A star requires an effective entrance. The audience must be apprised of her approach. "Here she comes now!" (accompanied by a look off stage.) Or, a flunkey enters and solemnly announces, "His Highness, Prince of Ptomania, mounts the steps." These helpful hints prepare the reception which the ushers start at the psychological moment. Many persons are backward about applauding for fear of making a mistake: just follow the usher. The supporting actors understand that they are expected to "humour" the applause, either upon an entrance or for a scene. Stars, however, do not always encourage applause for their supporting actors. Some of them go so far as to "shut it off" by flashing on house light on a curtain in which they do not figure, or dimming the foots or directing the actors to "jump in" with the next speech.
In the midst of a scene which sends little shivers up and down one's spinal column the star hesitates, stammers, repeats, then interpolates while she searches frantically among the papers on the table for the missing prop. "Where's the knife—the fatal dagger?" she demands, dropping the rôle as one would step out of a petticoat. The man about to be killed joins in the hunt for the deadly weapon. "I can't kill you very well without a knife, can I, Jack? Unless I stab you with a hatpin—" There is something so incongruous in the rapid contrasts that everyone, including the star herself, gives way to laughter. Meanwhile the stage-manager's yells for Props have brought that culprit from the flies where he has been touching up a damp cloud with a paint brush.
"The knife!" a chorus hurls at him.
"What knife?" he demands, continuing to mix the silver lining to the cloud.
"The dagger! I told you the last thing not to forget it!" fumes the bumptious stage-manager.
"Aw, what's the matter with you?" replies Props witheringly. Then he ambles down to the star, who by this time is lost in a little side-play with her heavy man. "Miss Blank," he begins with punctuation marks between each word, "Miss Blank, didn't you tell me to leave that knife on your dressing table so you could place it where you wanted it on the table centre?"
"I did, I did! I apologize, Johnny—I beg everybody's pardon!" She makes a contrite bow toward the front of the house. Johnny shuffles off, muttering to himself, and Madame's maid enters with the missing link. "Let's begin at your cross," Madame says to the heavy. "Just before you say, 'Darling, my life, my love, you're mine at last!' And Jack—I hope your wooden chest protector is in place, for I'm going to strike to-night just as I am going to do to-morrow night and turn it r-r-round and r-r-round, as if I loved your blood—and Mr. Director," she glides to the foots and shades her eyes from the glare, "Herr Director, can't you play a little more piano just at that point? I want my gurgle of delight to get over—understand?... O, Mr. Hartley, while I think of it——"
She toys with the ornaments on his dress as she speaks. "In our next scene give me a little more room; play farther down stage. It's better for our scene." Mr. Hartley smiles to himself as he disappears in the wings; he is "on-to" the little tricks of stars and leading ladies. To make a vis-à-vis play the scene down stage is to rob him of any effective participation in the scene. "To hog" is the vulgar but expressive infinitive applied to this trick of the trade.
After many false starts, the end of the act is finally reached. The players are then posed in certain effective scenes from the play and the flash-light pictures are taken. Then comes a change of costume and the second act is set. During the long wait members of the company come in front to get a glimpse of the scenery or to discuss the play and the performance with their friends. I recall an instance which will exemplify the jealousy of one star for another, especially those under the same management. During the early years of Will's career he had played with a summer stock company. The leading woman of the organization was now one of the stars under Will's present management. She had come on from her country home—(her own season had not yet opened)—and was an interested spectator of the dress rehearsal. She and Will had kept up a desultory interest during the intervening years and were on a friendly footing. "What do you think of the play?" he asked, sitting down beside her.
"It's a sensation," she predicted. "How does your part pan out?"