The Art of Stage Dancing by Ned Wayburn

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Title: The Art of Stage Dancing
The Story of a Beautiful and Profitable Profession

Author: Ned Wayburn

Release Date: November 30, 2008 [EBook #27367]

Language: English

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The Art of Stage Dancing.

[Illustration: NED WAYBURN]




THE ART OF

STAGE DANCING

_The Story of a Beautiful
and Profitable Profession_

[Illustration]

A MANUAL

OF

STAGE-CRAFT


_by_

NED WAYBURN


Price $5.00


NEW YORK

The Ned Wayburn Studios of Stage Dancing, _Inc._
PUBLISHERS

[Illustration]

Copyright, 1925, by

NED WAYBURN
STUDIOS OF STAGE DANCING, INC.

Made in U.S.A.




GREETINGS!

[Illustration]


Someway I don't care for the word "Preface." As I think the matter
over, I'm not sure that I ever read a preface to any book; and this
fact suggests to me that possibly others would pass by this page in my
book if I dubbed it by that much-worn and very trite word. So I've
hailed you all with a much more cheery and stimulating title for my
opening page; and perhaps, in consequence, some may read it.

[Illustration: NW]

My Greetings are specially extended to certain chosen groups of
people: First, to all students of the past, the present, and those
hoped for in the future; second, to the hundreds of teachers of the
art of dancing who esteem my original methods of instruction
sufficiently to care about what I may print on the subject; and
third, to a public that has sat "in front" at any or many of my
productions, and enjoyed them, and is, in consequence, interested to
know something about the hard work, the thought and the skill,
necessary to bring about such pleasing results.

Lest so narrow a limit to my Greetings may be misunderstood, on second
thought I will extend my Greetings to that world of people who love
life and beauty and happiness; who appreciate honest effort to make
living more enjoyable and brighter; who love laughter and smiles and
the good things that go with them.

And if all that kind of people will read and appreciate my book, I
shall not miss the others.

But still, to them, as well as to you, I extend

Greetings!

NED WAYBURN

[Illustration: NW]




An Apology

[Illustration]


As a writer of books, I confess myself to be a good stage craftsman.

I have never before attempted authorship, and this volume is simply a
spontaneous outpouring of my personal love and knowledge of a great
art that has filled my years with joy and happiness, and some renown
in the theatrical world.

To have been one modest part of an instrument that has piped to
pleasure many millions of my fellows, is surely justification for
personal satisfaction. How this playing has been done, how it is being
done today in greater degree than ever before, is what I have in mind
to tell a curious public.

And so I became an author for this once, and what you may discover
that I lack in literary ability, let me trust you will find
compensated for in the plainness and simplicity of the facts,
incidents and reminiscences that I relate. If not the manner, at least
the matter is worthy of your approval.

My story is presented in the first person, and this is because I find
it easiest to write from a personal viewpoint--not, I hope, as the
result of any special desire to see the letter I in print. A more
experienced author would be able to write this book with less
suggestion of ego in its pages, I have little doubt, and so I have
called this explanatory word An Apology that you may understand why
things are as they are, and not demand of the tyro the same quality of
literary excellence that you would be justified in expecting of the
better qualified writer.

To paraphrase one of my earliest school-boy speeches,--"If this be an
apology, make the most of it."

[Illustration: NW]




CONTENTS

Page

A Bit of Ancient History 19

Modern Stage Dancing 23

Ned Wayburn--An Inspiration 27

The Ned Wayburn Method of Training 42

Ned Wayburn Stage Dances 57

Ned Wayburn's Foundation Technique 62

Mr. Wayburn Addresses the Beginners' Class in Foundation Technique 75

Ned Wayburn's Musical Comedy Dancing 83

Mr. Wayburn Addresses a Class in Musical Comedy Dancing 90

Ned Wayburn's Tap and Step Dancing (Clogging) 97

Mr. Wayburn Addresses a Class in Tap and Step Dancing 103

Ned Wayburn's Acrobatic Dancing 108

Mr. Wayburn Addresses a Class in Acrobatic Dancing 115

Ned Wayburn's Modern Americanized Ballet Technique 121

Terms Used in Ned Wayburn's Modern Americanized Ballet Technique 130

Mr. Wayburn Addresses the Beginners' Class in Ballet Technique 132

Ned Wayburn's Toe Dancing 137

Ned Wayburn's Specialty Dancing 141

Ned Wayburn's Exhibition Dancing 144

Ned Wayburn's Professional Stage Makeup 146

Stage Costumes 165

Dancing Tempos 169

Diet and Dancing 178

Dancing and Good Health 195

Showmanship 198

"Who's Who" in the Show 203

Professional Coaching and Producing for Amateur Entertainments 216

Private Instruction 239

Experience 241

Inspiration 246

Atmosphere 251

Dancing Children 254

Dancing Hands 259

Dancing Feet 262

Dancing Shoes 265

The Quest of Beauty 270

Who's Afraid! (Stage Fright) 273

The Dance and the Drama 278

Personality in the Dance 280

Dancing and Ease of Manner 284

Dancing and Civilization 286

Dancing and Cheerfulness 290

Dancing and Country Life 293

Dancing as a Social Accomplishment 297

Universal Appreciation of the Dance 299

The Melting Pot of the Dance 301

Your Opportunities 303

Stage-craft 307

Making a Name 317

Forms of Stage Contracts 327




LIST OF HALFTONE PLATES


All portraits are of artists whose careers have been directed by Ned
Wayburn.

All stage scenes are of productions staged by Ned Wayburn.

All interior views are of classrooms and other departments of the Ned
Wayburn Studios of Stage Dancing, Inc., 1841 Broadway (at Columbus
Circle), entrance on 60th Street, New York City.

Photographs used by courtesy of Art Studios and Art
Photographers whose names are appended.

* * * * *

Ned Wayburn (White Studio, N.Y.).

Gilda Gray and Ned Wayburn Pupils in "It's Getting Darker on
Broadway," Follies of 1922.

One View of Grand Ball Room in Ned Wayburn Studios.

Lace Ballet, Follies of 1922.

The Fairbanks Twins, in the "Follies," and Stars of "Two Little Girls
in Blue" (White Studio, N.Y.).

Oscar Shaw, Featured with "Good Morning, Dearie," "The Music Box
Revue," "Two Little Girls in Blue," etc. (White Studio, N.Y.).

Dolly Sisters, Internationally Famous Musical Comedy Stars (Alfred
Cheney Johnston, N.Y.).

One of over Twenty Daily Dancing Classes at the Ned Wayburn Studios.

Vivienne Segal, Prima Donna of the "Follies" and many other Musical
Comedies, Featured in Light Opera (White Studio, N.Y.).

Paulette Duval and Ned Wayburn Pupils, Follies of 1923.

Class in Dancing Foundation Technique at the Ned Wayburn Studios.

Louise Groody, Featured with "Good Morning, Dearie," "No, No,
Nanette," etc. (White Studio, N.Y.).

Partial View of Demi-Tasse Theatre, Ned Wayburn Studios.

Conditioning Class in the Ned Wayburn Studios.

The Astaires, Fred and Adele, Featured in "Lady, Be Good!" in America,
and in "Stop Flirting," London (White Studio, N.Y.).

Cecil Lean, Featured in "No, No, Nanette," "The Time, the Place and
the Girl," "The Blue Paradise," etc. (Apeda, N.Y.).

Scene from "Ned Wayburn's Symphonic Jazz Revue."

Ann Pennington, Star Dancer with the "Follies" (Alfred Cheney
Johnston, N.Y.).

Private Lockers in Dressing Rooms.

The Three Reillys, Alice, Gracie and Johnny, Remarkable Tap Dancers
(White Studio, N.Y.).

Acrobatic Dancing Practice at the Ned Wayburn Studios.

Evelyn Law, Principal Dancer in the "Follies," and "Louie the
Fourteenth" (White Studio, N.Y.).

Lina Basquette, Premiere Dancer in the "Follies," and other Musical
Productions (White Studio, N.Y.).

Marion Chambers, Premiere Dancer in "Poppy," and in Ned Wayburn
Productions (White Studio, N.Y.).

"The Birth of Venus." A Ned Wayburn Pantomime Presented in Leading
Motion Picture and Vaudeville Theatres.

Virginia Bacon, Vaudeville Dancing Star, and with Ned Wayburn
Productions (Young and Carl, Cincinnati).

Gilda Gray, Dancing Star, Who Made Her Biggest Success with the
"Follies." (Alfred Cheney Johnston, N.Y.).

Maurice, Internationally Known Exhibition Dancer (Ira L. Hill, N.Y.).

The Ned Wayburn Professional Stage Makeup Box and Outfit.

Mary Eaton, Premiere Dancer with the "Follies," and co-starred in "Kid
Boots" (White Studio, N.Y.).

Class in Stage Makeup at the Ned Wayburn Studios.

One Hundred Thousand Dollars' Worth of Dancing Costumes are
Immediately Available.

Corner of the Wardrobe Department.

Mildred Leisy, recently with Geraldine Farrar's Operatic Fantasie,
"Carmen"; wearing type of costume favored for Ballet practice.

Polly Archer, late with the "Follies," wearing type of costume
(bathing suit) preferred for Limbering and Stretching and Acrobatic
Dancing.

Olive Brady, with "Ned Wayburn's Honeymoon Cruise," dressed in special
practice romper, designed by Ned Wayburn, recommended for use in all
dancing classes except the Ballet.

Scene from "Ned Wayburn's Honeymoon Cruise."

Frances White, Featured with the "Follies," "Midnight Frolics,"
Vaudeville, etc. (White Studio, N.Y.).

Group of Ned Wayburn Show Girls, Follies of 1922.

Ann Constance, with "Greenwich Village Follies," and Famous Players
Pictures (Showing Her Physical Condition Before and After She Entered
the Ned Wayburn Studios) (Edward Thayer Monroe, N.Y.)

Helen Fables, Vaudeville Dancing Star, and with Ned Wayburn
Productions (White Studio, N.Y.).

W.C. Fields, Featured with the "Follies," "The Ham Tree," etc. (White
Studio, N.Y.).

Ray Dooley, Featured with the "Follies," "Hitchy Koo," etc. (White
Studio, N.Y.).

Moonlight Ballet, Follies of 1923.

Will Rogers, Celebrated American Cowboy Humorist and "Roper," Featured
in the "Follies" (White Studio, N.Y.).

Dorothy Dickson, Starred in London Productions of "Sally" and "The
Cabaret Girl," shown with Her Dancing Partner, Carl Hyson (White
Studio, N.Y.).

Corner in One of the Ladies' Dressing Rooms, Showing Shower Baths.

Private Dancing Lesson at the Ned Wayburn Studios.

Marion Davies, in the "Follies," and Famous Movie Star (Alfred Cheney
Johnston, N.Y.).

Charlotte Greenwood, Star of "So Long Letty," Featured with the "Music
Box Revue," "Ritz Revue," Winter Garden Productions, etc. (White
Studio, N.Y.).

Children's Saturday Hour at the Ned Wayburn Studios.

Ned Wayburn and Two Tiny Pupils, Herbert Colton, 6, and Patty Coakley,
5.

Gertrude Lawrence, English Star, Featured in Andre Charlot's Revue
(Hugh Cecil, London).

Types of Dancing Shoes.

Janet Stone and Nick Long, Jr., Formerly with the Musical Comedy,
"Lady Butterfly," etc. (White Studio, N.Y.).

Cleo Mayfield, Featured in "No, No, Nanette," "The Blue Paradise,"
etc. (White Studio, N.Y.).

Al Jolson, Famous New York Winter Garden Star, Who Popularized "Mammy"
Songs (White Studio, N.Y.).

Mr. Wayburn's Private Office.

"Little Old New York," Follies of 1923.

Rita Owen, with the "Follies" (White Studio, N.Y.).

Ada May (Weeks), Star of "Lollipop" (White Studio, N.Y.).

Grand Ball Room in Ned Wayburn Studios.

Marilyn Miller, Musical Comedy Star, in the "Follies," "Sally" and
"Sunny" (Alfred Cheney Johnston, N.Y.).

