid $15,000 a year. The production of a "straight play" often is piece work, bringing about $500 for each piece. Costumes, scenery and properties are unknown until the last rehearsal. Two chairs represent a door or a sofa or a balcony in the minds of everyone concerned. "What is the woman doing on the bench?" I inquired once at a stock company rehearsal of "Mr. Barnes of New York."

"That isn't a bench," the manager replied. "That's a train of cars just leaving the railroad station at Milan."

While these things are going on in borrowed theaters or rented halls, two departments in your enterprise are preparing other details of the business. First, there is your booking agent. His task, like the matter of engaging a company, has been simplified. Formerly, he wrote to the manager of the theater you wanted in every city you wanted to play, and kept on writing until he had contracted for a route that would not involve your jaunting from Philadelphia to Chicago and then back to Baltimore on your way to St. Louis. Railway fares, even at two cents each per mile and one baggage car with every twenty-five tickets, eat up profits. Now-a-days your booking agent goes to the booking agent of one of the two big syndicates, each of which represents half of the theatres in the country, and that gentleman arranges a route while you wait. Sometimes it may not be a route worth waiting for, but that is determined by your importance and the estimated drawing power of your attraction. Theaters are "played on shares", the shares depending again upon the drawing power of your attraction and upon the size of the city booked. In Chicago you will get 50 per cent. of the receipts; in Newark 60 per cent; in Springfield or New Haven 70 per cent. A New York house keeps 50 per cent. and, unless your production seems promising, you will be obliged to guarantee that the theater's share will not fall below a certain figure.

Next, there is your press agent. He used to be a newspaper man, and he is worth $100 a week or not more than a dollar and a quarter. In his office is a stenographer, a mimeographing machine, and a list of six hundred daily newspapers. If he is worth $100 he knows just what each of those newspapers will print and what it will not. It is his business to cover a pound of advertising so completely with an ounce of news that the whole parcel will not be consigned to the waste-basket. Out in Milwaukee and over in Boston you have observed journalistic items like these:

Augustus Thomas is at work on a new play for Charles Frohman.
The piece is to be called "The Jew," and will be produced in
September.

That's the press agent!

He also designs bills, gets up circulars, sends out photographs, invents "fake stories", and takes the blame for whatever happens that shouldn't have happened. If you have several attractions you will need a press agent in New York and one with each company on the road. In the parlance of the profession, the road press agent is "the man ahead of the show," while the acting manager is "the man back with the show." The terms are self-explanatory. "The man back with the show" keeps the books, "counts up," pays salaries, "jollies" the star, and maintains communication with his principal. During the course of your connection with the theatrical business you will have dealings also with the advertising agent, who supervises the posting of bills; the transfer companies, which haul your production to and from playhouses and railway stations; and scores of other people. You must learn about them from experience.

The stage is a land of wonders the geography of which must be pretty thoroughly understood before you can receive any idea as to the working of the miracles that occur in the ten minutes the curtain is down between acts. Of course, you know that the opening through which you witness the performance of a play is called the proscenium arch. The space between the base of this arch and the footlights is known as the "apron." That region into which you have seen canvas disappear when it is hauled up from the stage is the "flies." Directly under the roof is a floor or iron grating from which are suspended the pulleys that bear the weight of this "hanging stuff," and that floor, for obvious reasons, is called the "gridiron." The little balcony fastened to the wall at one side of the stage or another is the "fly gallery." The loose ends of the ropes attached to the "hanging stuff" are fastened here, and it is from this elevation that the "stuff" aforesaid is lifted and lowered. Scenery is of two kinds--"drops" and "flats." Of the latter more anon. "Drops" are curtains of any sort on which are painted the reproductions of exteriors or interiors, and one of the ordinary size weighs about two hundred pounds. In common with everything else suspended in the "flies," these "drops" are counterweighted, so that a couple of men can move them with ease. The other things suspended may be "flies," or "borders," which are painted strips that prevent your seeing any farther up than you are expected to see; "ceiling pieces," platforms, and "border lights," which are tin tubes as long as the stage is wide, open at the bottom, and filled with incandescent globes of various colors for illuminating from above.

