Отрывок из книги
Owen Davis
Published by Good Press, 2021
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The popular-priced theatres then held the place that the twenty-five cent movies later took away from them, when they slugged their way into the picture. It was not for them as glorious a victory as it would have been had they won it from a worthy rival. Our theatres were mostly awful old dumps, dirty and gloomy and uncomfortable, the picture houses were new and clean and very well managed. The leaders of the motion picture industry, from the first, kept their eyes wide open, while we of the theatre never seem to have opened ours until, too late, we wake up and say, “I’m sorry, but I didn’t see that coming.”
On our popular-priced circuit the theatres played an attraction for only one week, with the exception of a few “three-night stands” like Rochester, Syracuse, Columbus and Indianapolis. These towns changed their play twice weekly and were booked together as one of the spokes in the wheel. It was necessary that thirty-five shows should be made ready to fill the time, and as the theatres all opened their season on the same day, usually late in August, the thirty-five companies had to be at the starting line. One great advantage of this was that a manager would be given a complete list of the towns his company was to play, and of the dates on which it was to play them. He knew just where his company was to be for its entire season of thirty-five weeks and the actors’ certainty of having a thirty-five weeks’ season made it possible for us to cast our plays with experienced and responsible players. The amount of money that could be earned at that time, either by an actor or a playwright on the popular-priced circuit or on the Broadway stage, would be scornfully laughed at today, but although many changes have taken place, one thing remains the same, even we people of the theatre have to eat. Our services, like the services of everybody else, are for sale at the highest price we can get for them.
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