When the seeker after histrionic honors has at last crossed the threshold of the stage, he or she will find it entirely different from the glitter and glory with which the imagination had clothed things theatrical. The first revelation made to new-comers in the profession is the rehearsal. This generally begins about ten A.M. and ends about two P.M. In the old days of stock companies, performers had more laborious work to perform than men who carry railroad iron out of, or into, steamboats. Often there were new plays every night, which meant new parts to be memorized, and rehearsals every day. Leaving the theatre at eleven P.M., about the usual hour of closing a performance at that time, the actor took his part with him, and instead of going to his bed, was obliged to sit up and study his lines—no matter how many lengths there were. Torn and worn out with his night's work on the stage, and the mental toil that followed, it was often already morning when the actor sought his couch. He was then obliged to be up in a few hours and at the theatre at ten. If he absented himself there was a fine that would materially reduce his already low salary. Where was the room for enjoyment for the actor or actress in those days? There was little opportunity given to anybody at all employed upon the stage to be of dissolute habits or to indulge in any of the excesses that pulpit-pounders and their intolerant and intolerable followers generally charged against the profession. These super-moral individuals could not make a distinction between the stage of the days of Mrs. Bracegirdle and Mistress Woffington, of Mrs. Jordan and Mrs. Robinson, when filth and licentiousness prevailed because the public found no fault with it, and the same things were prevalent in ranks of the very best society. Now that we have travelling combinations, and that one part will last a man or woman who pays attention to business for a year or more, the profession is not so heavily taxed; still there is plenty of work, and there is little, if any, time to devote to any of the pleasures or excesses that prurient piety points out as the portion of players. But this is moralizing. Let us get back to the rehearsal. Less than ten years ago a rehearsal might be found going on in any theatre in the country between the hours of ten A.M. and two P.M. Now it is a rare thing to find a rehearsal except on Monday, and in the few cities where Sunday-night performances are given this day may be set apart, when the opening or first performance is on the same night. As travelling goes now, a company reaches a town either the night before, or the morning of the day for their initial entertainment. No matter what the time of arrival—unless it be, as often happens, that the company gets off the train and to the theatre fifteen minutes before the curtain is to go up—every member of the company will be expected at the theatre in the morning for rehearsal, not so much to go through their parts as to familiarize themselves with the entrances and exits and the general arrangement of the house. The stage manager is there and the orchestra is in its place. If it is comic opera there is a rehearsal of the music, and if it is one of the musico-farcical or burlesque pieces that were epidemic during the past two seasons, the play will be rehearsed that the musicians may come in with their flare up at the proper time.

A rehearsal is calculated to take all the starch out of the ambition of a neophyte, and to drench his hopes in a sorrowful manner. The stage bereft of its flood of light, of its gorgeous color and wealth of splendor, is the darkest, dreariest, and most commonplace region in the world. The buzz of saw and the clatter of hammer are heard in all directions, while men in aprons, overalls, and greasy caps are making the saw-and-hammer noises, and others even less romantic are dragging about scenery or boxes; gas men are at work on the foot-lights, and there is noise and confusion enough to set a whole villagefull of sybarites crazy. Down in front a group of ladies and gentlemen are moving about and talking. These are the players—the people we saw the night before in rich attire, with glowing jewels and surrounded with all the magnificence, wealth could bestow or royalty command. Now, the king's crown is a black slouch hat and the royal robes are a dark sack coat and vest, light trousers, and white shirt with picadilly collar. The queen has a last-year bonnet on her head and a water-proof cloak envelopes her form. The other actors are also in every-day dress, some showing that their owners patronize first-class tailors and others that they have been handed down from the shelves of cheap ready-made clothing houses. The stage manager is pushing everybody around, and the actors and actresses are talking at one another in lines. Some have books of the play, for they are rehearsing, and all rattle over their lines as if running a race with a locomotive that is drawing Vanderbilt's special car over the road at its topmost speed. It is impossible to understand what they are saying, and the on-looker would be willing to wager a $10 gold piece against a silver dime with a hole in it that the performers do not hear or understand each other. But a California journalist has written a very truthful and funny account of a rehearsal he attended in San Francisco. Olive Logan has it in her book, but it is so good I will make use of it again. Here it is:—

You may get as perfect an idea of a play by seeing it rehearsed as you would of Shakespeare from hearing it read in Hindustani. The first act consists in an exhibition of great irritability and impatience by the stage manager at the non-appearance of certain members of the troupe. At what theatre? Oh, never mind what theatre. We will take liberties and mix them thus:—

Stage Manager (calling to some one at the front entrance): "Send those people in."

The people are finally hunted up one by one and go rushing down the passage and on to the stage like human whirlwinds.

Leading Lady (reading): "My chains a-a-a-a-a rivet me um-um-um (carpenters burst out in a tremendous fit of hammering) this man."

Star: "But I implore—buz-buz-buz—never—um-um" (great sawing of boards somewhere).