"Flats" are pieces of painted canvas tacked on a framework of wood. In the old days these were held in position by "grooves," or combinations of little inverted troughs that fitted over the tops of the "flats." These "grooves" were in sets four or five feet apart running along both sides of the stage, and their position gave to various parts of that platform designations that are used still in giving directions in play manuscripts. Thus, "L.2.E.," or "Left second entrance," is the space between the first and second of these sets on the left of the stage. The long "flats," slid in to join in the center and make the rear wall of a dwelling, for example, constituted "_the_ flat" and the short ones on your right or left were "wings." Then a room could be no other shape than square or oblong, and the doors and windows had to be in certain specified places, no matter where they would have been in a real house. It is laughable now to consider how this purely physical condition limited the dramatist.

At the present time the building of a house with "flats" is not unlike building one with cards. Each "flat" is placed where it is desired and held up from behind by a "brace," one end of which is screwed to the setting and the other to the floor. That particular "flat" is then lashed to its neighbors with a "tab line," much as you lace your shoes. When the walls have been constructed in this way, with doors and windows wherever they are wanted, a ceiling is lowered from the "fly gallery," and the dwelling is complete. If you are supposed to see a landscape through the window, a "drop" on which a landscape has been painted is lowered t'other side of the rear wall. An "interior backing," representing the wall of another room, usually is in the form of a large screen standing behind the door where it is needed. Corners of this kind are illuminated by "strip lights," or electric lamps placed on a strip of wood and hung in place.

Stage lighting has undergone a complete revolution in the past few years, the step from incandescent lamps to calciums meaning even more than the step from gas to electric lamps. Formerly, the illumination came from the footlights and the "borders" exclusively; the sun rose and set directly over-head in open defiance of the Copernican theory. Now the stage is full of minature trap doors, and to the metal beneath these may be attached wires that will throw light from anywhere. There is a "bridge" in the "first entrance" on the "prompt side" on which sits a man with apparatus to reproduce almost any effect known to Nature. You have seen the busy and important individual who controls "lamps" in the dress circle or the gallery, and without doubt you have observed that nowadays there is very little to keep such a stage manager as David Belasco from doing whatever he pleases with his electricity.

There are five classes of men at work on the stage, all under the direct supervision of the master carpenter. The men in these classes are known as "flymen," "grips," "clearers," "property men" and electricians. Each of these has his own labor to accomplish, and goes at it without loss of time or regard to the others. The "flymen" haul up and lower whatever hangs in the "flies." The "grips" attend to any scenery that must be set up or pulled down. The "clearers" take away the furniture and accessories that have been used, and the "property men" substitute other furniture and accessories from the "property room." The work of the electricians has been explained. In these days of elaborate calcium effects, there must be a man at each "lamp."

All these matters are attended to as though by machinery. When the curtain has fallen on the star's last bow, the stage manager cries "Strike!" This cry means labor trouble of a very different sort from that usually created by a call to strike. The stage immediately becomes a small pandemonium. The crew in the "fly gallery" works like the crew on a yard arm during a yacht race, hauling wildly at a greater number of ropes than were ever on a ship. In consequence of their energy, trees and houses soar into the air as though by magic. Samson wasn't such a giant, after all. He only pulled down a building--these fellows pull buildings _up_!

