N actor long known as one of our foremost artists was lately playing at the Garrick Theatre, New York, which is under the management of a leading producer and has long been associated with the higher order of drama. Repeatedly when he embarked in a taxi-cab from a prominent restaurant for his evening's performance, the Broadway pathfinder blandly inquired where the Garrick might be. Finally, in a mood of humorous indignation, the actor said: "Why, don't you know? It is where John Mason is starring in the new Bernstein piece." "Beg pardon, mister," said the cabby; "you'll have to put me wise to them ginks too."

In telling the story Mr. Mason remarks that there may be something in the idea that the play business has been spoiled by the overbuilding of theatres.

Some fifteen years ago, when the once portentous theatrical syndicate was forming, there were seventeen producing-houses in New York. To-day there are over forty. Yet the managers complain that it is impossible to make the public aware of the appearance of a new play or star! Several first-class theatres have opened their doors to moving-picture shows. One of the most successful managers lately predicted that in the near future the rest of them would be converted into garages for storing the motor-cars of the people who attend them. The conditions are similar throughout the country.

For many years there has been a revolt against Broadway and all that it stands for. We are familiar enough with the cry that the drama has been debased by being commercialized. To-day, after all allow ances are made for the exaggerations of humor, or of despair, the fact is clear enough that the drama has become not only inartistic but uncommercial.

This fact has given the revolt a new point of attack. In times past the demands of the more intelligent public could

be safely disregarded, and the result was that remonstrance was loud—and none too good-tempered. Of late the manager has become willing to listen to the voice of the intelligent. And so the voice of the intelligent has become gentle, their attitude helpful and kind. Yet the revolt is none the less a revolt for being welldirected and well-mannered.

The concrete result is that New York, Chicago, Boston, Philadelphia, and many other centres, have organizations, the object of which is to co-operate with the managers in making good plays succeed. Already the movement has more than justified itself; but if we take into account the inner needs and ultimate possibilities of the situation it will be evident, I think, that as yet it is only in its first tentative beginnings. Out of the despair of the manager has risen a hope for art-loving playgoers. Whether or not the automobile public continues in its devotion to the "movies," the people who are behind the drama-league movement foresee a time when an increasing number of good plays will be offered to the patronage of intelligent public not only in the big cities but in the one-night stands.

The movement has of late received an impetus from the formation of an organization along thoroughly new lines in the theatrical metropolis. Before many seasons are past, it is hoped, the methods of the New York organization will be understood and powerfully aided in every city and town in the land.

To gain a clear idea of these methods it is necessary to trace the origin of the conditions which they have been devised to meet. A few years ago the overbuilding of theatres was very plausibly explained. Every attempt to dissolve the theatrical syndicate legally had been frustrated by one of those quaint constructions of the antitrust law which bid fair to make the name of Sherman famous. Only one recourse remained. An independent band of managers paralleled the pipe-line, so to

speak, and not only gained a foothold in all the leading cities but was able to force the policy of the open door upon one-night stands. Admittedly there were not plays and audiences enough to fill all the houses new and old; but the more hopeful felt that in the course of time the theatrical public would grow to fit the shell that commercial rivalry had made for it.

The defeat of the syndicate, however, far from putting an end to the building of theatres, has apparently speeded it up. Now that the field is open to new managers, new managers are springing up on every side each with his producing house or houses. Every season of late New York has witnessed the opening of from three to half a dozen theatres, and the reluctant town is threatened with four or five more. James Huneker once called the newspaper critics a chain-gang; but at the worst they then wore their common fetters only two or three evenings a week. Before the middle of the past season one of the New York critics deposed that he had seen and reviewed over eighty performances an average of five a week. The total of dramatic productions for the year was one hundred and eightyone. Is it strange that art lacks distinction and business lacks effective advertisement?