Rehearsal reading, mind you, consists in the occasional distinct utterance of a word, sandwiched in between large quantities of a strange, monotonous sound, something between a drawl and a buz, the last two or three words of the part being brought out with an emphatic jerk.

Here Th——n rushes from the rear:—

"Now my revenge."

Star (giving directions): "No, you Mrs. H—s—n, stand there, and then when I approach you, Mr. B—r—y, step a little to the left; then the soldiers pitch into the villagers and the villagers into the soldiers, and I shoot you and escape into the mountains."

Stage Manager (who thinks differently): "Allow me to suggest, Mr. B——s, that"—(here the hammering and sawing burst out all over the stage and drown everything).

This matter is finally settled. The decision of the oldest member of the troupe having been appealed to, is adopted. Then Mr. Mc——h is missing. The manager bawls "Mc——h!" Everybody bawls, "Mc——h!" "Gimlet! Gimlet!" This is the playful rehearsal appellation for Hamlet. Gimlet is at length captured and goes rushing like a locomotive down the passage.

Stage Manager: "Now, ladies and gentlemen. All on!"

They tumble up the stage steps and gather in groups. H—l—n fences with everybody. Miss H—w—n executes an imperfect pas seul.

Leading Lady: "I-a-a-a-a love-um-um-um—and-a-a-a another—"

Miss H—l—y, Miss M—d—e, or any other woman: "This engage-a-a-a my son's um-um Bank Exchange."

A—d—n raises his hands and eyes to heaven, saying: "Great father! he's drunk!"

Leading Lady (very energetically): "Go not, dearest Hawes! The Gorhamites are a-a-a-um-um devour thee."

Mrs. S—n—s: "How! What!!"

Mrs. J——h: "Are those peasantry up there?"

Boy comes up to the stage and addresses the manager through his nose: "Mr. G., I can't find him anywhere."

H——y J——n: "For as much as I"—(terrible hammering).

Nasal boy: "Mr. G., I can't find him anywhere."

L—c—h: "Stop my paper!"

Manager: "Mr. L., that must be brought out very strong; thus, Stop my paper!"

L—c—h (bringing it out with an emphasis which raises the roof off the theatre): "Stop my paper!"

The leading lady hero goes through the motion of fainting and falls against the star, who is partly unbalanced by her weight and momentum. The star then rushes distractedly about, arranging the supernumeraries to his liking. Ed—s and B—y walk abstractedly to and fro. S—n—r dances to a lady near the wings. These impromptu dances seem to be a favorite pastime on the undressed stage.

Second Lady: "Positively a-a-a- Tom Fitch um-um amusing a-aitch a-aitch a-aitch!"

It puzzled me for a long time to find out what was meant by this repetition of a-aitch. It is simply the reading of laughter. A-aitch is where "the laugh comes in." The genuine pearls of laughter are reserved for the regular performance. Actresses cannot afford to cachinate during the tediousness and drudgery of rehearsal. Usually they feel like crying.

Stage Manager: "We must rehearse this last act over again."

Everybody at this announcement looks broadswords and daggers. There are some pretty pouts from the ladies, and some deep but energetic profanity from the gentlemen.

The California journalist has just about done justice to the subject. I have attended rehearsals when it was utterly impossible to comprehend whether they were reading Revelations or going through Mother Goose's melodies. Drilling the chorus for opera is attained by the same trials and tribulations as rehearsals for dramatic representations. The leader grows furious at the surrounding noise, and the distractions that members of the chorus give themselves up to. It is a bad thing to get them together at first and harder still to keep them together afterwards. When the leader with an atmosphere of the kindest humor surrounding his smooth head holds his baton aloft imagining that everything is all right, says: "Now, ladies and gentlemen, all together," he gracefully lowers his arm, but suddenly arises in an angry mood, for they are not all together. About one-half the throng begin, and the other half loiter behind to drop in at intervals. And so it goes from act to act until the opera is finished. The singers are in street dress and the shabbiest of garments brush against the most stylish. In rehearsing grand opera only one act is taken at a time, and the scenes presented, with the mellifluous Italian and the sweet-scented garlic floating around the stage, are picturesque to the eye, charming to the ear, and simply entrancing to the nose. The principals rehearse sitting.

Ballet dancers have as hard work, if not harder than any other class in the profession. They must rehearse or practice daily, and for hours and hours at a time. The maitre is there with cane and eye-glass, with velvet coat and lavender trousers, to show them the motions, and line after line the strength and limberness of the limbs of the corps de ballet are tested. From the premiere who sits with sealskin sack over her stage costume with her pet dog by her side down to the latest acquisition to the maitre's (the ballet master's) corps, all must be on hand to rehearse with or without music. In the latter instance the steps are slowly but carefully gone through. Not only is there a day rehearsal, but there is private individual rehearsal of the steps at night previous to going on the stage; for there is much grace in a corps de ballet, and no girl in love with her art wishes to be considered awkward or in the rear; hence the emulation that exists, and the private rehearsals in the dressing-room. Many of these ballet dancers live poor lives, getting salaries which after buying their stage dresses leaves them little for the cupboard and very little to waste upon street costumes. Some are frail, and have admirers whose purse-strings they pull wide open, and are therefore able to rustle around in silks and sport rich golden and jewelled ornaments, while the honest girls must sup at home on crusts and share the opprobrium their shamless companions bring on the entire class. Ballet girls everywhere have a throng of giddy, dissipating male followers, and those who resist the temptations thrown in their way are deserving praise rather than condemnation.