They are not mightier, however, than their colleagues, the "grips." There walks a stalwart individual carrying a folded balcony or pushing along the whole side of a church. Another permits a porch to collapse and fall into his out-stretched arms. How useful these "grips" would have been in San Francisco! Meanwhile, the "clearers" and "property men" have been mixing things up in great shape. The last act was an interior; the next is to be an exterior. Consequently, you note a fine spot of lawn growing directly under a horsehair sofa and the trunk of a huge oak reclining affectionately against a chest of drawers. Gradually, the signs of indoor life disappear, and then, suddenly, springing out of absolute chaos, you see a forest or a broad public square. The "lamps" sputter a moment and blaze up, bathing the scene in the warm red of sunset or the pale blue of moonlight. "Second act!" screams the call-boy, running from dressing room door to dressing room door. The stage manager presses a button connected with a signal light in front of the orchestra conductor, and you hear the purr of the incidental music. He presses another button once--twice. "Buzz!" hisses something in the "fly-gallery," and "buzz!" again. The curtain lifts and the play is continued. Everything has been done in perfect order. Even now the stage manager stands in the "first entrance," pencil in hand, noting the exact moment at which the act began, the minute at which each song was sung, and how many encores it received. You--my friend, the manager--will get that report to-morrow morning.

Here, omitting a dictionary of details, you have the theater at a glance. I feel tempted, like the magician after he has garbled some explanation of a difficult trick, to say: "Now, ladies and gentlemen, you can go home and do it yourselves." But you can't. I couldn't. The thousands of important trifles, the thousands of quick decisions that must be made and of clever things that must be done--these are the results of genius and work and of long, long experience. Many an American who has "French at a Glance" on the tips of his fingers, so to speak, has to cackle in imitation of a hen when he wants to get a soft-boiled egg in Paris.

_SOME PEOPLE I'VE LIED ABOUT_

Being reminiscences of the author's nefarious, but more
or less innocuous career as a press agent.

A press agent, as you may have gathered from the preceding article, is a person employed to obtain free newspaper advertising for any given thing, and the thing usually is a theatrical production. This advertising he is supposed to get as the Quaker was advised to get money--honestly, if possible. Since it isn't often possible, the press agent may be described in two words as a professional liar.

There is neither malice nor "muck rake" in this assertion. The press agent knows that his business is the dissemination of falsehood, and he is proud of it. Go up to any member of the craft you find on Broadway and say to him: "You are a liar!"; you will see a smile of satisfaction spread itself over his happy face, and his horny hand will grasp yours in earnest gratitude. Victor Hugo and Charles Dickens and William Makepeace Thackeray were liars, too, according to his way of thinking, and not overly ingenious or entertaining liars, at that. Their fiction was spread upon the pages of books, as his is spread upon the pages of the daily journals, and their mission, like his, was the enlivening of a terribly dull little planet. This altruistic motive really lurks behind the prevarications of the press agent with imagination. He conceives his philanthropic duty to be the making of news to fill a demand largely in excess of the supply. If the pursuit of this purpose brings him an income hovering about that of a United States Senator he cannot be blamed.

I became one of the guild of Annanias some ten or eleven years ago, coming fresh from the position of dramatic critic on _The Washington Times_, and I think I may say without undue egotism that, during the period of my membership, I lied industriously, conscientiously, and with a fair degree of success. There have been and are more able falsifiers than I, but the confessions of one man cannot in honor include the deeds of another, and so I must omit them from this chronicle. Suffice it to say that the stories of Anna Held's bathing in milk, of Mrs. Patrick Campbell having tan bark spread in the street in front of the Theater Republic to deaden the rumbling that annoyed her during performances, and a score similar in nature remain conspicuous examples of the cleverness manifested by brilliant press agents in attracting attention to the actors and actresses in whose behalf they labored.

The successful launching of a "fake"--so they are known to the profession--like these is not at all the simple matter it would appear to be. The mere conception of the story is only the beginning of the task. It is not enough to decide that such and such a thing might happen, or to swear that it has happened; it must be made to happen. Moreover, the occurrence must be so natural, and the plans leading to it so carefully laid and concealed, as to prevent suspicion and baffle investigation. Whenever it is possible, the press agent should be ostensibly unconnected with the affair, and, whenever it is not, he must hide his knowledge behind a mask of innocence in comparison with which the face of Mary's little lamb looks like a selection from the rogues' gallery.