Scene from "Ned Wayburn's Demi-Tasse Revue."

Rita Howard, Vaudeville Dancing Star, and with Ned Wayburn Productions
(White Studio, N.Y.).

Corridor on Third Floor of Ned Wayburn Studios.

"By the South Sea Moon," Follies of 1922, with Gilda Gray.

Belle Baker, Vaudeville Star (Lowell, Chicago).

Business Office of the Ned Wayburn Studios.

Pearl Regay, Dancing Star in "Rose-Marie" (White Studio, N.Y.).

Eddie Cantor, Star of "Kid Boots," "Follies," etc. (White Studio,
N.Y.).

Fifteen Thousand Square Feet of Floor Space, Two Floors, Comprised in
Ned Wayburn's Studios of Stage Dancing, at Columbus Circle and
Broadway, New York.




_The
ART
of
STAGE
DANCING_

[Illustration]

_NED WAYBURN_

[Illustration: GILDA GRAY AND NED WAYBURN PUPILS IN "IT'S GETTING
DARKER ON BROADWAY," FOLLIES OF 1922]




THE ART OF STAGE DANCING

[Illustration: Overture]

A BIT OF ANCIENT HISTORY


Every age has had its ways of dancing; every people has expressed
itself in some form of rhythmic motion.

The dance originally was the natural expression of the simple emotions
of a primitive people. Triumph, defeat, war, love, hate, desire,
propitiation of the gods of nature, all were danced by the hero or the
tribe to the rhythm of beaten drums.

Over six thousand years ago Egypt made use of the dance in its
religious ritual. At a very early period the Hebrews gave dancing a
high place in their ceremony of worship. Moses bade the children of
Israel dance after the crossing of the Red Sea. David danced before
the Ark of the Covenant. The Bible is replete with instances showing
the place of the dance in the lives of the people of that time.

Greece in its palmy days was the greatest dancing nation the world has
ever known. Here it was protected by priesthood and state, practiced
by rich and poor, high and lowly born. One of the nine muses was
devoted to the fostering of this particular art. Great ballets
memorialized great events; simple rustic dances celebrated the coming
of the flowers and the gathering of the crops. Priestesses performed
the sacred numbers; eccentric comedy teams enlivened the streets of
Athens. Philosophers taught it to pupils for its salutary effect on
body and mind; it was employed to give soldiers poise, agility and
health.

The dance was undoubtedly among the causes of Greek vigor of mind and
body. Physicians prescribed its rhythmic exercise for many ailments.
Plato specifies dancing among the necessities for the ideal republic,
and Socrates urged it upon his pupils. The beauty of harmonized
movements of healthy bodies, engendered by dancing, had its effect on
the art of Greece.

Since the days of classic Greece, scenery, music and costume have
created effects then undreamed of, but notwithstanding the lack of
incidental factors, the greatness and frequency of municipal ballets,
the variety of motives that dancing was made to express, combine to
give Greece a rank never surpassed as a dancing nation.

The Greek stage of this age was rich in scope, and for its effects
drew upon poetry, music, dancing, grouping and posing.

Then came the Dark Ages of history, and in a degraded world dancing
was saved and taken under the protection of the Christian church,
where it remained for the greater part of a thousand years. The
vehicle that carried the ballet through this period was known as the
"spectacle." These sacred spectacles, in grouping, evolution,
decoration and music, possessed qualities that entitle them to a
respectable place in the annals of opera ballet. The steps were
primitive, but they sufficed for the times.

However, the organization of the first real opera ballet conforming to
standards of modern excellence did not come till the latter part of
the fifteenth century, when Cardinal Riario, a nephew of Pope Sixtus
IV, composed and staged a number of important ballet productions.

But the greatest development of the modern type of ballet received its
impetus under the reign of Louis XIV of France, who founded the
national ballet academy at Paris in 1661, and often played prominent
parts himself. Under this influence great performers began to appear,
artists whose work, by grace of beauty alone, attested that perfection
in ballet technique was approaching.

The growth of the ballet since the time of Louis XIV has been the
contribution of individual artists, who by giving expression to their
own original ideas have thus advanced the art to the pinnacle attained
by the modern Russian ballet of today.

The above outline of the history of the dance is made brief
intentionally, with no attempt to touch upon the various forms of
dancing as practiced by the many nations and tribes. Numerous books
have been written covering all aspects of this subject, and giving in
detail the steps and rhythms of the people of every age, and of every
continent and the isles of the sea; and as matters of interest,
education and research they are competent and complete, and especially
edifying to the student of Terpsichore.

But the subject that interests us is not concerned with ancient lore
nor with historical data, however delightful they may be. I am writing
for the American of today about present-day matters in the American
theatrical world, and to that end choose to ignore all other phases of
the subject.

In our day the development of the dance has reached its greatest
heights, in both the social circle and the stage picture.

The advance made in stage dancing within the last generation has been
very pronounced, yet so gradual has been this growth and improvement,
that only the elders of the present time can visualize its progress,
and that only by a backward look to the period of paucity and monotony
that ruled in their junior years, and contrast the dearth of then with
the abundance of now.

For really, whether in our multitude of revues or in our many musical
shows, the dance, the pose, the rhythm and the melody that enhance our
delight are all parts of the modern art of stage dancing. And it is of
this art that the writer seeks to tell the story in the present
volume.

Both the theatre and the dance have had their abundant historians. The
dance is ages older than the theatre. The time of the coming of the
dance to the theatre and their fitting union ever after has been
recorded. They have advanced together hand in hand through the years
since their first meeting and are closer companions at this hour than
ever before.

Stage dancing is no longer the haphazard stepping of feet to music
that it was in the beginning. From its earlier crude efforts it has
developed into a modern art, a profession of the first class, calling
for brain and ability at their very best, its devotees giving years of
labor to perfecting themselves in their chosen art.

[Illustration]

[Illustration: ONE VIEW OF GRAND BALL ROOM]

[Illustration: NED WAYBURN REVUE]




MODERN STAGE DANCING


Modern stage dancing differs from social or ballroom dancing in that
it is the kind of dancing that one can commercialize.

Most of the artistic and financial successes of the stage today are
built upon music and dancing. We find these two essential elements in
opera, revue, musical comedy, pantomime and vaudeville, while the
place of the dance in moving pictures may well be recognized. Should
the old-time minstrel show come back, as it is certain to do, there
will be added another name to the list of active entertainments that
call for a union of music and dancing to insure their prosperity.

The Follies, the Frolics, the Scandals, the Music Box, the Vanities,
the Passing Shows--by whatever name the modern revue is spread before
an eager public, the basis of its appeal is always the same. And when
the Junior Leagues--the various charity organizations and the social
and college clubs of our cities stage a performance that shall appeal
to the interest of their public, and consequently gather in the
shekels to their coffers, these amateur organizations turn naturally
to music and dance and spectacle as the mediums with the widest
appeal; an appeal to both the performer and the spectator.

Incidentally, let me say that the appeal of music and the dance to the
performer, whether on the professional or the amateur stage, is not
given the consideration to which it is entitled. Perhaps nobody in the
audience cares whether or not the dancer is enjoying the dance. But
let me tell you, the dancer is having just as good a time up there on
the stage as you are down in front; and probably you never gave the
matter a thought!

The dancers' enjoyment of the art is an essential factor in the causes
that lead to the popularity of our modern type of stage entertainment.
To have acquired proficiency in their chosen profession the dancers
have labored strenuously and long, and now the reward of years of
effort is theirs. They love their art as well as its emoluments. By
industry and perhaps frugality they have acquired an independent
career for life. They have made much of their opportunities. They have
a right to be happy. And they are.

Probably no man ever lived who knows personally so many dancing folks
as I do, and among all my stage acquaintances and friends I can count
on a very few fingers the number that I would not class as supremely
happy in their profession, and those few who might be considered as
unhappy are made so by circumstances entirely apart from the stage,
or, in a few instances, because of their own folly and indiscretions.
The stage world is a happy world in the main. Its rewards are abundant
in friendships as well as in cash, and the happiness radiated to you
from behind the footlights is the direct result of the happiness that
permeates the very being of the smiling favorite of the gods whose
efforts to please you have met with your approbation. So the pleasure
of dancer and spectator are in a degree mutual, which in great measure
explains the fascination that the dancing show has for the public.

In nearly every amateur stage performance in my long experience there
have been present some few who exhibited natural ability as dancers,
and possessed foundation requirements for professional stage work. In
cases where these favored ones have placed themselves under my
instruction their improvement has been rapid and sure.

There is no such thing as an untrained successful dancer; there never
has been; there never will be. Given that one has the ability
requisite to a knowledge of the dance, the rest comes from active
training, and nothing else. And by "ability" I do not mean experience,
but rather that natural talent to step to music and observe tempo and
rhythm that every dancer must possess. It is a talent inborn in the
dancer, and needs only proper development under competent instruction
to bring out all the possibilities that are in one. Beyond that, and
after the days of instruction are over, the only limit is the
personality, the mental ability and the originality of the dancer
himself, and these we encourage in every possible manner, for that way
lies the electric sign in front of a Broadway Theatre, and all that
goes with it in glory and gold.

It is to the amateur dancer of today that the professional stage looks
for its recruits. There never before has been so great a demand for
stage dancers as exists now, and the supply for both solo and ensemble
work barely suffices. Talent naturally is encouraged by this
condition of the market for its wares, and all who take advantage of
this popularity and qualify for the better grade positions will find
little difficulty in securing what they are entitled to.

I am anxious to get over with one part of this book that seems
necessary to its complete understanding by a reading public, and that
is the very personal subject of myself, its author. I am going to
permit entrance into these pages of a brief biography of Ned Wayburn
for two distinct reasons: First, to establish by what route I came to
be an authority on stage-craft and stage dancing; and second, by a
recital of my personal struggle and effort and final success, to
encourage all young men and young women of ambition to themselves
enter upon the stage of our great calling, with every hope of future
success.

To that end, I am permitting a friend to come on the stage with his
story of my stage career and experience.

As I look back upon my own history, it seems like a romance. And it
is; a romance in real life; every word of it true, and the entire
scenario as wonderful as anything in the movies.

[Illustration: NW]

[Illustration: LACE BALLET, FOLLIES OF 1922]




NED WAYBURN--AN INSPIRATION

By CARLETON B. CASE


Every line of endeavor has its outstanding leaders. The men and women
who do great things in a grand way ever command our admiration. We
like to hear about their public careers and the intimate side of their
exceptional lives is of decided interest to us. This I think is
especially true where the noted ones are among our public
entertainers, the player-folk, who bring so much joy and happiness
into the world out of nothing--creators of innocent pleasure.

Long years before this was penned, and while yet my locks were
innocent of the whiteness that now typifies my years, I was closely
associated with the family of Wayburn. I was a man in Chicago when Ned
Wayburn was a boy in the same city, starting on what was destined to
become a truly remarkable career.

I know Ned Wayburn well. He is a king and a thoroughbred, as man or as
manager, and to know him is to esteem him.

[Illustration: CINDERELLA]

His fame is peculiar in that it is based so largely on the success of
other people--the actors and dancers whom he has discovered or
directed and so helped to become stars of the first magnitude. To name
them by hundreds is easy; to number all who are approaching stardom or
who, now well placed on the professional stage, have materially
profited by his aid and instruction, will go into the thousands.
Surely such a record of achievement is ample cause for pride.

Ned Wayburn possesses an almost uncanny faculty of discerning latent
talent in the line of his profession. You may not know one dance step
from another, yet his discerning eye will detect a possibility for you
in some branch of the dancing art that results will later prove as
correct as they are surprising to yourself.

I have heard him tell of Evelyn Law, that when she first came to the
studio she exhibited a tap and step dance as her specialty.

"This type of dancing was totally unsuited to her," said Ned, "and I
told her so. And I also told her what her 'line' was. She took my
advice, and today she leads the world in that type of dancing, and her
salary has four figures in it every week."

The man who can do that is a genius, and Ned Wayburn has done it many,
many times.