From the point of view of the native playwright the situation has one very hopeful aspect. The opening of new houses, together with a falling off in the supply of export drama from Europe, threw wide to him the door of opportunity. Hopeful souls looked for the birth of a worthy national drama. American plays there have been in plenty, and many of them have had a strong appeal to the public. New themes have been broached, grave and gay, many of them full of intrinsic possibilities. But the sad fact seems to be that the sudden increase of playwrights, actors, and producers has brought a general lowering of artistic standards. If any thing worthy of the name of dramatic literature has appeared in the offing it has escaped the hopeful eye. To put the case concretely, no playwright has challenged the eminence of our leading dramatists of the older order, Mr. Augustus Thomas and the late Clyde Fitch. With the multiplication of theatres the drama has become a machine-made commodity handled whole

sale, whereas art is essentially an individual and retail product.

To get some sense of the difference one has only to think back fifteen years to the days of Augustin Daly and the stock company at the old Lyceum Theatre. Whether a decline had already set in from the days of the older stock companies I can not say; but one was at least certain of finding a generaily able revival of the old comedy and a well-modulated performance of the modern school of English drama, then in its heyday. Amid all our reduplication of theatres there is now no house with which the classical tradition is associated and no house devoted to the more modern school of English comedy-Shaw, Galsworthy, and the rest. Among some forty theatres of the first class there are only two or three which make even a pretence of regarding the drama as an art.

Frequently in the mad scramble to keep the many theatres open a single manager has three or four pieces in rehearsal at the same time. He scorches from house to house in a taxi-cab, making a suggestion here, a command there, and leaving stagemanager, author, and actors to make the best of ideas which they only partly grasp or, grasping them, regard as of very doubtful value. Recently, after a play had been produced, a manager decided that an entire third act was wrong, and ordered it rewritten. The author expired, and a play doctor was called in. There was not time for him to witness a performance or even to read the prompt-book, which was so cut and scrawled over as to be almost illegible. So the stage-manager outlined the story and sketched the suggested third act. Over night the first aid evolved it. It was a very good act, as he himself admits; but it had certain drawbacks-for which he was obviously not to blame. A lady who in the first act had been of the most dubious reputation was transformed under his touch to an angel of sweetness and light. That defect was remediable; but after the performance an actress to whose mother the manager owed a debt of gratitude went into hysterics because her "great scene" in the third act had disappeared. There was no way to interpolate the scene into the new act; and so, owing to this wholly adventitious and most unfortunate circumstance, the play failed. According to the latest reports, the author is still dead.

Obviously it is the part of wisdom to give a production a preliminary tour outside of New York to whip it into shape before the all-important opening. Not so many years ago this was always done. There were several "try-out" towns New Haven, Buffalo, Washington-each at the beginning of a brief circuit ending in Broadway. At best it is a dog's life to have new plays tried on you; and with the multiplication of productions "all the little dogs, Tray, Blanche, and Sweetheart," turned up their paws and died. Also, for the lack of audiences, the plays frequently passed away before their metropolitan début. The New Haven-Hartford-Springfield circuit, once the happy path to fame and fortune, is now familiarly called the Death Trail.

At New Haven recently a hopeful dramatist inquired at the box office as to the advance sale of tickets and was told that it amounted to seven hundred dollars. In reporting the happy news to his star, he remarked that he had always known the title of the piece, "Play Ball," would prove a winner. The actor's face clouded. "There may be something," he said, "in the fact that this burg regards me as a favorite son." The two strolled to the theatre to see how much farther the sale had progressed. "Why," said the manager, "I thought you were asking about. a charity matinée we are having." He grinned and held up the fingers of one hand. For the evening performance the sale was precisely four dollars. The ball game was called on account of the frost, and the favorite son returned to the Broadway of his adoption.

In the modern rush of productions the try-out is often limited to a single performance, and for this Atlantic City is a favorite dog. The denizens of the board walk are in a mood to be easily pleased, and if they are not pleased it doesn't much matter, for they are transients and quite unable to organize a local spirit of resentment. The Atlantic City dog has as many lives as a cat. Yet even here there is a drawback. A watch-dog should not too easily wag his tail.