There are other requisites to the spinning of a yarn which shall be valuable in an advertising way. In the first place, it is necessary that the story shall not injure the reputation or lower the standing of its hero or heroine, and equally desirable that it shall have no "come back" that may make enemies for the press agent. The announcement that Mrs. Patrick Campbell had won a large sum from society women at bridge whist, made during an engagement of the star in New York, was given all kinds of space in the newspapers, but it brought down upon Mrs. Campbell's devoted head such scathing denunciation from press and pulpit that she lost no time in sending out a denial. The publicity given the matrimonial enterprises of De Wolf Hopper, through no fault of his advertising staff, seriously injured that capable comedian for a time. A good "fake" is bizarre and picturesque enough to be interesting, will defy the prober after truth, hurts no one and so creates no journalistic grudges to be fought down in the future. There must be no limit to the number of times that the press agent can stir up excitement when he calls "Wolf!"

So many of the stories invented by theatrical Munchausens possess the qualification first mentioned that it is by no means unusual for the inventor to take the newspaper man into his confidence. Of course, before doing this he wants to feel sure of his newspaper and of his man. Dailies there be that prefer fact to fiction, however prosaic the former; that treat the stage in so dignified a manner that, if the Empire Theater burned to the ground, they probably would print the information under a head reading "The Drama"; that scorn the press agent and have only contempt for his handiwork. The most rabid of these, strangely enough, is the very paper that once, for its own amusement, tried a "fake" about wild animals escaping from Central Park Zoo which succeeded so well that for twenty-four hours business was practically suspended in New York. At least half the journals in town do not inquire too closely into a tale that is likely to appeal to their readers, especially if the tale in question is obviously harmless. When the publicity promoter conceals his machinations and buries clues leading to his connection with a story--"and the same with intent to deceive"--he must plot with great care, for woe betide him if the truth leaks out.

An excellent example of the kind of "fake" in accomplishing which one may rely upon the co-operation of the Fourth Estate is the incident of Margaret Mayo writing a play in twenty-four hours. Miss Mayo, who since then has written many plays, notably "Baby Mine" and "Polly of the Circus," at that time was appearing with Grace George in "Pretty Peggy" at the Herald Square Theater. The season had been dull, if profitable, and I was casting about for any item likely to get into print, when the idea of having someone go Paul Armstrong two better in rapidity of accomplishment occurred to me. Obviously, it was impossible to involve Miss George in the episode without making her appear ridiculous, and so I cast about for a likely member of her company.

Miss Mayo's name suggested itself to me because of the fact that, even then, she was at work on several plays, and I obtained her consent to my plan. Shortly afterward it was announced from the Herald Square that Miss Mayo had wagered a supper with Theodore Burt Sayre, author of numerous well known dramas, that she could begin and complete a four act comedy in the space of a single day. The test was to be made on the following Sunday at the residence of Miss Mayo, who was to have the benefit of a stenographer, and, to guard against her using an idea previously worked out, the advantage of a synopsis furnished by Mr. Sayre. This synopsis was to be delivered in a sealed envelope at six o'clock one morning and the play was to be finished at six o'clock the next. Mr. Sayre, an intimate personal friend, had been furnished with these details over the telephone, and affirmed them when called up by the reporters. Our announcement was printed by nearly every newspaper in town.

The stenographer provided Miss Mayo on that eventful morning was my own--a bright, quick-witted Irish girl, whose name, unfortunately, I have forgotten. The synopsis of the play was Miss Mayo's. She had it made from an old piece of her own, which had been freshly typed a day or two before. Saturday night, sheets from this manuscript were generously distributed about the room, the remaining sheets were hidden in a bureau drawer, the typewriter was put in position, and our scenery was ready. Business took me to Philadelphia on a late train, and the beginning of our two little comedies--that to be written and that to be acted--was entrusted to Miss Mayo.