There is one outstanding fact in his entire career as producer of
shows and director of the education of his pupils in his dancing
studios: He insists that everything and everybody about him shall be
"the best." His studios are fitted up "the best," regardless of cost.
Sixty thousand dollars he paid for the fittings and furnishings of the
two floors contained in his perfect establishment for teaching dancing
at Columbus Circle, Broadway and Sixtieth Street, New York. His
instructing staff must be "the best." His pupils must be "the best." I
mean by that, not that the pupils are so qualified when they enter,
but that when they are ready to graduate from his institution into the
professional life of the stage, then they must be "the best"; nothing
else will do.

So, too, in his own stage productions, and he has several, and more
are in prospect. They are nowhere slighted. The best cast, music,
dancing, costumes, scenery--everything--always. Ned never was a piker.
He wasn't born that way. Lavish some consider him, but he finds his
luxuriant presentations are appreciated by the line in front of the
box office. He couldn't put on a "cheap" show if he wanted to. One
goes to a Ned Wayburn show with the assurance of getting his money's
worth in beauty and pleasurable entertainment. It pays; and the
financial test is after all the one criterion by which to form a final
judgment in things theatrical.

Now I am going to give some details of the inspiring career that began
with an ambitious boy possessed of an artistic temperament, a love of
music and of the beautiful, and who was at the same time a "hustler"
and a born executive--a career developed by experience, still in
progress and not yet at its culmination. As you read, it will seem
almost incredible that one man, still comparatively young, could in so
brief a period have accomplished so much that calls for great mental
stress and extraordinary physical activity.

* * * * *

Ned Wayburn was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, where his parents
were socially prominent. Later the Wayburn family moved to Atlanta,
Georgia, and thence to Chicago. During his school days he first
attracted attention as an amateur athlete, winning recognition as a
fast runner, trick skater, tennis player, center rush on various
football teams, and finally as a semi-professional baseball pitcher
and home-run hitter. While employed in his father's manufacturing
plant in Chicago, he took part in many amateur theatricals, and became
noted as a dramatic coach for charity entertainments and clubs,
leading cotillions and taking part in many society and club
entertainments.

It was at that time that his success in directing and writing dialogue
for amateur theatricals attracted the attention of Hart Conway, of the
Chicago School of Acting, who promptly engaged him as assistant. At
the same time, he had the privilege of seeing and studying the
greatest stars and the best attractions at the Chicago Grand Opera
House, where he began at the very bottom of the ladder as an usher in
the gallery, balcony and main floor. Finally he became chief
usher--then sold tickets for the gallery--took tickets at the main
door. The late Aaron Hoffman, famous playwright, was opera glass boy
at that time with him, and the well-known star, Taylor Holmes, was one
of his ushers! Eventually he became Assistant Superintendent of that
theatre.

To gain additional experience, Ned worked as a "super" with many
different attractions, including the companies of Olga Nethersole,
Otis Skinner, Walker Whiteside, Julia Stuart, etc., finally playing
small parts in the legitimate and Shakespearian drama.

Having displayed a natural aptitude as a director while holding
"prompt books" at rehearsals, he became a dramatic director and actor
of eccentric comedy and character parts. Then his natural instinct for
dancing asserted itself, and he became a specialty dancer, practicing
from three to eight hours a day to perfect his dancing, incidentally
developing his talent as a musician.

The late Col. John Hopkins saw Ned Wayburn at a society benefit
performance in Chicago, and induced him to play one week's
engagement. Thus Ned Wayburn made his first professional appearance at
Hopkins' Theatre, State Street, Chicago, being billed as "Chicago's
Leading Amateur"--a singing and dancing "black-faced" comedian, doing
a "ragtime piano" specialty, and dancing act. This led to other
engagements. The "piano specialty," which he originated, started the
"ragtime" craze. He played in and around Chicago and the middle west.
He came East to New York, and was booked by the late Phil Nash, on the
Keith Circuit, billed as "The Man Who Invented Ragtime." In his piano
specialty he created the idea of playing the classics in "Ragtime,"
being the first person on the stage to play "Mendelssohn's Wedding
March," "Oh Promise Me," "Star-Spangled Banner," etc., in syncopated
rhythm or "Ragtime." He was also the first on the stage to do
imitations of the harp, bagpipe, mandolin, banjo, etc., on the piano.
His act was much imitated all over the world.

Upon reaching New York he met with misfortune. There was no piano for
him at his opening performance and his original act had been stolen
and performed in New York ahead of his appearance. This culminated in
a period without work. Finally he found himself walking Broadway from
one Thursday morning until late Saturday night, with neither food nor
money!

Having looked forward so much to New York and what he expected it to
bring him, he was at first discouraged and inclined to give up and go
back home with each succeeding rebuff, but he made up his mind to
stick it out, no matter what he had to do until he got on in a first
class company. After months of patient canvassing of all managers' and
agents' offices where he was denied recognition, he was finally given
an opportunity, through an acquaintance who heard him play in a 26th
St. theatrical boarding house, to demonstrate his ability in a tryout
for the most popular star on Broadway at the time, May Irwin. She
immediately recognized his ability and gave him an engagement at
$25.00 per week, to introduce ragtime to Broadway. (He was receiving
$125.00 per week when he first came to New York.) He wrote for Miss
Irwin the first ragtime song, "Syncopated Sandy." He was so hard up at
the time that he sold a one-half interest in this song to a man named
Stanley Whiting for $25.00, so this man could have his name on the
song as co-author. For an entire season she sang it and he played it
in the performances of "The Swell Miss Fitzwell" at the old Bijou
Theatre, New York City (Broadway between 30th and 31st Sts.).
"Syncopated Sandy" sold over 1,000,000 copies. It was used to teach
people to play ragtime. All Mr. Wayburn ever received out of its
publication was a $15.00 advance royalty, which he was glad to get. He
also helped write the third act of "The Swell Miss Fitzwell," and
re-wrote the second act, including some of the musical numbers, for
which he received no royalty. Incidentally, he was promoted to the
position of stage director by Miss Irwin, and wrote some of her most
successful songs, receiving a salary of $30.00 per week. He taught
society to play ragtime and to cakewalk. However, he had confidence in
his ability and worked hard to gain experience. He canvassed the music
stores while en route with the company and sold sheet music which
helped defray his expenses, and he saved his spare pennies. Finally,
he signed up with Mathews and Bulger, a very popular team of stars.

From that moment the star of success glowed brightly for Ned Wayburn.
For two years following he toured the United States and Canada with
Dunne and Ryley's musical comedy success, "By the Sad Sea Waves,"
which he helped write and stage, introducing "ragtime," now known
as "Jazz," to America in nearly every city of over 5,000 population.
Gertrude Hoffmann was one of his dancing girls in the chorus of this
show.

[Illustration: FAIRBANKS TWINS]

Being a born musician he turned his talents, in his spare time, to
writing songs, many of which became quite popular, and from which he
derived considerable revenue. "He Ain't No Relation of Mine," "Spend
Your Money While You Live 'Cause You're Gonna Be a Long Time Dead,"
"Ragtime Jimmie's Jamboree," etc., etc.

Mr. Wayburn then staged George M. Cohan's first musical play, "The
Governor's Son," and George Ade's first musical play, "The Night of
the 4th," the latter at Hammerstein's Victoria Theatre, New York, with
Joseph Coyne and Harry Bulger as the featured comedians. Thus began an
unending succession of triumphs as a theatrical producer and stage
director.

Mr. Wayburn was engaged by Oscar Hammerstein as producing stage
director for Hammerstein's Victoria Theatre Paradise Roof Gardens, at
42nd Street and 7th Avenue, where the Rialto Theatre now stands, where
he had charge three summers and staged the very first "girl" acts,
including Ned Wayburn's "Jockey Club" with the Countess Von Hatzfeldt,
which toured to the Pacific Coast and back to New York, booked by
Martin Beck.

He was then engaged by Sire Bros. as producing stage director for
their New York Theatre and Roof Gardens where he, a mere boy, staged
and directed the greatest company of stars ever assembled under one
roof, including Jessie Bartlett Davis, Mabelle Gilman, Virginia Earle,
Marie Dressler, Nina Farrington, Thomas Q. Seabrooke, Dan McAvoy,
Junie McCree, Louis Harrison, Marion Winchester, Emma Carus, etc.,
etc. "The Hall of Fame" was one of many productions staged for them.

He then became producing stage director for Klaw and Erlanger. During
the next four years produced and helped to create:

"The Billionaire" with Jerome Sykes, "Bluebeard" with Eddie Foy, "The
Rogers Brothers in London," "The Rogers Brothers in Paris," "The
Rogers Brothers in Ireland," "The Rogers Brothers in Panama," "The Ham
Tree" with McIntyre and Heath, "Mother Goose" with Joseph Cawthorne,
"Humpty-Dumpty," "The White Cat," "The Pearl and the Pumpkin," "Little
of Everything" with Fay Templeton and Pete Dailey, and many other
productions for the New Amsterdam Theatre and Roof, also for the New
York Theatre Roof, acting as general stage director of both. He leased
and managed the New York Theatre Roof Gardens, where he conceived and
produced some very successful headline vaudeville acts, among them,
"Ned Wayburn's Minstrel Misses," and "Ned Wayburn's Rain-dears," which
afterward played the Keith circuit and other vaudeville theatres to
previously unequaled success.

Left Klaw and Erlanger to engage in the vaudeville producing field for
himself through the encouragement of B.F. Keith, E.F. Albee, Percy G.
Williams, William Hammerstein, F.F. Proctor and Martin Beck. Owned and
produced the following headline acts: "The Futurity Winner," "The Star
Bout," "The Rain-dears," with Neva Aymar; "The Dancing Daisies," with
Dorothy Jardon; "The Phantastic Phantoms," with Larry and Rosie
Ceballos; "The Side Show," with Harry Pilcer, and about 100 other big
acts. Produced his own musical comedy attraction, "A One Horse Town."

For Mortimer H. Singer at the La Salle Theatre, Chicago, produced the
following Musical Comedies: "The Time, the Place and the Girl,"
starring Cecil Lean--and which ran 464 consecutive performances to
"standing room only"; "The Girl Question," "The Golden Girl," "The
Goddess of Liberty," "Honeymoon Trail," "The Girl at the Helm," "The
Heart Breakers," etc.

Founded "Ned Wayburn's Training School for the Stage," which first
occupied the American Savings Bank Building, 115 West 42nd Street,
between Broadway and 6th Avenue, New York City, and then expanded to
the entire five-story building at 143 West 44th Street, next to the
Hudson Theatre and opposite the Lambs Club. John Emerson, President of
the Actor's Equity Association, and Zelda Sears, author of "The
Lollypop," and many other successes, were then members of his faculty.

For the Shuberts and Lew Fields staged "The Mimic World," at the
Casino Theatre, New York. For Lew Fields (of Weber and Fields), at the
Broadway Theatre and Herald Square Theatre staged: "The Midnight
Sons," "The Jolly Bachelors," "The Hen Pecks," "The Summer Widowers,"
"The Never Homes," "The Wife Hunters," "Tillie's Nightmare," starring
Marie Dressler; Lew Fields in "Old Dutch," Victor Herbert's "The Rose
of Algeria," etc.

For the Messrs. Shubert at the Casino Theatre, N.Y., the following
musical comedies: "The Girl and the Wizard," starring Sam Bernard;
"Havana," with James T. Powers (made the American version of this
libretto); "The Prince of Bohemia," with Andrew Mack, and "Mlle.
Mischief," starring Lulu Glaser.

Staged and appeared in "The Producer," written by William Lebaron, a
headline vaudeville production (fifty people) which opened at
Hammerstein's Victoria Theatre, New York City, and played for months
in vaudeville, headlining in all principal eastern cities.

Staged "The Military Girl," starring Cecil Lean and Cleo Mayfield, at
the Ziegfeld Theatre in Chicago. Engaged by Lee and J.J. Shubert as
producer for New York Winter Garden, created a policy for that theatre
and a formula for musical productions still used there; staged "The
Passing Show of 1912," "The Honeymoon Express," with Al Jolson and
Gaby Deslys, "Broadway to Paris," "The Passing Show of 1913," etc.

