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Show I : - TOO WATTY BED BZLIA " ' "Clever . Ideas are sometimes expensive expen-sive things tto have," said Seth C. Ben nett, who was formerly in the comic opera business, being- the originator of the Bennett and Moulton Opera- company com-pany of Juvenile "Pianafore" fame. "It was. -a clever idea that once cost me $10.000 1 at least. How much more I don't like to think.' This is how it happened. hap-pened. We had been keeping: out the juvenile 'Pinafore company for several years ' with great success. I then decided de-cided to put The Chimes of Normandy on the road with the same Juvenile company. On account of the copyright we called the opera The Bells of Corne- i) ' i rille.' Bearle. who was then the big- ' theatrical printer in Boston, was get- ' V " . j tint: out Che paper for us. , ) "To Searle I said, 'Give us nothing ! but paper with red bells on It, and in white letters on the bells the name of j the opera.' It was all done on half j sheets, so that on a twenty-four sheet i stsnd there would be forty-eight red ; bells that you could see two blocks away. He agreed with me that it was a great idea, a stroke of genius. ; "So the paper was put up and it killed our business. Two weeks before , we went to town those red bells were plastened all over it. but nobody came to see our show. "Why? Because they thought we were one of those families of bell ring-era." |