I got back from the Quaker City shortly after noon on Sunday and went direct to the scene of action. I rang the front bell, the door opened automatically, and I climbed the stairs to the apartment. From the hall I heard a nervous voice and the click of a typewriter. Somebody admitted me and mine eyes beheld as excellent a counterfeit of fevered energy as it has ever been their luck to fall upon. Miss Mayo was pacing the floor wildly, dictating at least sixty words a minute, while the stenographer bent quiveringly over her machine. That portion of a manuscript which Arthur Wing Pinero might possibly prepare in six months lay on the table. The typist broke the charm. "Why!" she exclaimed; "it's Mr. Pollock!"

"Oh!" said Miss Mayo. "I thought you were a newspaper man. Sit down and have a biscuit."

This pretence was continued all day. When reporters came we struggled with the difficulties of rapid-fire composition; when they didn't we ate biscuits and manifolded epigrams which afterwards were sent to waiting city editors and quoted as being from the twenty-four hour play. Miss Mayo was photographed several times and we had a delicious dinner at six. Afterward, we named our product "The Mart" and separated for the night. Despite our thin histrionism, there wasn't a newspaper man among our visitors who didn't know in his secret soul that the whole thing had been cooked up for advertising purposes, yet, a newsless Sunday aiding and abetting us, we had more space the next morning than might have been devoted to the outbreak of a revolution in France.

Similarly, no intelligent person could have questioned for a moment the purpose of the matinee which De Wolf Hopper gave "for women only" soon afterward at the Casino Theater. "Happyland," the opera in which Mr. Hopper was appearing, made no especial appeal to the gentler sex, while the presenting company included so many pretty girls that a performance "for men only" would have been infinitely more reasonable. As a matter of fact, I first conceived the idea in this form, but swerved from my course upon taking into account two important considerations. The announcement of an entertainment "for men only" must have created the impression that there was something objectionable about the presentation--an impression we were extremely anxious to avoid--and it would not have given the opportunities for humorous writing which we hoped would serve as bait to the reporters. Foreseeing that upon the obviousness of these opportunities would depend the amount of attention paid to so palpable an advertising scheme, we took care to guard against a dearth of incident by providing our own happenings. Among the number of these were the entrance of a youth who had disguised himself as a girl in order to gain admittance, the appearance of a husband who insisted that his wife must not remain at a performance from which he was barred, and one or two similar episodes. We found, in the end, that these devices were superfluous. On the afternoon selected, the interior of the Casino fairly grinned with femininity, the audience looked like a Mormon mass meeting multiplied by two, and even so dignified and important a news-gathering service as the Associated Press condescended to take facetious notice of the "Women's Matinee."

If you recollect what you read in newspapers, it is not at all impossible that, even at this date, you will find something familiar about the name of Marion Alexander. You don't? Perhaps your memory can be assisted. Miss Alexander was the chorus girl supporting Lillian Russell in "Lady Teazle" who sued the late Sam S. Shubert for $10,000 because he had said she was not beautiful. The story of this slander and of the resentment it provoked went all around the world, though it is unlikely that anyone who printed it was deceived as to the genuineness of the lady's fine frenzy. The Marion Alexander tale had all the journalistic attractions of the "Women's Matinee," in that it was unique and admitted of breeziness in narration, but it had in addition an advantage that no press agent overlooks--it was susceptible to illustration. Newspapers always are eager to print pictures of pretty women. The average New York journal had rather reproduce a stunning photograph of Trixie Twinkletoes than the most dignified portrait of Ellen Terry or Ada Rehan. Miss Alexander _was_ pretty--I haven't the least doubt that she still is--and, while this story was running its course, the Shuberts paid nearly $300 for photographs used by daily papers, weekly papers, periodicals, magazines and news syndicates.