For the English manager, Albert de Courville, at the Hippodrome,
London, England, at the highest terms ever paid a stage director, he
directed George Robey, Ethel Levey, Harry Tate, Billy Merson, Shirley
Kellogg, and other famous continental stars.

He staged "Hullo Tango" (ran over one year), "Zig-Zag" (ran one and
one-half years), "Box of Tricks," "Joybells," etc.

Opened offices in London, producing "The Honeymoon Express," which ran
five years in London and the provinces; produced "Dora's Doze," at
Palladium Music Hall, and leased Middlesex Music Hall, London, to
stage his own musical productions with American, French and English
stars, in association with Oswald Stoll, but was obliged to stop
productions there when war was declared.

* * * * *

Next he staged and presented his own production of a farce, "She's In
Again," at Gaiety Theatre, New York City; also put on his own $150,000
production of "Town Topics," with Will Rogers, at the Century Theatre,
New York, for which playhouse he created a Continental Music Hall
policy.

It was soon after this that he accepted an engagement as producer and
general stage director for Florenz Ziegfeld and staged the "Follies of
1916," "Follies of 1917," "Follies of 1918," and "Follies of 1919."

[Illustration: OSCAR SHAW]

In addition to the above, Mr. Wayburn devised and staged for Mr.
Ziegfeld nine successful Midnight Frolics and two Nine O'Clock Revues
atop the New Amsterdam Theatre, New York, during this time.

For Mesmore Kendall, devised and staged the opening presentation for
the Capitol Theatre, New York City, September, 1919, including an
elaborate and very successful revue.

For Dillingham and Ziegfeld, at Century Theatre, New York, he devised
and staged the sensationally successful second act finale to "The
Century Girl" (1916), where the 50-foot circular revolving stage was
employed so ingeniously in the "Uncle Sam" finale.

Staged "Miss 1917" at the Century Theatre, New York, with Irene
Castle, Elsie Janis and 40 other stars.

For Lew Fields: "The Poor Little Ritz Girl."

For A.L. Erlanger and B.C. Whitney: "The Ed Wynn Carnival," at the New
Amsterdam Theatre, N.Y.

For A.L. Erlanger: "Two Little Girls in Blue" (with the Fairbanks
Twins, Oscar Shaw and Evelyn Law), at the George M. Cohan Theatre,
N.Y.

Founded Ned Wayburn Studios of Stage Dancing and Ned Wayburn Booking
Offices.

Staged F. Ziegfeld's production, starring Will Rogers, also "Follies
of 1922," which ran 67 consecutive weeks in New York City and about 40
weeks on tour. No other "Follies" up to this time ever ran over 16
weeks in New York. Produced many vaudeville acts, among them, "Ned
Wayburn's Dancing Dozen." Arranged motion-picture presentations for
the Famous Players-Lasky Theatres. In association with Ben Ali Haggin
produced several tableaux, including "Simonetta," "Dubarry," and "The
Green Gong," which were presented in many of the principal cities.
Staged the musical comedy "Lady Butterfly," at Globe Theatre, New
York.

Staged the Anatol Friedland headline girl act for the Keith-Albee and
Orpheum vaudeville circuits, and "The Birth of Venus," a series of
beautiful tableaux which were shown in many principal motion picture
and vaudeville theatres. Staged for Florenz Ziegfeld "Follies of
1923," at New Amsterdam Theatre, New York, which attraction played to
the largest week's receipts of any Follies ever produced at New
Amsterdam Theatre.

Staged the following headline vaudeville productions:


"NED WAYBURN'S HONEYMOON CRUISE"

--an elaborate junior musical comedy, adapted for vaudeville, with a
cast of dancers, principals and ensemble, composed entirely of pupils
of the Ned Wayburn Studios. This act, the highest priced in
vaudeville, started on tour in January, 1924, and broke all box-office
records of the Poli Theatres in New England, as well as those of many
other theatres on the Keith-Albee Circuit, including the premiere
vaudeville theatre of the world, Keith-Albee Palace Theatre, New York,
and the new $7,000,000 Earle Theatre in Philadelphia. It is still
breaking records, and is one of the most sought-after acts in
vaudeville.


"NED WAYBURN'S DEMI-TASSE REVUE"

--another headline act, composed entirely of pupils of the Ned Wayburn
Studios. Now on the Keith-Albee and Orpheum Circuits.

The opening engagement at Bridgeport broke the attendance record of
the Palace Theatre there and the same results followed at New Haven,
Hartford and Worcester, when the audiences and newspaper critics
alike declared the Revue even better than Ned Wayburn's "Honeymoon
Cruise," which had previously held the attendance records in those
cities.


"NED WAYBURN'S SYMPHONIC JAZZ REVUE"

Another new production, also composed of pupils of the Ned Wayburn
Studios--touring the principal motion picture theatres in the Middle
West and also Keith-Albee and Orpheum Circuits.

Staged the dances for Geraldine Farrar in an Operatic
Fantasie--"Carmen" (all the dancers in this production being pupils of
the Ned Wayburn Studios).


SOCIETY, UNIVERSITY AND PRIVATE ENTERTAINMENTS

For Mrs. William K. Vanderbilt, 2nd, devised and staged her "Mah Jong
Fête" at the Hotel Plaza, New York, for the Big Sisters charity,
December, 1923, and her "Persian Jazz Fête," December, 1924.

The Princeton Triangle Club's Musical Comedy, "Drake's Drum" last year
and "The Scarlet Coat" this year.

The Filene Store's musical comedy, "The Caddie Girl," Colonial
Theatre, Boston, in April, 1924, and "Barbara Lee," in April, 1925,
presented at the Tremont Theatre, Boston, for one week, with Leah
Ainsworth, a Ned Wayburn pupil, in the title role.

Penn. State College Thespian Club's Show, "The Magazine Cover Girl"
last year, and "Wooden Shoes" this year.

The Third Annual Masonic Fashion and Home Exposition at Madison Square
Garden, New York, May, 1924.

Elaborate entertainments for the Willys-Overland Company, at the Hotel
Biltmore, New York (three years).

Jewelers' 24-Karat Club Annual Entertainment at the Waldorf-Astoria
Hotel, New York (three successive years).

"Own Your Own Home Exposition," at Trenton, New Jersey.

Shriner's Frolic, at Washington, D.C.

Kansas City "Junior League Follies" (December, 1924).

Atlanta "Junior League Follies" (February, 1925).

A Musical Revue for the New York Edison Co., 1925 (so successful it
had to be repeated).

The Providence Junior League Show, 1925.

The New Haven "Junior League Nautical Bal Cabaret," 1925.

The Vincent Club Musical Comedy, "Fez," in Boston (April, 1925).

"The Chatterbox Revue" in Rochester (April, 1925).

The Massachusetts "Tech" Show, "The Duchess of Broadway" (1925),--and
a great many other society, charity, masonic and church
entertainments.

It is out of this amazingly wide and varied experience that Ned
Wayburn evolved the courses in stage dancing, stage-craft and
showmanship which are being taught with such great success today at
the Ned Wayburn Studios.

Ned Wayburn is known to thousands as the genius who staged the very
best editions of "The Follies" and "Midnight Frolics" at the New
Amsterdam Theatre, N.Y. But in the world of the theatre--among those
who _know_--he is recognized as America's foremost creator, producer
and director of musical comedies, revues, headline vaudeville
productions, motion picture presentations, fêtes and every other form
of entertainment that features beautiful, original or spectacular
dancing.

[Illustration: DOLLY SISTERS]

His versatility knows almost no limit. His wealth of theatrical
experience runs the gamut from his own first appearance as an amateur
actor and coach to a succession of triumphs as producing director of
the most gorgeous theatrical presentations both here and abroad.

Added to his practical stage-craft there is the vital flame of
imaginative genius, a creative faculty that clearly stamps all his
work. It is this, as well as his extraordinary executive ability and
his all-embracing knowledge of stage technique, that makes him the
most sought-after of all directors. It also explains the distinct
advantage which pupils of the Ned Wayburn Studios have over all
others, in that they are being constantly sought for desirable
engagements because of the thorough way in which they are trained,
both physically and mentally, in dancing.

[Illustration: NW]




THE NED WAYBURN METHOD OF TRAINING

[Illustration]


There are five basic types of stage dancing that I teach, covering the
modern field in full, and supplying the pupil with a complete
knowledge of all the steps needed for a successful stage career.

These five types consist of:

Musical Comedy Dancing,
Tap and Step Dancing (Clogging),
Acrobatic Dancing,
Exhibition Dancing (Ball-room),
Modern Americanized Ballet Dancing.

The last named includes all the best variety of ballet dances, such as
toe, classical, character, interpretive, oriental, folk, national,
covering Spanish, Russian, Greek, Javanese, etc.

Instruction is given in any or all of the above to beginners, advanced
amateurs, professionals and teachers, and is preceded in every case by
the Ned Wayburn Foundation Technique, which includes my limbering and
stretching process, and is one of the most important courses ever
devised for the student of dancing in that it saves years of study.
This original technique is described in a succeeding chapter.

In addition to the types of dancing mentioned above, we also give
instruction in the art of making up for the stage.

Accompanying the technical instruction, each class and pupil receives
without cost the benefit of the valuable stage-craft, managerial and
producer's knowledge that I have acquired during my years of activity
in the theatrical world. This is given in occasional lectures or
inspirational talks before the class. Students also, when duly fitted,
will be informed as to where and how to obtain engagements, correct
forms of contract to be entered into, and other valuable business
information concerning the practical side of selling their services to
the best advantage, saving them much time and possible embarrassment
and loss.

In all probability, if you love dancing and aspire to make it a
career, you possess an innate sense of rhythm. You feel the swing of
music and love to move your body to the strains of a lilting melody.
The first great possessions of the successful stage dancer are a love
of harmonious sounds and a sense of rhythmic motion. If you haven't
these, you might better abandon the idea of studying with me as far as
any hope is concerned of my developing you into a stage artist. While
you would find much to enjoy and to benefit your health and
appearance in taking my dancing exercises, if you are minus the very
first dancing essentials you could not expect us to advance you beyond
your own limitations.

Another important qualification for the stage dancer, which if not
possessed at its fullest may be acquired under our instruction, is a
sense of direction. This sense of direction is of maximum importance
in stage dancing, because, as you can readily understand, since you
have your audience in front of you and to your left and your right,
you must do your dances so that they will appeal to all sections of
your audience. And there are certain stage directions which you must
know in order to grasp my method of instruction.

That you may get absolute precision in direction, let us proceed as
follows: Imagine that you are standing on a stage, in a circle the
diameter of your own feet; we will call that circle "your place."

[Illustration: _Your Place_]

Divide the stage into eight different directions. You are now facing
the "front." Face the "left," the "back," the "right," and then
"front" again. That makes four directions--front, left, back and
right. Face half-way to the left--that is called "left oblique." Face
half-way to the back--that is called "left oblique back." Now face
back. Face half-way to the right--that is called "right oblique back."
Now face half-way to the front. That is called "right oblique." That
makes eight different directions, very easy to memorize and never
forgotten after once learned, and you will employ them in your stage
work every day. That they may become familiar with the necessary
directions, students are given brief instructions at their first
lesson, as I stand before them and take the turns with them and
announce the name of each direction as I take it.

[Illustration: _The Eight Different Directions_]

[Illustration: _Left Turn_]

[Illustration: _Right Turn_]

In making the turn from wall to wall, when you turn to the left
around, you should turn on the right heel, which thus acts as a pivot
and keeps you in "your place"; like this--left oblique, left, left
oblique back, back, right oblique back, right, right oblique, and
front. In going around to the right turn on the left heel. Fix these
directions firmly in your mind. You will need them when you get into
stage dancing.

[Illustration: _Turning the Head_]

The eight different directions are in eight counts. The first
direction to the left is left oblique. That is counted "one." Left is
"two." Left oblique back, "three." Back, "four." Right oblique back,
"five." Right, "six." Right oblique, "seven." Front is "eight."

