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Show CASINO THEATER IN NEW YORK -BURNS; COMPANY ALL ESCAPE IN SAFETY NEW YORK, Feb. 11 The Casino theater, at which Lillian Russell has been playing; "Lady Teazle," was gutted gut-ted by Are today. A rehearsal of "Lady Teasle" rwas In progress, but all the members of the company escaped without with-out serious injury, although several had to jump to the street from windows. win-dows. . One chorus girl was slightly hurt and the stage carpenter was overcome by smoke, but was taken out In safety. The building will be a total loss. The fire gained great headway owing to Insufficient In-sufficient water pressure. The theater Is a large brick building at the corner of Broadway and Thirty-ninth Thirty-ninth street. It was built in the eighties and was famous for a long time as the home of the Aronson musical comedies. The auditorium In the house Is one story above the street level and Is reached by a winding staircase. This fact makes it doubly fortunate that there was no audience In the house when the fire started. The house was under the management manage-ment of Shubert Bros, and had a seating seat-ing capacity of 1200. Lillian Russell was not In the house at the time of the Ore. The chorus girl hurt slipped on the stairway on leaving the building, fell and broke her leg. Her name Is Anna Hart. The stage carpenter hurt was John Teaney. He revived In the open air and was not In a serious condition. The first started in the dressing-room on the third floor over the stage. About forty chorus girls bad Just left the stage to make a change of costume for the rehearsal of another scene. They were crowding up the narrow stairs to the dressing-room when a volume of smoke rolled down the stairway. The girls became panic-stricken and ran shrieking back to the stage and toward the exits. The stage manager made an ineffectual effort to calm them. The fire spread rapidly from one dressing-room to another, communicated communi-cated itself to the scenery, thence to the auditorium and Inside of twenty minutes the whole Interior of the theater thea-ter was on Are. All the members of the company with the exception of Miss Russell herself were on the stage or in the dressing-rooms when the fire started. It is reported that the firemen after a hard fight had gotten the blaze under control. The theater Itself is gutted. The Casino is in the heart of the upper up-per Broadway section familiarly known as the Rialto and the fire immediately attracted an enormous crowd. The , crowd filled Broadway for blocks in either direction, extending from. Thirty-fourth Thirty-fourth street as far north as Foqty-sec-ond street, hampering the work of the firemen. The large number of police who were hurried to the scene were unable un-able to clear the streets. |