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Show rt-P New York's Unique Restaurant Conducted by II ''-"'4 )& Unemployed Actresses and How Love Claimed --i; ij88k i 1 X VVER toward the bright lights of I 1 Broadway in New York there is being enacted every day a most interesting in-teresting play. Twice daily since February Febru-ary it has played to full houses and often people have been turned away. The most important stago direction reads: Enter right center from the kitchel door a traitress, carrying a tray on irhich are broiled lamb chops, hashed hrovnx potatoes, fresh lima beans, egg salad, ice cream and homemade cake. The best part of this is that none of it is make-believe. The waitress who walks on with the tray is an actress, right enough, but the contents of the nay are not stage properties. They are real food and good food. And if you have a part in the play and A you may by simply walking through hr door and sitting jJsr down at a table you lip' may play the role of Jj, the leading man . jfli lady who makes away 'JSWJm with the eatables. !Jl $3- They call it the WjF Stage Door Inn. And it Is there that many young actressess discouraged dis-couraged over their inability to fine' work in their profession, have learned that Will Shakespeare was right when he said all the world's a stage. If the chance doesn't come to act before its footlights there are other methods of making a good and honorable living. It began as work of philanthropy and welfare and has been going on successfully success-fully as such, and, although the founders of the enterprise didn't realize it until just lately, there has been a very pretty little romance going along with it, too Three actresses began the Inn. They had succeeded in their profession. The wolf had never been close to their stage door, so to speak But they had seen the hardships of their less fortunate sisters when times in the theatrical world grew very bad, indeed, and so Miss Hilda Spong, Miss Anita Clarendon and Miss Margaret Allen decided to come to their aid. They couldn't produce more plays and more parts for the stranded, so they resolved re-solved to find other tasks for them. The result was the establishment of the Stage Door Inn and the National Stage Women's Exchange at 43 West Forty-seventh Forty-seventh Street, New York. One of those whom they interested interest-ed in assisting with the financing was William Trevor, a wholesale merchant. Mr. Trevor furnished some of the necessary neces-sary money and dropped in quite often to see how everything was getting on. After a while it became evident that "everything" was Miss Clarendon Miss Clarendon, whose last appearance was with Mrs. Fiskc in "Erstwhile Susan," is the daughter of Hal Clarendon, Claren-don, an actor, formerly of Toronto, and Rolinda Campbell, of that city, and is a niece of Sir Oliver Mowat, of Canada. She did her first acting when she was carried onto the stage at the age of three. Up to tho age of twelve she played child parts with Chauncey Olcott, Fritz Emmet and others, and was widely known to the public as "Dot," dresses and hats being named for her. She was a guest at the White House in the Cleveland administration Brought together by the Inn, Miss Clarendon and Mr. Trevor were married, but the work did not lose her, for she will return to it, after her honeymoon. She feels that the unemployment situation situa-tion among the women of her profession is too serious for her to relax her efforts. The members of the acting profession have passed through two bad seasons and the next is not promising The vogue of the movies has not provided for nearly as many as it supplanted. Especially Espe-cially those have suffered who used to play in the formerly favorite stock companies. com-panies. War conditions have been a severe setback set-back Railroad fares have remained Miss Margaret Allen, the actress ac-tress manager "x of the Stage Door Inn f-i, IJ: fr : v - 4 - -1 v W v . " - ' ' ? Mm Four jobless actresses who find pleasant and renumcra- j tive employment as waitresses at the Inn f x high, as haB the pay of stage hands and the cost of scenery and costumes. Then' has been a lack of good plays. The wages of actors did not rise with those of other professions. Besides the Inn and its delicious cook-cry cook-cry prepared by a Southern mammy with natural talent, the food being deftly served, and sometimes the dishes washed by actresses, there is an exchange for the sale of the handiwork of actresses who used to think that the stage was their only means of livelihood. Now they make jellies, candy, lingerie, jewelry, jew-elry, dresser", scarfs, baby clothes, photo folders, lamp shades, dolls, slippers, painting.