All of our steps are taught in counts of eight. We begin to count from
one and go as far as eight, then repeat. We count, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6,
7, 8, or we count "1-and, 2-and, 3-and, 4-and, 5-and, 6-and, 7-and,
8-and," as may be required. After the steps have been taught by counts
and learned properly, through much patient practice, they are fitted
to music.

Without turning the rest of the body, turn the head sharply to the
left wall, so that your face is square to the wall. You are now
looking left. Look front. Look to the right (square around). Look
front. Look left oblique. Front. Right oblique. Front. Now throw the
head back and look up (without straining the muscles of the
neck)--hold the head at an angle of about 45 degrees. Your head should
not be tilted to one side, but straight back. Now look "front"
again--now "down," now "front." There is a difference between
_turning_ it to the left or right and _inclining_ to left or right.
Incline your head to the left shoulder--hold your face up a little
and keep it square to the front--chin high--now incline your head to
the right shoulder--up straight--now turn it to the left (around as
far as you can)--turn it front--turn it to the "right"--turn it
"front"--throw it "back"--look up, now "front"--drop "down" and now
"front."

[Illustration: ONE OF OVER TWENTY DAILY DANCING CLASSES AT THE NED
WAYBURN STUDIOS.]

[Illustration: _Inclining the Head_]


THE LESSON TO A CLASS IS AS FOLLOWS

Now, be careful to keep your lines straight up and down, directly
behind one another. Let those in the first line _across_ raise the
right hand. Second line across raise hands up; third line across, and
fourth line across. This is called across stage (indicating left to
right). This is called up and down stage (indicating front to back),
and going down this way (to the footlights) is moving down-stage.
Going toward the back wall is moving up-stage or back-stage.

[Illustration: _Diagram of Modern Theatre Stage_]


CONCERNING ENTRANCES AND EXITS

If you come in sight of the audience from that side (indicating left)
you are making an entrance from the left. If you leave in that
direction, you are making an exit to the left. It is an artistic feat
to make a good exit. It requires not only specialized training, but
also practical experience in front of an audience. It may be a vocal
exit, a dramatic or spoken exit, or a dancing exit, and one must reach
a decided climax at the exit. If the dance consists of eight steps,
properly spaced, the most effective steps are put in where they will
provoke applause. The last or finish step must get the most applause
or the dancer fails. So we put a climactic "trick" step in for a
finish, and then we top that with the exit, and the exit must be a
_surprise_. Otherwise, the dance has not built up from the time the
dancer makes an entrance and gets the attention of the audience. So
making an effective exit is really a difficult thing to do. You are
taught in the advanced instruction how to enter and exit properly.

One draws the applause on the eighth step by assuming a certain
attitude or by "striking a picture" which asks the audience for the
applause, and on the exit another round of applause can be earned, and
in this way the dance "gets over," or is "sold" to the audience, as we
say in the show business.

[Illustration: _Correct Standing Position_]

Now face the right, please. If you make an exit on that side you are
making an exit to the right. If you come on from that side (meaning if
you come in sight of the audience from that side) you are making an
entrance from the right.

The proper way to stand to learn my kind of stage dancing is with the
left toe pointed left oblique, and the right toe right oblique. Have
your knees together, heels together, with the weight equally
distributed between the feet, hands down at the side, arms relaxed,
heads up and direct your gaze straight ahead on a line with your eyes.

Never recognize anyone over the footlights. Always look straight front
on a line with the eyes. Never look at the floor when dancing unless
specifically so instructed. To look at the floor while dancing gives
an audience the impression that you have no confidence in yourself and
that you are laboring to perform your dance.

[Illustration: _Movements of Eyes Only_]

In dancing, the head and arms and upper part of the body (torso or
trunk) are as important as the feet and legs.

The eyes are the most expressive agent of the body.

Now, without turning your head, using your eyes only, look left
oblique, look front, look right oblique, front, look left oblique
down, look front, look left oblique up, look front, look right oblique
down, look right oblique up, look front.

Most of my instruction is based on the eight different directions
which you have been told about, and on the four different parts of the
foot, which you must also understand thoroughly. This makes it easy to
analyze any dancing steps that we teach.

These four different parts of the foot are:

1, the toe, or end of the shoe.
2, the ball of the foot (the half sole).
3, the heel.
4, the flat of the foot.

[Illustration: _The Four Different Parts of the Foot_]

Tapping the toe of the left foot to the floor makes the first count;
stamping the ball of the left foot, the second count; the heel of the
left, the third count; and the flat of the entire foot the fourth
count. These four different parts of the foot become an exercise by
counting 1, 2, 3, 4, with the left foot, and 5, 6, 7, 8, with the
right foot, beginning with the right toe on the count of 5. This
exercise if practiced faithfully will give flexibility to the muscles
and ligaments that control the entire foot, all of which are used in
musical comedy dancing, for the American tap, step and specialty work
(clogging), for social or ballroom dancing, for exhibition dancing,
as well as in the acrobatic dancing work, and for my Americanized
ballet training, including toe dancing.

Do this exercise first with the left foot, then with the right foot,
to the count of 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, and practice it often, till it
becomes a perfectly natural action. It is the basis of the best "bread
and butter" dancing steps, as you will discover in later lessons.

In doing this exercise, remember that in dropping the toe to the floor
it must be placed _straight_ back, and not left or right oblique back;
straight back from the "place" where you stand. The knees should be
kept together. When you stamp the ball of your foot, the feet are
directly opposite each other.

[Illustration: _The Development of a "Tap" Dancing Step_]

I want you to note that each of the four movements of this exercise
has a distinct sound. The dropping of the toe, the stamping of the
ball of the foot, of the heel, and of the flat foot, each creates a
separate and distinct sound. I have named these sounds "taps," and it
is the various combinations of these sounds that are used so
effectively in musical comedy dances, in tap, step, and American
specialty dancing (sometimes called clogging), as well as in some of
our choicest acrobatic dancing.

Some of our pupils are apt at tap and step dancing, others are more
apt at ballet dancing, musical comedy or acrobatic dancing. Some of
our young ladies take four classes a day; some take three; others two;
and still others but one class a day. In addition to this, there are
pupils, among them a great many young gentlemen, who take private
lessons in their chosen style of dancing every day while some only
take one private lesson a week.

Try to perfect yourselves as solo dancers. It is there that fame and
fortune await you. You may not appreciate it now, but when you have
mastered the Ned Wayburn courses, you will look back with satisfaction
and realize the wonderful opportunity my simple courses have afforded
you. There is no other school in the world that teaches the five basic
types of dancing in the same thorough, rapid manner and with the same
satisfactory results.

The student who has industriously performed the essential preliminary
work as I teach it has obtained a satisfactory mastery of the body,
and has a large range of movement at command; is now able to control
the source of movement and to relax opposing muscles so that the
movement may follow through; that is, may continue from its initiative
in any part of the body to the desired climax, without muscular
obstruction. The entire body is now ready and responsive to any call
upon it, and the act of dancing becomes a pleasure and a joy it
never was before, and never would have been but for the preliminary
work as I have arranged it for the making of beautiful and efficient
dancers.

[Illustration: VIVIENNE SEGAL]

The result is a harmony of rhythmical coördination that will echo far
beyond the dancing courses and into the various activities of one's
whole life.

The great freedom and abandonment of movement now acquired is not a
combination of erratic movements and gestures distributed at random.
The freedom gained is the result of perfect control, not in any degree
the result of unguided abandon. My dancers know how to work because
they are sure of themselves; the controlled individual is the free
individual.

But the dancer has gained more than mastery of movement. Valuable as
are strength and skill, even more so is the resultant balance and
soundness of the nervous system that directly results from such
rhythmical coördination, fitting one for meeting the complex and often
disturbing demands of life. Now, too, in the process of acquiring such
a splendid state of general physical well-being, the pupil has
absorbed and acquired some understanding of the power and the wonder
of a physical self, and will proudly treat this newly discovered self
with respect and consideration.

The mental gains as the result of this work have a right to
consideration, also. The handicap of self-consciousness is largely
overcome by the complete mastery of the movements of the body; the
mind becomes freed, the mental horizon enlarged, as the direct result
of body and nerve control.

The delight of free and expressive movement with a body that responds
joyously to the slightest impulse of thought and feeling, develops a
new resource of pleasure, and in perfection of bodily response is
found a new source of beauty with endless promise for the future.

If you begin the courses with the feeling, "make me a dancer if you
can," and act with indifference throughout the instruction that is
given for your benefit, you are doomed to failure. No one succeeds
unless they want to and work very hard.

You are here to prepare for an honorable calling, a beautiful,
respected and profitable profession, that when once you acquire will
remain at your disposal all your life. Most of our pupils recognize
this and sincerely strive, with our help, to perfect themselves
through incessant patient practice. We have no intention ever to let a
small minority of indifferent, "I don't care" pupils, hold back the
ambitious ones. Those who merit success shall have every opportunity
always.

You, no doubt have been to good shows, seen good dancing and
attractive posing and grouping, with rich scenery, proper lighting and
appropriate music, and have wished that you, too, might share in the
applause of the audience for your own merit as a dancer.

I want to help you become what so many others of my scholars have
become, the best in their line of endeavor.

I am enthusiastic about my part of the work, and ask and expect you to
be just as enthusiastic as I am. Really, you should have _more_
enthusiasm than I have, since it is _you_ who are to go before the
audiences and get the applause and the pay, and not me. Whether or not
you are enthusiastic about your work will show in your results. Your
degree of interest and improvement is recorded, so I know just what
you are accomplishing.

You must expect to get tired, really "tired out," in your earliest
lessons and practice. That is what has invariably happened to all
others before you, who are drawing down the fat salaries today. I
expect it, and should be surprised indeed if any student proved to be
an exception. In fact, if you do not tire, and perspire and pant after
an hour of working your every muscle in a set of movements new to
them, then you surely are not getting the benefit that the exercises
are intended to promote. Soreness during your first four or five
lessons is a sign of your having taken the lessons earnestly and
honestly and actively, as you should in your own interest. The
soreness will work out and be gone for good after a few lessons.
Please get sore! Then I know you are all right.

But do not overdo at any time, now or later, in class work, private
lessons, or home practice, and especially be careful while you are new
at the work, and the novelty of it tempts your ambition to keep on and
on. Alternate work and rest, strenuous toil and complete relaxation,
is the ideal way to build yourself into beauty and strength and
suppleness by my method, without danger of straining or injury.

In the classroom, if a pupil needs to sit and rest a bit occasionally
it is permitted. But do not let our consideration for your comfort
become an excuse for mere laziness! There are lazy girls as well as
lazy men in the world, I have heard, and it is barely possible that
one or two might decide to take my courses sometime. If they do, our
required work will give them inspiration, as well as perspiration, and
enable them to overcome an inclination to indolence that they must
master if they hope to succeed as dancers--or in any other vocation.

Let me encourage you by saying, what I know to be true, that you will
harden yourself in a few days' time so that the muscles of your body
will pleasantly respond to your demands without crying out loud when
called upon. Just keep at it. Don't get discouraged because it
wearies you on the start. If you could see our advanced pupils going
through their routines, and how easily they perform the same simple
exercises you are required to do in the beginning, their muscles
ready, trained and responsive, and every motion of their bodies a
pleasure to them and a satisfaction after patient practice, you would
be encouraged and would be able to smile at the few temporary
discomforts of a few sore muscles. But do not be too ambitious and
work to the point of exhaustion.

[Illustration: NW]

[Illustration: PAULETTE DUVAL AND NED WAYBURN PUPILS, FOLLIES OF
1923]




NED WAYBURN STAGE DANCES

[Illustration]


I have already named the five basic types of stage dancing taught in
my courses. In this chapter I shall describe them in detail in such a
manner that anyone can distinguish them from one another.

No doubt when you have seen dances of the new type executed on the
theatrical stage you may have been unable in some cases to correctly
classify them. That is not at all surprising, since the classification
is my own, as well as some of the steps themselves.

You have realized that so-and-so did a pleasing, pretty and
complicated dance, but what it is called, or if it is called at all,
you are unable to state. All my dances have names and are properly
classified, and what these are and to what distinct type they belong
is going to be spread before you here and now.

