  My idea of what not to be is Musical Director of a Musical Comedy playing one-night stands. This is the real thing in the Trouble line. Max Faetkenheuer was musical director with an opera company that was playing through the South. They arrived in one town at four in the afternoon, and Max found the orchestra waiting at the theater. They looked doubtful; they sounded dreadful. Individually they were bad; collectively they were worse. During the first number the cornet only struck the right note once and that frightened him so he stopped playing. The clarinet player had been taking lessons from a banjo teacher for three years and had never made the same noise twice. There were six French horns, all Dutch. The trap drummer was blind and played by guess and by gorry. Max labored and perspired and swore until 7:15; then he had to stop because the audience "Now look, Mister Cornet Player," Max said; "I'll tell you what you do; you keep your mute in all through the show." "Yes, well, I shan't be here myself, but I will speak to my 'sub' about it." "What's the reason you won't be here?" asked Max. "I play for a dance over to Masonic Hall." "So do I," said the bass fiddler. "We all do, but the drummer," said the flute player. "You do? Then what the devil have you kept me here rehearsing you for three hours for?" demanded Max. "Well," said the cornet player, "we knew this was a big show, and we presumed you would be a good director, and we thought the practice would do us good." "It will," said Max. On another occasion he struggled all the afternoon with a "Glee Club and Mandolin Serenaders'" orchestra. Finally, by cutting out all solos, playing all the accompaniments himself, and con "I am awful sorry, old man, but you won't do; so you just sit and watch the show to-night." "Oh," said the Not-Jule-Levy, "then I don't play, eh?" "You do not play," said Max. "All right then; then there'll be no show." "Why won't there be a show?" asked Max. "Because I am the Mayor, and I will revoke your license." He played. At some Southern town we played once with "The Old Homestead"; the rehearsal was called for 4:30. At 4:30 all the musicians were there but the bass fiddler. "Where is your bass fiddler?" asked our director. "Well, he can't get here just yet," replied one of the other players. "When will he be here?" "Well, if it rains he is liable to be in any minute now; if it don't rain he can't get here until six o'clock." "He drives the sprinkling cart." The worst orchestra I ever heard was with an Uncle Tom's Cabin show playing East St. Louis. It consisted of two pieces; a clarinet and a bass fiddle, each worse than the other. At North Goram, Maine, I once hired an entire brass band of twenty-two pieces to play for an entire evening of roller skating in the town hall, for three dollars. They were worth every dollar of it. In one of my plays I issue a newspaper called The Wyoming Whoop. At the top of the first column are the words—"In Hoc Signo Vinces." One day one of the stage hands came to me with a copy of the paper in his hands, and pointing to this line, said, "That means 'We Shoot to Kill,' don't it?" My wife was in a hair-dressing parlor in Cleveland; the girl who was doing what ever she was doing to her, discovered that she was the Miss Dayne at Keith's Theater. "Yes? what is it?" asked Miss D. "Is that old man that plays on the stage with you as homely as he looks? His face is just like one of those soft rubber faces that the men sell on the street; the ones you pinch up into all sorts of shapes. He doesn't look as bad as that all the time, does he?" Miss D. told her that there was not much choice. Jim Thornton was playing his first engagement for Kohl & Castle in Chicago. As he came off from his first show, he stopped in the wings to watch the next act. A gentleman came along, touched him on the shoulder and said, "You are not allowed to stand in the wings here." Jim looked at him a moment, then said, "And who are you?" "Who am I? I am Kohl." "You belong in the cellar," and Jim turned back to watch the show. William Cahill was playing Paterson, N. J., and living at his home at the furthermost end of "You are playing Paterson this week, aren't you, Bill?" "A little," replied Bill, "but I am going and coming most of the time." I met Fred Niblo on Broadway: "Hello, Fred," I said; "I went by your house this morning, and—" "Thank you, Bill," he said, grasping my hand and shaking it heartily. Clifford & Burke were playing Shea's, Buffalo. There was also a bare-back riding act on the bill. There is a very old lady who comes around the theater every night selling laundry bags, money bags and such stuff to the actors. She had seen Clifford & Burke's act several times and knew that they finished up their act with a dance. Friday night she was sitting in our dressing room; Clifford and Burke were on the stage when she came in but had finished their act and gone to their room, although the old lady didn't know this. The horse act was on and the old horse "By garry, thim byes is doin' a long dance this night." There was a German artist playing on the bill with us in Buffalo. He was a very polite chap, but his English was very Berlin. One night, after holding a rehearsal with a German acrobat, who was not much better off than he was as to the English language, he came over to my wife, and very slowly and laboriously he said, "Goot evening, Madam Mees Dayne; eet iss colder than h——, don't it?" Charlie Case was telling me how bad his teeth were: "Why, Will," he said, "I have indigestion something awful. I can't chew a piece of meat to save my life. I just bite it hard enough to make sure it is dead, and swallow it." Chick Sale comes from some one-night stand up in Illinois, I have forgotten the name of it; Last summer there came a real fire. As the fire was nearest to their engine house the Alerts got there, and got a stream on to the fire before the Reliables arrived. As they came panting and puffing up the hill the captain of the Reliables saw this, stopped, waved his hand back at his company and said, "They have beat us, boys; you can go back." There is one good thing about Des Moines, according to the advertisements they are running in the magazines. There are twenty railroads running out of it. On 125th Street in New York City there is a piano dealer by the name of Wise. On every window of his store he has painted "What is home without a piano? Wise." And he is correct. One week in Omaha, Neb., the advertising in front of the Gaiety Theater read— "The Midnight Maidens. A Montreal furrier advertises— "Fur cap, $1.00. |
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