One of last season's productions, "The Conspiracy," went with a mad whirl. After the crucial act there were upward of twenty curtain calls. When the play "struck" Broadway a good half of the

newspapers, and among them all the more serious organs of opinion, scouted it and flouted it. That they did not actually rout it was due to the fact that the play was genuinely novel and amusing, and was recognized as such by the papers whose standards are those of the man in the street. The reason for this division of opinion became obvious on a sober second thought. The play was a brisk detective comedy, almost a farce, with nothing more serious in it than a melodramatic thrill or two. Yet it had been heralded as a play of New York life dealing with the white-slave traffic. It was natural enough that the serious critic should judge it according to its professions rather than according to the performance—and so condemn it. The defect was remedied with the shake of a Lambs' Club pen, and the play was finally carried to a rather unusual success; but for a moment the work of author, actors, and manager trembled in the balance, and all for the lack of the leisure and selfcriticism necessary to bring any creative work to completion.

Imagine the production under such conditions of anything as subtly complex, as delicately modulated, as a really artistic drama! Yet art and entertainment are grist alike to the Broadway mill.

Let us suppose, however, that a really worthy play is produced, and well produced a play dealing with some new phase of life in an original and stimulating manner. Under the most favorable conditions it is pretty sure to encounter opposition; and in the case of a critical public wearied by almost nightly attendance at the theatre the chances are greatly increased. But against the competition of twoscore rival "attractions" a play has to make a very decisive impression or it is submerged and lost.

Almost inevitably the result is the neglect of sober art and the triumph of sensationalism. High comedy gives way to farce, drama to melodrama. One of the leading managers, who founded his fortune on a recognition of native plays, and has produced more of them perhaps than any other man in the history of our drama, now makes it his rule to attempt no piece which does not bid fair to "hit the public between the eyes."

The progress of sensationalism may be

read in the competitive shouting of the electric signs up and down Broadway. Five years ago if a play was blazoned forth as "A Hit" or "A Laughing Success" enough had been said. Now the favorite terms are "A Scream," "An Uproar," "A Riot." The signs that make these allegations flash on and flash off with a suddenness that stabs the eye; like the witch's oil they burn green and blue and white.

How shall one announce in such terms a play with a serious purpose, an artistic intention? A few years ago Mr. Augustus Thomas produced "The Witching Hour," the purport of which was psychic, spiritual. Its appeal to the public lay in the fact that it brought home in lay form truths which have long been the essence of our religious teaching. Mr. Thomas had serious difficulty in getting the play produced; if it had been the work of an unknown author it would probably never have had a hearing. Even when it succeeded there was still little appreciation of its intrinsic value. It was proclaimed on the signboards in the terms of the prize-ring as "A Dramatic Knockout."

One effect of competitive shouting is that no voice is clearly heard. For many years we have had no producer, no actor, no playhouse that commands the attendance of intelligent people by standing unequivocally for the best; and it is now becoming daily more evident that there is no remedy in slap-dash sensationalism or even in the most strident advertising. The managers themselves realize that the one sure way to make a play succeed is to induce folk to see it and then talk about it.

In modern life the public of means and intelligence is larger than ever before in the history of the world, and yearly growing larger. It is interested in the drama as it has not been since the days of Elizabeth. The more artistic order of plays are printed, and, what is more, very widely read. One of our leading universities has a course in play construction. Now what the intelligent public looks for in the playhouse is farce or comedy founded on fresh, true observation, drama or melodrama that has its springs in deep and sincere feeling; and, so often failing to find this, it has learned to duck the blow between the eyes, to dodge the dramatic knockout. It refuses to venture an evening's leisure and

the price of seats on a play until it is assured of its value by the word of mouth of those who have seen it.

In the problem of producing good plays this is the critical factor. To keep open a Broadway theatre costs from five to eight thousand dollars a week. To give a play its chance of finding out an intelligent audience means the risk, and often a loss, of a small fortune. The crying need in the business of the theatre is some means by which good plays can command at once the attendance of a considerable body of well-placed people—people whose judgments spread abroad in rapidly widening circles. To launch it successfully it is as necessary to have an artistic audience on the spot as an artistic performance.

The readiest means to insure this was hit upon, in a large measure accidentally, almost a decade ago by the People's Institute of New York. Led by the late Charles Sprague Smith, it was doing a very important social and educational work on the lower East Side. In special it recognized clearly that, properly conducted, the drama is one of the most powerful of all means toward informing the mind and developing right social instincts. It was Mr. Smith's ambition eventually to establish a theatre devoted to popular art. As a first step he devised a plan for insuring that whatever was of value in the current drama should be made accessible to his people. He organized a drama committee and made arrangements with the managers by which the plays it recommended should be opened to workmen, school-children, and teachers at halfprices.