First let us consider the type that I have named American Specialty
Dancing, the one that is more truly and distinctively American than
any other type of dancing to be seen on any stage today.

This classification comprises every variety of tap and step dancing,
and also what is commonly known as "Legmania," the latter including
the high-kicking features, where the leg will execute front, back, and
side kicks, and other forms of the acrobatic type of dancing. Legmania
is not a possible development for every student of dancing, as nearly
every other form of the art is, but is available to the few who are
adapted to its exacting technique, which insures that this interesting
field will never grow too many blossoms, and that supply is not likely
to equal demand. I will mention Evelyn Law in "Legmania" and Ann
Pennington in "Tap and Step" dancing as "sample" stars from my studios
in this beautiful and lucrative type of dancing, though their dancing
limitations are by no means confined to this one branch of the art.

Tap and step dances are made up of a series of steps that involve
certain movements of the four parts of the foot as described in
another chapter; namely, the toe, the ball of the foot, the heel, and
the flat of the foot, which produce distinct rhythmic sounds or "taps"
as they separately strike the floor or stage.

Under the classification of tap and step dancing, we teach the buck
and wing dance, the waltz clog, the straight clog (which is like an
English clog or a Lancashier clog), jigs, reels, and the old form of
what we call step dancing, which was popular forty years ago in the
old "variety" days. They did the jigs, reels and clogs then, and these
different types of dancing modernized combine to make what we today
call the American Specialty type of dancing. My course in tap dancing,
for instance, includes beginners' "buck" and "soft-shoe" dances,
intermediate, advanced, semi-professional and professional "buck" and
"soft-shoe" dances. Of course, when you get into the semi-professional
"buck" and "soft-shoe" you will begin to get complicated "taps," and
you will get difficult triple-taps in professional "buck" dancing.

You are no doubt familiar in a general way with the Musical Comedy
type of dancing, which is really an exaggerated form of fancy dancing.
It includes the now popular but simpler "soft-shoe" dances, dainty,
soft, pretty movements with many effective attitudes of the body, all
sorts of "kicking" and "fancy" steps. As a matter of fact, this type
of dancing is perhaps the most difficult of all to define exactly,
because often musical comedy dances include a few tap steps and
sometimes simple ballet movements, or combinations, as we term them.
Our musical comedy dances are arranged in routines, or sequences of
not less than ten steps, including an entrance, eight steps to the
dance, and an exit movement. The entrance is a travelling step, a step
which gets you onto the stage; then comes the dance itself consisting
of eight steps; then the exit which must include a step which will
make a decided climax to the whole dance. I have already explained the
importance of making an effective exit. In a subsequent chapter, I
will describe more in detail a musical comedy routine.

Perhaps Acrobatic Dancing is the most difficult of all the types to
master--that is, it most certainly requires a degree of strength that
the other dances do not demand; sufficient strength in the arms to
support the weight of the body in the hand-stand and the cartwheel,
flexibility of the muscles in order to do the "limbers" and
back-bends. All of the acrobatic tricks--hand-stands, cartwheels,
splits, roll-overs, back-bends, front-overs, inside-outs, nip-ups,
"butterflies," flip-flops, Boranis, somersaults, etc., are very
difficult and require special adaptability and inexhaustible patience,
but almost any normal human being between the ages of four and thirty
can learn even the advanced tumbling tricks in time, but only by keen
application and persistent practice.

The fourth of the basic types of dancing is my Modern Americanized
Ballet, a most graceful type of dance which requires and developes
beauty and grace of motion of the head, the hands, the arms, the feet
and legs, of the whole body, in fact. This Americanized ballet is
subdivided into various types of dances--toe dancing, classical
dancing, character dancing, interpretive dancing, covering all kinds
of National and folk dancing. These have attention elsewhere in this
volume.

Exhibition dancing constitutes the fifth type, and is varied in its
possibilities. It is the kind you see exhibited by a dancing team in
public and private ballrooms and at social or club functions, and may
take the form of the exhibition fox trot, the exhibition one-step, the
tango, the exhibition waltz or the whirlwind dance. It is very pretty
and very profitable work for those who are adapted to its
interpretation. This type of dancing is not taught in classes in the
Ned Wayburn Studios, but is given special attention under qualified
private tutors, in private lessons, and has prepared some remarkable
dancers in this field. Two of the popular dances which I have
conceived and arranged and which have lately swept the world are the
ballroom "Charleston" dance and the exhibition "Charleston."

As my pupil you will discover in the course of your advancement that
you have a particular preference for one of these types of dancing, or
perhaps two, or three. Each person has his or her own personality, and
certain personalities are better suited to the Tap and Step style of
dancing than to the Ballet, for instance. But in order to meet the
competition in stage dancing in the future, you require a knowledge of
the five basic types, as outlined.

I cannot emphasize too strongly the importance of _personality_ in a
successful stage career. Along with the actual mastering of the
dancing steps and acquisition of health and a beautiful body, comes
just as surely the development of personality. And since each
individual has a distinct personality it is advisable for everyone to
select the type of dancing best suited to that personality. It is
because of this quality that the performance of stars like Evelyn Law,
Marilyn Miller, Ann Pennington, Gilda Gray and Fred and Adele Astaire
leaves a lasting impression. Every step, every movement is designed to
drive home the characteristics of their individuality. Even more
important than the actual dancing steps they do is the manner in which
they execute them--the individuality which gives expression to all
that they do. It is the almost indefinable factor called personality
which lifts one out of the ranks of the chorus and makes the solo
dancer. In this book I am trying to help you develop your personality,
in the way that I have discovered and developed the personalities of
so many of today's stars.

Most emphatically I want to impress upon you that it is not "chorus
work" that you learn in my courses. It is professional, individual
dancing, taught thoroughly and completely.

Anyone who masters the dances takes on a certain confident feeling in
time, after exercising great patience in practice. With this
confidence the happy pupil radiates a new magnetic personality which
the audience feels. But more about this later on, when you will learn
just how one's self is injected into the dances until they are
vitalized and made living exponents of a beautiful art.




NED WAYBURN'S FOUNDATION TECHNIQUE

[Illustration]


The human body is the instrument of the dancer, and must be as much
under the direct command of the dancer as the violin is at the command
of the musician. It must respond instantaneously and without effort to
every emotion and thought in the dancer's mind. To do this it is
obvious that the physical mechanism of the entire body must be
completely mastered and controlled.

The first stage of the work to achieve command of the human frame as a
dancing instrument is to bring about flexibility in all its parts and
obtain muscular guidance and control. This demands a special technique
that shall coördinate in harmonious functioning all parts of the body
by an unconscious effort of the mind.

[Illustration: CLASS IN DANCING FOUNDATION TECHNIQUE AT THE NED
WAYBURN STUDIOS.]

The foundation technique which I evolved for the Ned Wayburn courses
is a limbering and stretching process for the body, which precedes the
teaching of dancing steps, fitting all pupils properly with a basis, a
foundation for the important work to come. Without these exercises,
all of which are set to inspiring music, muscles employed in dancing
would remain taut or soft and not respond properly, the pupil would
quickly tire, and the attempt to dance become an unavailing effort.
With the limbering and stretching course, time is saved in
preparing the student for the lessons to come, and the time necessary
for the training and development of a dancer is much shortened from
the long apprenticeship that once prevailed under the old antiquated
Ballet technique. What is known as the Ned Wayburn method brings into
play all the bodily muscles that are essential to the dancer's use,
gives strength, suppleness and symmetry to the entire body. All forms
of outdoor exercise are valuable adjuncts to bodily health and
strength and beauty, but supplementing them the dancer must carry on
with just the foundation technique I have devised, in order to waken
and strengthen the dancing muscles, a result not brought about by even
the best of romping sports or one's other usual exercising.

In connection with correct diet, which has attention in later chapters
of this book, my methods of preliminary exercise will aid the
over-stout to reduce pleasantly and surely, and also enable the
under-developed to put on needed weight, in both cases the attendant
blessings of health, strength and symmetry following in due order.

My method induces perspiration, opens the pores, eliminates unhealthy
tissue, and at the same time supplies new tissue replete with health,
which is placed evenly over the entire body where nature wants it.

Do not let the words "limbering and stretching" mislead you. Perhaps
there may be words that describe the work better than these do. But my
idea in using these words is that flexibility, suppleness, grace and
freedom of movement are all covered by "limbering," while "stretching"
is intended to convey the idea of a proper fitting of the body and
limbs for the various forms of kicking that are absolutely essential
in modern stage dancing. Some people get the idea that stretching
exercises will lengthen the body or limbs. This is not so. Neither is
the result of any mechanical operation whatever. You bend your body
rhythmically, and by degrees acquire a proficiency that enables you to
"stretch" and "limber up" yourself to an extent that may surprise you.
No one was ever hurt by my exercises; you gradually limber and stretch
yourself! All who have taken the exercises and have practiced them as
directed have materially benefited. They bring health, graceful
figures and a fitness for learning dancing as nothing else does of
which I have knowledge. That is what these exercises are for, and just
what they do.

And another important fact in connection with my foundation technique
for dancers, it does _not_ bunch the muscles into unsightly shape; it
does _not_ make huge, knotty muscles in the arms and legs, as has long
been the case with certain Russian and Italian ballet methods. You
have no doubt seen ballet dancers with distorted bodies. The American
woman will not be content with any development that mars the
appearance of her figure, and she is right. You have seen the Ned
Wayburn trained girls on many a stage, and never yet saw one that was
not pleasing in figure, to put it mildly, and that is the way we
insist in developing them at the studio. Our pupils acquire agility
without angularity or unsightly protuberances anywhere. We take the
"raw material," child or adult, between four and forty, with or
without any former experience or training, proceed with them through
my foundation technique of limbering and stretching, and advance them
from there to courses in any of the various forms of dancing, with the
perfect assurance that they have the necessary basis of flexibility
and muscle control that will support them on their way to perfect
dancing success.

In conjunction with this work, all types of kicking steps are taught,
front kick, side kick, back kick, hitch kick, and the others. Since
strength for kicking comes from the abdominal muscles, a workout that
will especially exercise these muscles around the waist line is
essential, and a series of strengthening activities is given to this
end.

Imagine that you are in practice costume, one of a class of students
similarly dressed, standing in line on a padded rug in my Foundation
Technique studio. The instructor begins with the simple exercises, and
directs you through a number of them during an hour's lesson today,
repeating them briefly tomorrow and adding new ones to those you
learned yesterday, till soon you have progressed through the entire
list. The work is done rhythmically to music, and all exercises are in
eight counts. Each is repeated in measured time till the class masters
it, and the student is requested to practice the lessons at home
faithfully and earnestly, and the proficiency thus acquired is looked
for in the class work of the day after.

[Illustration: NW]

Here are a dozen of the Ned Wayburn series of Limbering and Stretching
exercises selected from my Foundation Technique:

[Illustration: EXERCISE 1.

_For limbering and stretching the triceps, and loosening the waist
line along the sides._]

Stand erect, head up, heels together, arms down at sides, raise right
arm straight up over the head. Bend body to left as far as you can,
sliding left hand down the thigh. Return to erect position, then with
left arm raised bend to right. Alternate left and right eight times to
count of "one, lean; two, lean," etc.

[Illustration: LOUISE GROODY]

[Illustration: EXERCISE 2.

_For loosening the dorsi and abdominal muscles, developing muscles of
chest and waist line._]

Stand erect, chin in, heels together, toes pointed out, raise left arm
straight over head, right arm down at side. Swing right hand up over
head also, and lean the body right oblique. Swing both arms down, then
up and lean left oblique. Do this for eight counts of "one, lean; two,
lean," etc.

[Illustration: EXERCISE 3.

_For limbering muscles of the back, biceps of the legs, developing
abdominal muscles and reducing waist line._]

(Forward bend.) Raise both arms straight over head the width of the
shoulders apart, heels together, knees stiff. Bend forward and touch
the floor with the palms of both hands, if you can, if you cannot,
then with the ends of the fingers. Raise arms again over head and lean
back as far as you can. Count "one, touch; two, lean," etc., to a
count of eight.

