ADA MAY (WEEKS)
Oftentimes we send out groups of our students, two, four, six or eight, to go on the professional stage for something special. Sometimes they are paid; sometimes it is done gratuitously; but the experience alone is worth money to them.
The regular theatrical season opens about Labor Day and lasts till around Decoration Day. Summer engagements begin about the first Monday in June and end about the last Saturday in August. Calls are sent out about the middle of April for summer work, and about the middle of July for the winter or regular season. If you are able to qualify, you will get the benefit of these calls for dancers, and when you go with my recommendation, it will be only to the best managers.
I will inform you fully as to the best forms of contract for you to sign in every case, and make no charge for this. You know, when you engage to go with a show, you do not simply take the manager's word for it that he will employ you for so many weeks at so much a week, nor does the manager simply take your "Yes, I'll come," and let it go at that. This matter of entering his employ is a business affair, a transaction of importance to you both, and calls for a signed agreement that binds him, the manager, as to his responsibility to you, and binds you as to your duties to him. It is a legal document, binding on both parties, the manager and you—and let me tell you right here, you feel mighty big with your first stage contract duly signed and delivered, and in your pocket, and while you may in future seasons get contracts that specify much larger salaries than your first one does, no contract will ever seem so big and important to you as this first one, the start, the goal of your ambition. I love to see my pupils with their first professional contracts! They are so happy and hopeful; the world opens up new delights for them; they have arrived. The reward of their untiring exertions here in the courses is at hand, and they have earned it and deserved it. "Good for you!" I feel like saying; and I am truly happy to think that I have been in some degree instrumental in bringing this about.
My experience has been paid for. I have learned to profit by my own mistakes, and I can and will save you all the risk in closing deals that involve so much—perhaps your entire future stage career. I can and will do this, if you let me.