In the course of the controversy Miss Russell took occasion to side with Mr. Shubert--she didn't know she had done so until she read her paper the next morning--and ventured the opinion that no brunette could possibly be beautiful. As had been expected, this statement aroused a storm of protest. There are a million brunettes in New York, and to say that we succeeded in interesting them is putting it mildly. When "Lady Teazle" departed for the road they were still writing indignant letters to _The American and Journal_, and nearly every letter gave added prominence to Miss Russell. I wrote a few indignant letters myself and had them copied in long hand by the telephone girls and stenographers in the building. It is quite needless to say that Miss Alexander's suit never came to trial.

Twice during my career of prevarication, managing editors became interested in my humble efforts at the creation of news and demanded proofs that were not easily manufactured. While "Fantana" was running at the Lyric Theater, I discovered a chorus girl whose dog wore an exquisite pair of diamond ear-rings. To be quite accurate, neither the chorus girl nor the dog had thought of any such adornment when we three became acquainted, but a ten cent pair of jewels stuck to the animal's head with chewing gum and the popular belief that "the camera does not lie" were expected to make the discovery seem convincing. An iconoclast on _The World_ made it necessary for us to borrow ear rings from Tiffany's and bore holes in the flesh of a poor little canine that might never have known what suffering was but for the shocking skepticism mentioned.

If the beast in this case was martyred in the interest of science--the science of advertising--the staff of the press department at the Lyric had its share of agony a little later on. We had sent out ingenuously a trifling story about what we were pleased to call a "chorus girls' rogues gallery", detailing the manner in which the records of the young women were kept on the backs of photographs filed away in a room arranged for that purpose. _The World_ wanted the tale verified and inquired blandly if it might send up a reporter to inspect. We replied with equal politeness that it might--the next day. That afternoon we bought a rubber stamp and nearly a thousand old pictures, and all night long six of us worked on a "chorus girls' rogues' gallery" that would live up to its reputation. Our reward was a page in colors.

Sometimes things really do happen to actors and actresses, and so, not infrequently, there is a grain of truth in the news printed about them. Only a grain, mind you, for if a tenth of the events in which they are supposed to take part were actual, the inevitable end of life on the stage would be death of nervous prostration. The wide-awake press agent is quick to plant the grain of truth aforesaid, growing therefrom stories no more like the originals than a radish is like a radish seed. Grace George once telegraphed me to Chicago that she would not open at the Grand Opera House in "Pretty Peggy" on a Sunday. She felt, quite rightly, that eight performances a week was the limit of her endurance. Staring at a pile of printed bills announcing an engagement beginning on the Sabbath, I concluded that this ultimatum had reached the limit of mine. Then an inspiration. Up went the original bills, to be covered a day later with others advertising the first performance for Monday. The newspapers were curious as to why the change had been made and we were willing, not to say eager, to satisfy their curiosity. Miss George did not believe in giving theatrical performances on Sunday. At least a dozen clerygmen read this and told their congregations about it the day before the postponed advent of "Pretty Peggy."

Caught in a blizzard at Oswego, N. Y., eight years ago, I was informed that the only chance of my joining Miss George that night at Syracuse lay in making the trip in a special locomotive. That necessity got printed throughout the country, a vivid description of Miss George driving an engine through banks of snow in order to reach Syracuse for her performance of "Under Southern Skies." The woman who actually made the trip was a waitress from an Oswego hotel and she received $10 for it.

William A. Brady wanted a thousand girls in September, 1902, for his Woman's Exhibition at Madison Square Garden. They could have been obtained without the knowledge of the police, but secrecy was not the _desideratum_. "Wanted--1000 Women at Madison Square Garden at 8 P. M. on Friday" was an advertisement which brought down upon us nearly thrice that number, together with a small army of newspaper reporters and photographers. This was the first gun fired in a campaign of advertising for a show during the existence of which we obtained nearly six hundred columns of space in New York.