The Parsonage, Shoreham, L. I.,
August 25, 1911.
THE FOOTLIGHTS FORE AND AFT
I
THE THEATER AT A GLANCE
Being a correspondence school education in the business of the playhouse that should enable the veriest tyro to become a Charles Frohman or a David Belasco.
A man who passed as the possessor of reasonable intelligence—he "traveled for" a concern that manufactured canning machinery, and his knowledge of tins was something beautiful—once said to me: "Are plays written before they're produced?"
"No," I replied, indulging myself in a little sarcasm; "they're put up in packages and sold at the delicatessen shops. Comedies cost twenty cents a box and dramas from twenty-five cents to half a dollar. It would be a great field for you, old chap, if you could induce a fellow like Augustus Thomas to pack his plays in cans."
Even my friend the "drummer" saw through that. I'm afraid my wit lacks subtlety. Still, two or three other people of my acquaintance would have been a bit uncertain whether to take me seriously or not. Most laymen, though they wouldn't believe in the package explanation, cherish a vague idea that theatrical presentations are miracles brought into being by the tap of the orchestra conductor's wand. Managers are quite willing to foster this opinion, agreeing with the late Fanny Davenport, who felt that the charm of the playhouse lay in its mystery, and that to elucidate would result in loss of patronage. In this verdict it is impossible for me to concur. I learn something new about the theater every day, and the more I learn the more I love it. You can't interest me in a thing of which I am ignorant—at least, not unless you start to clear up my ignorance.