[Illustration: EXERCISE 4.

_For making the waist line flexible. It limbers the muscles of the
thighs and back._]

Stand erect, both hands above head, arms stiff. Keep hands in this
position throughout, step left foot straight forward, bend the body
back as far as you can. Then body erect and left foot returned to
position. Step right foot front, bend back again. Alternate with each
foot for eight counts: "left, lean, straight, in; right, lean,
straight, in," etc.

EXERCISE 5.

_To strengthen calves and ankles._

Stand erect, knees stiff, heels together, hands on hips. Rise on the
toes; down, up, down, etc., for 48 counts.

[Illustration: EXERCISE 6.

_For limbering the back and the waist line._]

Kneel, knees about eight inches apart, trunk erect. Extend arms
horizontally in front to count "one." On count of "two" raise the
hands above the head, shoulder-width apart and lean back. Keep arms
stiff. On count of "and," trunk again erect and arms extended front.
On count of "three," hands over head and lean back. Repeat for eight
counts.

[Illustration: EXERCISE 7.

_To strengthen the biceps and triceps of the arm._]

From kneeling position of Exercise 6, lie flat on the stomach, palms
on floor alongside the hips, elbows up, to count of "one." On count
"two," raise the body, straightening arms, supporting body on hands
and toes. Lower body to floor on count "three." Alternate raising and
lowering body for sixteen counts.

EXERCISE 8.

_For limbering and stretching the abdominal muscles._

Stand erect, heels together, chin in, chest out, step right foot
forward, bend body front, place both hands flat on floor (foot-race
starting position). Jump, bringing right foot back and left foot
forward at the same time. Jump, bringing left foot back and right foot
forward. Right, left, right, left, for sixteen counts.

[Illustration]

[Illustration: EXERCISE 9.

_To develop the front of the thighs and the biceps._]

Stand erect, feet fifteen inches apart. Raise arms straight above the
head, shoulder-width apart. Keep toes and heels flat on the floor.
Squat down, lowering arms as you do so until they are horizontally
straight in front of you. Rise to erect position, raising arms at the
same time above the head. Keep arms stiff. Down, up, down, up, for
sixteen counts.

[Illustration: PARTIAL VIEW OF DEMI-TASSE THEATRE, NED WAYBURN
STUDIOS]

[Illustration: EXERCISE 10.

_To strengthen the lower abdominal muscles._]

Lie flat on your back, arms at sides, palms on floor. Keep knees stiff
and together and toes pointed. Raise both feet so that toes point to
ceiling. Count "one"; lower the feet to the floor. Count "two"; (do
not hit the floor hard in lowering the feet). Count "one, down; two,
down;" etc., to eight.

[Illustration: EXERCISE 11.

_To strengthen the upper abdominal muscles and the diaphragm._]

You are lying on your back. On count "one," sit up, bend forward,
touch your toes with your hands and place your head against your
knees. Count "touch." On count "two," bring your trunk erect, arms
straight overhead. On count of "down" you are again lying on your
back. Count "one, touch, two, down, three, touch, four, down," etc.,
to "eight, down."

[Illustration: EXERCISE 12.

_To strengthen the thighs and biceps._]

Stand erect, heels together. Raise arms horizontally to the sides.
Bend the knees and assume a squatting position. Rise to erect
position. Count "down, up, down, up," etc., eight times.

* * * * *

There are more than thirty different exercises given in the Ned
Wayburn courses in this work. If you desire a complete list, address
an inquiry to the Ned Wayburn Studios of Stage Dancing, Inc., 1841
Broadway (at Columbus Circle) entrance on 60th St., New York, for
prospectus of the New Ned Wayburn Home Study Courses in Dancing.




MR. WAYBURN ADDRESSES THE BEGINNER'S CLASS IN FOUNDATION TECHNIQUE


You are starting on a course of not less than twenty lessons and
exercises in my Foundation Technique for dancing, which is a feature
exclusive to this studio, known as the Ned Wayburn Limbering and
Stretching process for the human body.

This is one of the most important things that ever came into your
life. It is at once a necessary foundation upon which to build the
perfect dancer and an unequaled system of cultural exercises for the
correction of certain physical ills in those who have no expectation
of pursuing a professional career.

[Illustration]

Primarily I originated this series of exercises to make good dancers
quickly. There was nothing of the kind in existence that would do the
work I wanted done, so I carefully thought it out myself, and finally
developed the complete plan. Some of it will be taught you here. It
has proven to be all I anticipated,--a method of preparing the muscles
and ligaments to respond instantly to the dancer's call upon them for
precise action. It is the object of this series of exercises to
eliminate fatigue, create sturdy yet symmetrical and flexible frames
and increase the health, grace and beauty of the participant. It is,
therefore, no wonder that others than those who expect to enter upon a
stage career have sought these exercises for their own improvement in
personal appearance and physical well-being.

Now all please stand in line around the room, stand quietly and
without leaning against the wall. Stand shoulder to shoulder, hands
down at sides, heels together, feet flat down, toes pointing left
oblique and right oblique; the weight equally distributed between the
two feet. Hold your chin high and look straight ahead on a line with
your eyes.

I organize the class by first arranging the pupils according to their
height. There is a reason for this. If you are five feet tall and
stand next to a girl who is five feet eleven, you at once become
conscious of your size. It is to avoid this handicap of
self-consciousness that I grade you by height.

You are now in line as to heights. Please each of you stand in front
of a chair, one pupil to a chair, and number from "one" at the left
end. Number thirteen will be called twelve and a half. Speak out your
individual number loud and clear. This number you are given is your
personal, distinctive number during the life of this class and is
never changed. The number of this class is 501. As you call your
number out loud please be seated in the chair back of you, and while
the stenographer takes your names and the instructor collects your
weekly tickets I will say a few words.

I expect you to arrive promptly in the classroom, and request that you
time your arrival so as to be here in the studio at least fifteen
minutes before class time, so as to be in your practice costume and
ready for the call to class right on the hour set.

We have to observe discipline in all your work in the courses,
otherwise nothing would be accomplished. We have printed rules posted
in the office and elsewhere, and expect you to read and observe them.

Please do not talk at all during class work. It interrupts the work
seriously. You have all been to school before and know that silence is
one of the important rules of every school. This one is no exception.

Now, the first thing to do is to have your ticket ready. You must have
your name signed on the ticket, where it says "Signature of pupil."
Turn the ticket over and read it through on both sides. Remember your
class number and your individual number in the class. The success of
our school depends largely upon the way the classes are organized and
thereafter dominated. Much of the success of the work depends upon the
lectures you hear in the classes. They are in the form of
inspirational talks based on different subjects. You are required to
read all of our literature. Get and read the booklet entitled "Your
Career." Every month we issue a school paper, "The Ned Wayburn News,"
which tells of the activities of pupils of the school who are now
appearing in New York, or out on the road, and which has many
interesting articles and information monthly for students of the
dance. Please get a copy and read all of our literature--because it
gives you an idea of what the school and its present and graduate
pupils are accomplishing.

It is a well established rule of the studio that pupils shall weigh
themselves every Monday and keep a record of their weight from week to
week. For this purpose use the scales in the main office of the
studio, please. They are accurate. We have them tested and adjusted at
intervals to be sure that they are right. You are requested and
expected to come into my private office and talk with me once a week,
and when you do so I shall ask you about your weight, and you must be
prepared to tell me. I know just how much you ought to weigh, and am
interested in hearing whether you are gaining or losing flesh in the
proportion that you should. At the end of the four weeks' period I
shall ask each of you individually in the class about the variation in
your weights, and I am then able to tell who is faithfully following
my instructions as to practice, diet, hours of sleep and the other
simple and necessary requirements of our courses. For I know that if
my regime is observed as I request that it be, you will show it, and
if you neglect to follow my advice you will not have made the progress
you should, and will show that. You cannot disguise the real facts
from me.

I do not want any of you to overexert at these limbering and
stretching exercises. They are scientifically constructed to do for
you what no other known cultural movements of this kind will do. At
first they will tire you, leave you "all in," I have no doubt. I
expect that. You see, in these exercises you are putting into play a
lot of muscles that have been lying dormant, perhaps never been used
in the way you will use them in this class as preparation for health,
comeliness and dancing strength. You need to use these muscles. It is
to stir them up and make you strong, and at the same time supple and
shapely, that I have devised this series of exercises. It was not made
by guess, this plan of developing and conditioning, but as the result
of years of study and proof.

These exercises will make you feel perfectly wonderful after a while.
Nothing else will do you as much good. But do not, please, expect the
perfected results to show in a day or two. It cannot be done so
quickly. You have been several years getting the way you are, and if
you can improve greatly in a few months you must consider yourself
fortunate.

[Illustration: CONDITIONING CLASS AT THE NED WAYBURN STUDIOS.]

Let me say, as a word of caution, that if you have any organic
trouble, or have been weakened by a serious operation or recent
illness, I wish you would report the facts to your class instructor
or to me before you take on this work. In any event, don't overdo at
any time, neither here nor in your home practice. If you find it
necessary, stop at any time and sit down in your chair a few minutes
till you get your breath. But don't stay out of class tomorrow because
you find your muscles are tired. Every other student's muscles will be
sore tomorrow, as well as yours. If you remain absent you will be much
slower in getting those sore muscles feeling right than if you come
into class and work the soreness out.

If you are absent you may miss something you will want to know. There
is something new taught every day--or there may be a special lecture
which you cannot afford to miss.

I hope you are going to be patient. I hope you are not going to say:
"This is too much for me!" No matter how tired you are this work will
do you more good than any medicines. You are not to take medicines
without telling me about it. You are not to eat between meals; you are
not to take any liquids with your meals. Masticate your food
carefully. Don't bolt your meals in a hurry. Take time to eat
properly. Don't sleep more than eight hours. Don't dance half the
night away. You must look out for your health while you are training.
Some of you are underweight, because you are not properly regulated so
far as your meals and living is concerned. You are eating things you
should not eat. Others are eating in such a hurry that the food is not
properly assimilated by the body. You should drink not less than
forty-five ounces of water a day. That is about nine glasses. You
should drink a glass of water before and after each meal, NOT during
your meals--one about eleven o'clock in the morning, another about
four o'clock in the afternoon, and one just before you go to bed at
night. NOT ice water. Water not only flushes the system but it
induces perspiration. And you must perspire freely in all of our work
because you get rid of many impurities through the pores. I reduced my
own weight, by diet, exercise, and dancing, from 262 pounds to 207
pounds. But you have got to be very patient in reducing or building
up. If you take off or put on a pound a week you will be doing very
well. But let me regulate that, please. Sometimes pupils who are
underweight when they first come here begin to lose weight, and they
get worried about it. But you shouldn't worry. That means that you are
losing unhealthy tissue, which will be replaced in time by healthy
muscular tissue. That doesn't mean that you will get big knots of
muscle on your arms and legs, such as you see in pictures in some of
the magazines. The new tissue will be evenly distributed over the
body. It is my business to manufacture symmetrical bodies. I have
manufactured hundreds of celebrated beauties since I began my
theatrical career, sometimes through facial makeup, sometimes through
exercises and diet, but always with dancing as the chief feature in
health and beauty culture.

There is a reason why this school has grown to its present
proportions. It is because I have made a thorough study of anatomy and
know how to make human bodies healthy and beautiful. I could tell you
a very interesting story of Clan Calla, a little Irish princess who
came to me with curvature of the spine to see if I could help her. She
was very weak and hardly able to walk; they had to carry her to the
studios from the subway. Now she is strong and well and dances
beautifully.

Don't try to reduce too fast. I had two friends who died as a result
of reducing with medicine. They took some sort of baths for reducing,
and some kind of medicine to shrink themselves. That is why I became
interested in reducing and began to practice on myself.

Now make up your minds to make this class a success. Don't make it
necessary for your instructor to have to address any one of you
personally. When your instructor gives an order execute it at once.
Always get into your places promptly. Don't forget that you are going
to be lame--but you must work it out.

