| Show DRAMATISTS OF FUTURE Somewhere out in Indiana or Illinois perhaps somewhere amid the hustle and bustle g New York Is lurking th the theman man who will m be to the stage of twenty twenty ty years from now what Clyde Fitch or Augustus Thomas is to our stage to today today day His most intimate acquaintances do not know him as the chrysalis of a great dramatist of aU all the people in inthe Inthe the world only one it of the young Joung that one Is himself says s Channing Pollock in the Chicago man manager er or m man agers igers who risk their heir money and their on him must be for or the present unaware of the fact that theY are pe performing forming the same service for the going publIc that l Carnegie or Mor gun performs for the public he buys a great painting and nd pre presents presents I it to a city There are many things however that this young dram dramatist will be obliged to learn before h he comes to his own and chief among them he must learn to torn learn rn We embryonic writers are ter terribly terribly willing nUng to entertain the fallacy that we are born fulI fully matured We WearE Weare arE are compelled to concede that bl black blacksmiths k smiths and masons must learn their trad trades but w we feel that the art of writ tog Ing is a thing which comes omes to us lIke breathing said uNo No great e t thing is brought to perfection suddenly not even a 3 of grapes or a fig If yOu U tell me that you at this minute must h have ve a fig I will answer you that it requires time lime The tree must fi first t blossom and b fruit and then the fruit must ripen If not even the fruit of a fig tree Is created sUddEnly and in one h hour ur do you hope to possess the fruit of the humah mind in so short a time nd without troublE The idea that managers In are not Willing to help th this fruit in ri is an t one not warranted by facts For ten years I have haye been reading S for various firms And I know tb that t every manu t offered to the average producer isas is az c carefully judged as Its merit war warrants ar arrants rants Then it is considered how large a 8 proportion of the pieces submitted Ur worthless showing neither lent nor training I marvel that so much mach attention is given to this work of separating the wheat from tb the chaff n It is 8 always an exceedingly difficult task to a good play It IS never nevel in the least difficult to ten tell a abad abad bad one If the method of describing his primal e does not betray the hopeless amateur one has only to re read d the first ten pages of his script in 01 0 der to be assured of the uselessness of further r perusal Amateurs do not as not write plays Some newspaper and an imagination may be enough for the author of r magazine mazine stories but the man who produces a dramatic work at all worthy worth of con consideration kJera Uon must know so 80 many things about the craft eMitt of Shakespeare that it w te re an endless task to mention a of them Poets are born or nade according to the field they occuPY occupy PY but playwrights must be born and I Ima ma There the least use dw dwell dwelling jn ing on this fact again however To the end of fX time men and women who think of trying to fashion a frock without serving an apprentice apprenticeship ship with ith some modiste will go on en endeavoring to turnout turn out dramas without the lie least knowledge of how It should be done Everybody writes plays Two or three months ago an ambitious indi individual vidual walked into my office and an announced l that he kd had come from Roch ester estel to read tue me ah original t tragedy I told hun him the that t he should not ha have e gone to so much trouble and expense It nL trouble or he be re replied re plied piled r had to come MY any way ay Im a conductor on the New York ork Central Theodore Burt Sayre who did Tom ore and who Is the reader for Mr Frohman told me not long ago that his persistent visitor was a policeman who had composed a farce In six acts He also showed me a letter the author of which declared I 1 seen menny plays that cost a doler and thre with my play Every manager in New York has received a c Brooklyn shoemaker who feels certain that he has produced a comic opera in infinitely infinitely finitely super superior r to the best efforts or of Gilbert and Sullivan Of the be dram tI ts In the learned professions I should say that ph physicians are rarest a as that journalists provide the best material and that clergymen produce the most and the worst With so many attempting to crowd their feet into the shoes of Pinero and Jones there can be no limit Umit to the number of manuscripts submit submitted ted to prominent managers each we weThe The general idea I belIeve is that pro producers producers are quite buried buriE d under piles of plays This is not absolutely trUE Such an office as that of Sam S and Lee Shubert in tile the Lyric theatre or of Charles B 5 In the Knicker Knickerbocker becker bocker theatre building Is the destine of from six to ten manuscripts a aday aday day About a third of the lot com from a agents and these invariably re receive eive qUickest consideration since the Urea render del knows knos that If the they were ere ut utterly terly wIthout merit the they would not have been sent him The crop of round and fiat packages 1 fluctuates with pub published conditions The who 00 makes mone money out of the work of an unknown author luthor Is sure tc Ic receive far fal falmore more than his share Shat of durIng the next yew year or t two wo A Brady sot got 1000 plays a month from obscure writers Titers immediately after the production of 5 Way Down East As Narrated by a Survivor Chicago Tribune The most meal I e ev er erate ate the man In the mackintosh wag as saying JIn was given b by a gOO gOOman show showman man manThe The only square meal you ever ver lId perhaps suggested th thC man with tu the white spot in his mustache How did yOU happen to let get Un an In Invitation asked the man with Ith the bag bak trousers lit Iii order to make th r of guests fourteen fourte n 7 He had invited a lot Jot of Us to par partAke partake tAke of a little sup supper er said aid tb the first speaker paying no attention to 0 the in interruption uHe He said Mid there thre would b the usual large cold bottle and smell small hot bird Wheat we e sat lilt down don at te table and the beer beverages were on What were erl the b era Uc k d the others with OO on voice lOA A small amaH cold bottle of beer at 81 seen plat pIt wh when n the oVer cover was lifted from the Ule dish ih ha the e center of oC the Uie ta bIt blO we found a bird to be beWen be beWell Wen Well what was th the bird ird birdA uA A large hot bot juicy young Oung oStrich with enough m meat Rt on it for a regIment I give you my word gentlemen Oh shucks S Then rhen they ros ro I as one m anti ejected h m H He had told 1014 the th bIget st lie S Henry Miller is titi it tB I Ira Ost t the theatre th the role of the Rev Gordon original originally ly played b F n LouIS is pr 5 Uon of f tO t be it given eft at al e y mAtinees in Lilon Mt Mr Weller waner will play pla th the M r and n H B M is Mt isto t to appear in th tb Ji of lags t |