Many a

From the point of view of Broadway there was little philanthropy in the scheme. Even at that time the managers were aware that there was a desperate need to get the public into their houses during the first weeks of a run. play was tided over to success by the People's Institute sale of tickets at halfprice. In one case of which I have knowledge a piece that had started on the dolorous path to the storehouse became so successful that the author-whose profits are only a percentage of those of the manager-received an offer, which he refused, of seventy-five thousand dollars for his royalties. The play was "The

Man of the Hour"; and its author, Mr. George Broadhurst, who had tried for several years in vain to get recognition as something more than a writer of farce, was started on a career of rather phenomenal success.

The classical instance is "Peter Pan." Neither Barrie's reputation nor Miss Adams's popularity availed to attract the public capable of appreciating it. The verdict of Broadway was voiced by one of the critics who declared that Barrie's exquisite fantasy must live or die by the standards of such plays as "Babes in Toyland," and that it could not for a moment endure the comparison. Under the old conditions it must certainly have endured that comparison-and died of it. The play-goers from the People's Institute had a different standard, and in the early weeks of the run contributed to the box office no less than eighteen thousand dollars. With this help the production gained time to find out its special public. Impending disaster was converted into a very successful run; and the play has ever since been revived from time to time. During the holidays last year it crowded the theatre to the doors, breaking all records for receipts at the Empire Theatre, whereas the most successful new productions played to half an audience.

There was one difficulty in the People's Institute scheme. The half-price vouchers found their way into barber-shops and tobacco-shops and were sold to the general public by scalpers. Very naturally the managers objected. Mr. Smith struggled ably against this abuse, and even succeeded in getting a law passed making the general sale of the vouchers a crime. But he did not live to carry his work to ultimate success.

In a modified form the MacDowell Club took up the work. This is an organization devoted to music and the allied arts which has a very large membership among people of means and intelligence. Its peculiar aim was to facilitate the production of good plays by helping them to succeed. It asked no concession from box-office prices -not even the usual first-night courtesies. When a production did not come up to the committee's standards, it took no action. When it did, it sent out a bulletin to the club members, a large body of whom were pledged to go to every play recommended

during the first three weeks of its run, discuss it as widely as possible, and urge others to attend. When a play had some special point of novelty or artistic value, as for example, "Sumurûn" or "The Yellow Jacket," the MacDowell Club gave a conference on the subject, with brief addresses and an informal discussion. Similar work was taken up by the Woman's Cosmopolitan Club in New York and by drama leagues in many cities.

One of the managers concerned in the production of "Sumurûn" is authority for the statement that it succeeded in New York solely by virtue of the work done by the MacDowell Club. That it failed on the road was partly due to the lack of such assistance, but partly also, no doubt, to the frank sensuality of several of its incidents. In the case of "The Seven Sisters" the work of the MacDowell Club brought success in the face of press criticisms, which were almost universally unfavorable. When the production went to Chicago the league there took up the work. Its members flocked to the play and started it on a career of really astonishing success.

When the MacDowell Club undertook to do a similar service by Percy Mackaye's picturesque fantasy, "The Scarecrow, ," there developed a weakness in its scheme of operation. The Chicago press criticisms of "The Seven Sisters" had been favorable; but rightly or wrongly those of "The Scarecrow" were not. The local leaguers, who had flocked to the production which received a double verdict of approval, now proved false to their pledges. A mere handful attended. The manager, who had counted on the league to back up an artistic endeavor, incurred a loss of twenty-five thousand dollars.

If the various leagues are to have any real power and authority, they must be able not only to recommend attendance but to command it; and here the leaguers encountered a very grave difficulty. When a play is successful-and most good plays still are all the seats on the forward part of the floor are sold through the ticket agencies at an advance of half a dollar each, so that those who wish to pay only the box-office price can get nothing in front of the tenth row. Much can be said against this system, but from the business point of view it has very