-, hats and other things which find a ready market. Also they go into other fields, making specialties of arranging fancy dress parties par-ties for children, costumes for pageants, favors, and doing other skillful tasks which they have I learned as sort of i by-products of their 1 . profession and never realized it until now. Some do interior decorating and some mending and sew- ing by the day. There ij are professional readers nnd a shopping companion and guide service. "Many actresses are clever at doing things," Miss Spong explained, "but they had no out-no out-no outlet for their work. We are providing that. Miss Hilda Spong, the well known actress and one of the originators of the novel plan for helping unemployed stage women to help themselves il' . :.. I. C- i v. a ,v. iuna ji--nnru mini in mem thrift of time and money, that they should make things during their leisure time while traveling and at hotels. For 7 II Mil. IS tl HIAUI V, IIVl UIIIJ 1U1 WIG J tuple tu-ple in front of the stage, but for those on it. Actors and actresses always should have something to fall back on KffmJr The f crmcr 0Tmr lf'i:' Anita lffiSy '" ' " ' e n c' r who will resume ncr snare ,n management of New York's Stage Door Inn on her return from 1 e;" honeymoon vith William Wil-liam Trevor, the wealthy erchant who wop. her heart lile enjoying ihc good food o and her fellow actresses served him oui iney : don't seem to ' realize when they get good e n g a'gements that these won't last forever. for-ever. They are an improvident improvi-dent class, j When they are young for them there is v no to-morrow. i ff When they are f L ) old they live ' . ; in the past and their reminiscing rem-iniscing won't provide for the future. ,,IT Here we teach them to . make use of . many of the 4 things they've learned and xjs can't make i use of on the j stage because of no oppor- tunitics. For instance, as .-.- readers they ..aaaia-..iv.tf.tjte ' make $Z an hour. We place quite a lot of them for reading read-ing to invalids and those whose eyesight has failed. They can read Shakespeare i he should be read. Many preachers have come co actors for lessons in elocution elocu-tion and more of them should. For isn't a pulpit a stage?" Personal experience induced Miss Margaret Mar-garet Allen, who is manager and treasurer treas-urer of the Inn and Exchange, to take up the work. "I knew I had been having a hard season," sea-son," she declared, "and I knew of many other girls less fortunate than I. Finally Final-ly it came to a point where I had no stage engagement and I had to do something some-thing to support myself and my mother.' So T rented two apartments and painted and rodecorated them entirely all by myself. my-self. In thut way I managed to sublease, sub-lease, and from that income and from other work I made my living." But the solving of similar problems was something which other girls of the stage were unable to do for themselves. V11?n told k ases, replete 1 athos ai I ticat u I ' "' ' whi -, il0r ' utioii 2 he Inn There Vi. ih( ''ii'i ha i been in "1"Vr'- 0n vhen she waj qol i dame before tif amrrr.. a lamp inti, ' f'11 ar.d barael ier cruelly along J i"g That ended, jj for a long 1 nccr in the ie. -: Om misfortune follotJ She u Liable to collect kijj ... urance. Th? nedi. ; i attention hc m obtain m the poorMP nd ee ned -lover tt li i ' r.racr.al -age She was iv i .idy to 'po :o tie l'ric-." as M;j? Allea cxprcsspd it who bhe happened to edfl to the Inn She n taken in and gim I v. rk she could i i omplish as she i covered. Her iaj ancc was collected f or h"r She stili a p.t work there Then there wijtii little Ru'sian acrrea who had left onlj htf smile, and very In i mai. yj n os, -ne naa one omr bichloride of mernry abli which i was ;ust about reidj to take They started her serving it teas at the Inn, and now life is verj much brighter for her. Another girl when she was given wsrt at tho Inn had Keen ready to die SW had given away all her possessions. Ad there was still another girl, who ast to the Inn in despair, saying that tk only thing she could do was act isi she could not find a part anywhere "Isn't there anything else you ftt do?" they asked her. "Well, 1 can make candy," she adM ted deprecatingly. So they put her to making cisit She's hard at work at it now, and it selling very well. Jd "Saying you are an actress cuts JW out of many jobs," Miss Allen afflraft "but here we expect it. That is all ti have here. We place a great many" summer camps and resorts, eetisj hostesses, teaching dancing, tr.i I j forth. Here we teach them to do this and they really find themselves. TW learn to plan and make dresses. "And then there is the social M work. We furnish girls who help pie with their shopping tours and BP seeing, who arrange theater parties & U dances and who act as entertainers. Many people when first coining to j Stage Door Inn expected something hemian. They seemed to erpeet U the actresses who were waiting dance on their tables between ceoj Instead they found an excellent cob- and quiet service by pretty P'1 wait on them with rare gr courtesy like those perfect mi j see in plays In the afternoon the girls wear dresses and at night dinner tit neat little sage aprons And. way, at the Stage Door Inn ?hev called waitresses, but hostesses 1 The success the Inn is ,ect exceeds the expectations of motors. New Yorkers enjoy tlie i food that is served there and a novelty of having it served V- $ women whom they may rp rt It unes they have seen on the star nothing unusual to find the jf( nn as rowded as the ?tage theater ever was. even when ter housed tho most alluring donnas and cho us Rirl? ! |