Just as the Spanish have their Mauzai, the Hindoos their Nautch girls, the Japanese that remarkable dance travellers have written so frequently and so much about, and each country its own particular sway or whirl, so this country seems to have taken kindly to the ballet. When a ballet dancer—one of the famous dancers of the beginning of the century—presented herself for the first time to an Albany, New York, audience, the ladies rushed from the stage and there was almost a panic. But it did not take long to accustom the Albanians to the undraped drama, and they are as fond of it now as any of the rest of the not over-scrupulous people of the country. Not so many years ago, there was a ballet every night in the first-class variety theatres; now there are few, except in the East, that have this feature, and for this reason—the abandonment of it in the West and South—the people who draw conclusions from everything they see and hear cry out that the ballet is dying out. This is not so. The ballet has been dropped from the list of attractions in the West, because the managers thought it too costly an institution for them to carry and not because the people did not want it. Some of the best paying theatrical investments of the day are based upon the fascinating and drawing qualities of a displayed female limb. Burlesque with its blonde attributes kept the country in a rage for many years, and the reason why it is so rare now is that comic opera and the minor musical attractions of the quasi legitimate stage have usurped its principal feature—the leg show—and under the cover of art get the patronage of people who would shun burlesques, and at the same time supply the demand of about three-fourths of the male persuasion who are as fond of as much anatomy in pink tights as the law will allow them. If any one thinks the ballet is on the decay just let him wait until such an attraction is announced in his neighborhood and then stand back and count as the bald-headed brigade goes to the front. And for those who take any interest in the ballet, or care to hear anything about the women who have become famous as dancers, the following bit of history which I found in Gleason's Pictoral for 1854 will be very agreeable reading: "A recent performance at her majesty's theatre in London has been signalized by an event unparalleled in theatrical annals, and one which, some two score years hence, may be handed down to a new generation by garrulous septuagenarians as one of the most brilliant reminiscences of days gone by. The appearance of four such dancers as Taglioni, Cerito, Carlotta Grisi and Lucile Grahn, on the same boards and in the same pas, is truly what the French would call "une solemnite theatrale," and such a one as none of those who beheld it are likely to witness again. It was therefore as much a matter of curiosity as of interest, to hurry to the theatre to witness this spectacle; but every other feeling was merged in admiration when the four great dancers commenced the series of picturesque groupings with which this performance opens. Perhaps a scene was never witnessed more perfect in all its details. The greatest of painters, in his loftiest flights, could hardly have conceived, and certainly never executed, a group more faultless and more replete with grace and poetry than that formed by these four danseuses. Taglioni in the midst, her head thrown backwards, apparently reclining in the arms of her sister nymphs. Could such a combination have taken place in the ancient palmy days of art, the pencil of the painter and the pen of the poet would have alike been employed to perpetuate its remembrance. No description can render the exquisite, and almost ethereal grace of movement and attitude of these great dancers, and those who have witnessed the scene, may boast of having once, at least, seen the perfection of the art of dancing so little understood. There was no affectation, no apparent exertion or struggle for effect on the part of these gifted artistes; and though they displayed their utmost resources, there was a simplicity and ease, the absence of which would have completely broken the spell they threw around the scene. Of the details of this performance it is difficult to speak. In the solo steps executed by each danseuse, each in turn seemed to claim pre-eminence. Where every one in her own style is perfect, peculiar individual taste alone may balance in favor of one or the other, but the award of public applause must be equally bestowed; and the penchant for the peculiar style, and the admiration for the dignity, the repose and the exquisite grace which characterize Taglioni, and the dancer who has so brilliantly followed the same track (Lucile Grahn), did not prevent the warm appreciation of the charming archness and twinkling steps of Carlotta Grisi, or the wonderful flying leaps and revolving bounds of Cerito. Though each displayed her utmost powers, the emulation of the fair dancers was unaccompanied by envy. Every time a shower of boquets descended on the conclusion of a solo pas of one or the other of the fair ballerine, her sister dancers came forward to assist her in collecting them. The applause was universal and equally distributed. This, however, did not take from the excitement of the scene. The house, crowded to the roof, presented a concourse of the most eager faces, never diverted, for a moment, from the performance; and the extraordinary tumult of enthusiastic applause, joined to the delightful effect of the spectacle presented, imparted to the whole scene an interest and excitement that can hardly be imagined by those not present."