Summer Lightning

Summer is the season in which most actors are out of work. When two or three actors are gathered together in summer the talk inevitably turns to the grievous condition of their industry, the ills of the past season, possible remedies.

Talk of this sort, heard along Broadway last week, was for the most part theatrical summer thunder-&-lightning:

Shorn Lambs. Founded 56 years ago, The Lambs Club (membership: 1,650.) traces a shadowy genealogy back to the congenial London circle which surrounded Authors Charles & Mary Lamb. Its present connotation is animalian, however, for among its titular governors are a Shepherd (President), a Boy (Vice President), Collies (Masters of the private Gambols). Most members are professionals, but there is a sprinkling recruited from the Army, the Navy, the Good Fellows. Acting Shepherd is Playwright Edwin Milton Royle (The Squaw Man, Launcelot and Elaine). Last week he and The Lambs Council were faced with the problem of raising enough ready cash to keep the club running. A second mortgage for $100,000 on the club property seemed the most expedient way out of The Lambs' difficulty. Immediate cause of financial embarrassment was the penury of actor members who, pinched by unsuccessful seasons, could not pay their house charges. Shepherd Royle jovially diagnosed the present condition of show business as similar to the plight of a legendary unfortunate who was "shot in the liver, lights, vitals and lower part of the saloon." The audible cinema he considered a contributory ailment.

Each year The Lambs present their public Gambols, disport themselves for the financial benefit of the club. The Lambs might see fit to make additional use of their "$44,000,000 worth of talent," Shepherd Royle observed, to relieve their present economic burden; in other words, perhaps, give a benefit.

Scalpers. "For the first time in many years the large majority of theatrical managers can clearly establish that they are in no way involved in ticket graft and have taken definite steps to abolish it." Thus, last week, the League of New York Theatres signalized the fact that it had allied 80% of all Broadway theatres in an effort to curb the rapacity of theatre ticket scalpers. Under the aegis of Producer Arthur Hopkins (president) and Alfred Emanuel Smith (board member), the League had persuaded 16 ticket brokers to subscribe to its principles: 1) not less than 25% of all orchestra seats must be saleable at the box office; 2) a maximum surcharge of 75-c- is allowed brokers; 3) brokers may not bid for blocks of seats in member-theatres but must take their allotment from the League; 4) a ticket which is not stamped to signify that it has gone through the proper channels may be rejected at the door.

July 19 was announced as the tentative date on which the plan goes into operation. Still opposed to the League's anti-scalping program to date (June 28) are: Producers Florenz Ziegfeld, George White. David

Belasco, Daniel Frohman, Bobby Connolly, Arthur Swanstrom.

Stock Woes. The Theatrical Producing Managers Association (stock company producers) assembled to console one an other over the low state of resident dramatic companies, to ask for relief measures from other dramatic organizations so that "instead of there being 60 operatin-- dramatic stock companies as there are now . . there will be 200." Actors; Equity Association was requested to modify its stock contract to enable managers after two weeks to dismiss players with one week's pay instead of two. From American Federation of Musicians and sundry stage hand unions the Association sought less rigid employment require ments. The Dramatists Guild was asked to consider lowering royalty rates. Of the convention said canny Variety (show business weekly) : "[It] was just a nice holiday for all, but far from any solution to resuscitate stock shows."

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