Notes

Elsie Ferguson will be seen, next season, in a comedy called The Grand Duchess from the pen of Henry Savoir, Frenchman. Miss Ferguson leaves presently for the coast where Henry Miller is about to open his annual repertory season in San Francisco and Los Angeles. He takes with him Margalo Gillmore, Basil Rathbone, Philip Merivale. Their opening piece will be The Sivan. The Grand Duchess will be tried out with Miss Ferguson as distinguished visitor in the company.

George Kaufman, co-author of numerous successes (Dulcy, To the Ladies, Meeting of the Movies, The Beggar on Horseback), has written a play of his own and called it The Butter and Egg Man. Gregory Kelly is cast for the lead.

A massive revival of The Mikado, in which Marguerite Namara, Tom Burke, Frank Danforth and Lupino Lane will sing the principal parts, is in preparation by the Shuberts.

Katherine Cornell will go to Chicago with Michael Aden's The Green Hat. Presumably the run there will stretch into the summer and the piece will be saved until fall for Broadway. After she is finished with this entertainment, David Belasco has written for her and will produce The Doll Master.

William Congreve, English comedy master of the 17th century, has already had one success in Manhattan this season (The Way of the World). The experiment turned out so agreeably that the Provincetown Players are rehearsing another, Love for Love.

Laurence Stallings, whose stern and human What Price Glory? has decorated the adjacent BEST PLAY column since its opening in September, has written an. operetta, also on the marines. The locale is Haiti. Deems Taylor will compose the music.

Chicago is at present witnessing Ma Pettingill, a comedy by Owen Davis based on Harry Leon Wilson's stories. Critics could hardly control the tumble of enthusiastic adjectives. The play comes to Manhattan in the autumn.

Michael Arlen, urbane and popular composer of successful fiction, lias fallen into the hands of the cinema contractors. For $50,000, he will write two original stories for Pola Negri.

Except for the return dates of the Chauve Souris, Morris Gest has not been importing this season. He is negotiating to bring to the U. S. next year the musical branch of the Moscow Art Theatre. This group, lately founded, aims at individual interpretation of the lighter types of opera. A sample of their product is a completely rewritten libretto of Carmen, set to the usual music.