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Show H PROTECTION OF STAGE CHILDREN. H What is expected to .prove the mo'st colossal entertainment ever H given in America is now being arranged by the National Alliance H for the Protection of Stage Children. It will take place on the after- H noon of Monday, February 27, and some idea of its magnitude may H be gained by the statement that the program will require fully five H hours in consummation, starting at 1 p. m. The directors of the M Metropolitan Opera house have donated that capacious theater, and ' it is here that the performance will be given. The executive committee commit-tee of the alliance, which consists of George C. Tyler managing director di-rector of Licblcr & Co., chairman; Marc Klaw, Daniel Frohman and Charles Frohman, is now busily engaged upon the work of arranging the bill, for which the most prominent actors, operatic artists and musicians in the country have volunteered their services As every theatergoer knows, child actors and actresses children chil-dren of the stage are necessary in the presentation of certain plays. "The Blue Bird," "Rip Van Winkle," "Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm," "Uncle Tom's Cabin," "Little Lord Fauntleroy," to men- i tion a few which have charmed countless patrons of the drama, could hardly be given without them. It is from sources such as these that the stage owes Maude Adams, Julia Marlowe, Annie Russell, Elsie Leslie, Mabel and Edith Taliferro, William Collier, Henry E. Dixey, Joseph Jefferson's sons, Wallace Eddinger and others. Where state laws arbitrarily prohibit the appearance on the stage of children, the latter are debarred from opportunity of learning the rudiments of the dramatic profession. Not only this, but there is lost to playgoers play-goers many plays impossible of production without the services of juvenile actors. No fault can be found with the laws of New York state in this respect, the licensing power being vested in the mayors of the various cities., Many other states, however, handle the matter in a far less liberal manner, as traveling theatrical managers have for years found to their cost. The states of Massachusetts, Illinois and Louisiana, which contain the big cities of Boston, Chicago and New Orleans, have laws which are particular drastic, as they absolutely abso-lutely bar children under sixteen years of age from appearing in theatrical performances. It is well understood that these laws were drafted with children of the faotory and the mill in mind. Nevertheless, Never-theless, though their sponsors perhaps did not intend it, they operate directly against stage children. As a matter of actual fact, no children chil-dren anywhere are so well cared for and watched over as the youngsters young-sters back of the footlights. Every stage hand or "grip" becomes at once their champion; every stage manager and stage door tender is their loyal friend. Nothing in the least objectionable ever reaches their eyes or ears. Coupled with this, they are invariably accompanied accom-panied by some older person, and their work, if work it can be called, occupies a scant two and a half hours at most, and -usually but a few minutes. The receipts of the monster benefit are to be utilized in enlightening enlight-ening the public upon the hardship which the laws of certain states unwittingly work against children of the stage and against art in the hope that steps may be taken making for their repeal or modification modifica-tion The National Alliance for the Protection of Stage Children feels that the matter is one of the most important in connection with the theater I I I llliri- -mmm. , - w .L - , - m - , |