You will begin with mild calisthenics--then, later on, you will learn
several kinds of kicks--the side kick, the front kick, the hitch kick,
etc. But before you can kick, you must have the strength necessary for
kicking. You must practice the exercises in order to get this
strength.

Now you are organized and you can accomplish real work. If there are
any questions you would like to ask me, come to my private office at
the end of the hall on the second floor--Broadway front. You will
progress according to the way you practice. You must put in hours of
faithful practice. If you take one hour of instruction a day at the
studio, you should practice three hours a day at home. If you can
possibly do so, always go through your Foundation Technique when you
first get up in the morning. The lesson itself is not enough. Faithful
practice means success, and without practice you won't succeed at all,
and you won't get your weight off or you won't build up. Three times
the length of a lesson is my rule for practice. Some practice from
three to eight hours a day so as to gain dancing strength. You must
have a lot of flexibility in order to dance in a professional manner.

Get the habit of deep breathing. Gradually you will increase your
breathing capacity and deep breathing makes good blood. The oxygen you
take into your lungs goes through the blood and takes off the
impurities in the blood, and oxygen is necessary in properly
assimilating your food.

Don't let anybody else advise you about diets. If a doctor has put you
on a diet, let me know about it. My diets won't do you any good unless
you are taking the limbering and stretching work along with them. You
will enjoy them; you do not have to starve yourself.

Another thing let me warn you about! Don't bring or wear valuable
jewelry to the studios. All of our employees are trustworthy, and
besides, we investigate the pupils who come into our studios. We know
all about them. If the wrong kind of person does get in, he or she
doesn't stay more than an hour or two. We also have detectives in the
classes. But don't take any chances. Don't bring valuable things into
the place. Do not leave pocket-books in the dressing rooms; bring them
into the class room.

We keep a strict record of the attendance and the progress of each
individual pupil. We insist that you have the best that money can
provide for you. If anything should happen at any time to which you
could take exception, I hope you will report it to me. Our policy of
giving you the very best to be had has appealed to a world of
ambitious youth.

Be careful about giving advice to other girls. I don't want anybody in
this class to presume to give advice to anybody else in the class.
Many times a girl comes here to the school from clear across the
continent. She comes with great hopes and aspirations, ready to work
hard, and with all the enthusiasm in the world. Then, some girl in her
class may tell her that she doesn't dance well--and her hopes will be
shattered and she will become discouraged. Now none of you has any
business to give advice or criticize other members of the class. If
you can learn stage dancing anywhere, you can learn it in the Ned
Wayburn Studios. Persistent practice will do wonders. Remember all I
have said about this, and keep smiling.




NED WAYBURN'S MUSICAL COMEDY DANCING

[Illustration]


This is one of the most useful as well as attractive types of stage
dancing, and appeals strongly to all aspirants for theatrical honors
and emoluments. I say "useful," for the reason that Musical Comedy
dancing as I teach it supplies dancers with a repertoire of fancy
steps and neat dance routines that should enable them to sell their
services in the best theatrical markets of the world, which seems to
me to be a pretty "useful" sort of a property for one to have in their
permanent possession. If I here repeat that frequent practice on the
part of the student is necessary for the correct acquirement of
Musical Comedy dancing, I am merely stating what is right and
necessary that all should understand who desire to make their services
in this line of endeavor available for public approval and a
corresponding cash return. And this applies to every other kind of
dancing as well.

Now you may think that you know just what Musical Comedy Dancing is,
and perhaps you do, but the name of it hardly defines it so that it
would be recognized for exactly what it is by one not thoroughly
stage-wise. You see a pleasing ensemble or solo dance at some revue
or musical show and, without seeking or desiring to classify this
dance as this, that or the other kind, you are satisfied to realize in
your inner consciousness that it is a pretty movement and well worth
seeing. So exact is the execution that it arouses your wonder how the
dancers ever manage to get so many intricate steps and rapid motions
and pretty flings of their heels into a united and harmonious picture;
all working in perfect unison, to a pleasing tempo, smiling the while
and doing it all as a mere matter of course, with seeming unconcern,
just as though the steps and kicks and posing and grouping were second
nature to them all.

That is a Musical Comedy dance, and instead of growing on bushes to be
gathered by every careless hand, it is actually the result of studious
endeavor and persistent drilling on the part of the participants, and
of careful and conscientious training by competent dancing
instructors. It is well done and gratifying to the spectator because
it is the finished product of qualified teaching, earnest endeavor,
tireless energy, practice, rehearsing. Remember this, the next time
you attend a show where dancing is a feature, and accord the dancers
the credit that is their due.

True Musical Comedy dancing is in reality an exaggerated form of what
was formerly styled "fancy dancing." It is a cross between the ballet
and the Ned Wayburn type of tap and step or American specialty
dancing. It combines pretty attitudes, poses, pirouettes and the
several different types of kicking steps that are now so popular.
Soft-shoe steps break into it here and there in unexpected ways and
places, adding a pleasing variety to the menu. The tempo enhances and
harmonizes the scene and the action. There is no monotony, no tiresome
sameness; yet the varying forms of action blend into a perfect
continuity. The dance is full of happy surprise steps, perhaps, or
unexpected climaxes and variations that arouse the interest as they
quickly flash by.

Often there is featured in Musical Comedy dancing a bit of so called
"character" work, which may be anything--Bowery, Spanish, Dutch,
eccentric, Hawaiian, or any of the countless other characteristic
types. Also there are touches of dainty ballet work interspersed among
the other features, at times. Yet to accomplish the ballet effects or
the character representations exacts of the dancer no special
development along strictly ballet or classical lines, when she obtains
her Musical Comedy training here, for these features are given the
required attention as part of the regular course in fitting the
student for this branch of the stage dancing art, and thus our Musical
Comedy graduates are qualified for all the variations of effort that
naturally come under that head.

My foundation technique is a prime factor in the successful
accomplishment of any type of dancing, and the scientific limbering
and stretching exercises that constitute that work are indispensable
in perfecting the pupil to handle every phase of the varied demands in
Musical Comedy dancing. Hence my insistence that our foundation
technique precede the entrance of the pupil into the classes of this
or any of the other various types of stage dancing that we teach.

[Illustration: FRED AND ADELE ASTAIRE]

Two of my most famous pupils in Musical Comedy dancing are Fred and
Adele Astaire, brother and sister. They came to me to study from
Omaha, Nebraska, as little tots of about six and seven years of age.
Adele was always fond of coming to her classes; but Fred says that he
just "followed on" through brotherly association rather than from any
preconceived ambition to become a professional dancer. Then, through
reverses of family fortunes, the time came when they felt that they
should be supporting themselves. They continued to study under me, and
I was very happy to be able to place them in vaudeville in a singing
and dancing act, which I had prepared for them. This started them on
their career, which has led them to Europe and back again. They have
appeared in "Over the Top," "The Passing Show of 1918," "Apple
Blossoms," and in "The Love Letter." They then scored a sensational
success in London in "Stop Flirting" (575 performances). Now they are
starring in "Lady, Be Good," on tour after a long run in New York.

In this chapter I shall now describe in detail 32 bars of a simple
musical comedy dance, a "soft shoe" routine, as we call it, to give
you some understanding of how modern stage dances are developed at the
Ned Wayburn Studios.

[Illustration: NW]

MUSICAL COMEDY ROUTINE--4/4 TEMPO

Tune: "Way Down Upon the Swanee River."

The dancer enters from stage left.

Step right foot to right oblique on count of "one." Step left foot
behind to right oblique back on count of "two"; step right foot around
behind the left on count of "and"; step left foot to right oblique on
count of "three"; repeat same for "four," "five," "and," "six." Step
right foot to right oblique, count of "seven"; drag left foot in air
behind to right oblique and slap left heel with right hand on count of
"eight."

Step left foot to left on count of "one"; drag right foot in air
behind to left oblique and slap right heel with left hand on count of
"two"; step right foot to right on count of "three" and drag left foot
across in front in air on count of "four"; step left foot to left
facing left, count of "five"; right foot front small step on count
"and;" step left foot back facing back, count of "six;" right foot to
left, small step on "and." Left foot to right facing right, count of
"seven"; right foot to back, small step on "and." Left foot to front
facing front, count of "eight." Now repeat entire movement.

These two movements should take the dancer to the centre of the stage;
done in eight measures of 4/4 time.

Step right foot to right oblique count of "one"; hop on it in same
place with left foot in air behind to left oblique back, count "two";
step down to left oblique back with left foot on count of "three"; hop
on left foot, extend right foot in air right oblique on count "four";
step right foot back behind left foot on count "five"; step left foot
to left oblique back, count "six"; step right foot across to left
oblique, count "seven"; hop on right foot, extend left foot in air
right oblique back, count of "eight." Now reverse this entire movement
to other side. These two steps are done in four measures of 4/4 tempo
in the centre of the stage.

Step right foot to right, count "one"; step left foot behind to right
oblique back, count "and"; step right foot down in same place, count
"two." Reverse to left for count of "three," "and," "four"; then step
right foot to right, count "five"; step left foot in front to right,
turning and facing up stage, count "six"; step right foot around stage
front to right, turning front again, count "seven"; drag left foot
across in front of right to right, count of "eight." Reverse this
entire step to other side. These two steps are done in four measures
of 4/4 tempo in centre of the stage.

This finishes the first half of the chorus, or 16 measures.

Facing left oblique, drag right foot from left oblique to right
oblique back, count of "and"; hop on left foot in same place, count of
"one"; drag right foot from right oblique back to left oblique, count
"and"; hop on left foot same place, count of "two"; drag right foot
from left oblique to right oblique back, count "and"; hop left foot
same place, count of "three"; displace left foot with right foot from
right oblique back, left foot extending to left oblique, all on count
of "four." Hop on right foot same place, count "and;" step left foot
to left oblique, count "five"; step right foot across in front to left
oblique, count "six"; hop on right foot same place, count of "and";
step left foot to left oblique, count of "seven"; hop on left foot
same place, and turn, kick right foot to right oblique, count "eight."

Going up stage right oblique back facing right oblique, step right
foot back to right oblique back, count "one"; step left foot to right
foot, count of "and"; step right foot to right oblique back, count
"two"; step left foot to right foot, count of "and"; step right foot
to back, facing back, count "three"; hop on right foot turning right
to face front on count "four." Step left foot to left oblique on
"five"; step right foot to left foot on "and"; step left foot to left
oblique on "six"; step right foot to left foot on "and"; step left
foot to left oblique on "seven"; hop on left foot and kick right foot
to right oblique on "eight." Reverse all of these steps. These are
done in eight measures of 4/4 tempo in the centre of the stage.

Step left foot to left oblique, count "one"; step right foot behind to
left, bend left knee, count "two"; hop on right foot and kick left to
left oblique, count "three"; swing left foot back to right oblique
back on "four"; bring right foot around behind left on count "and";
step left foot to front, count "five"; step right foot back to left
on "six"; bring left foot around behind right on count "and"; step
right foot to front on count of "seven"; step left foot to left
oblique on count "eight."

[Illustration: CECIL LEAN]

Step right foot to right on count "one"; swing left foot up stage and
step to back on "and"; right foot straight in place, facing up stage,
count "two"; step left foot to stage right on count "three"; facing
right swing right foot to right, count "and"; step left foot straight
in place, count "four"; now facing front, having made complete left
back turn. Now step right foot to right oblique back, count "five";
step left foot to right oblique back behind right foot, count "and";
straight with right foot in place, count "six"; step left to left
oblique back, count "seven"; step right foot to left oblique back
behind left foot, count "and"; straight with left foot in place, count
"eight." Reverse these steps.

These steps are done in eight measures of 4/4 tempo, in the center of
the stage.

This completes the first chorus, or 32 measures.

[Illustration: NW]




MR. WAYBURN ADDRESSES A CLASS IN MUSICAL COMEDY DANCING

[Illustration: NW]


In Musical Comedy dancing it is necessary that you should have control
of every muscle in the body in order to do the work effectively. If
you have not that control you are going to fail to get the steps. That
is the reason for the limbering and stretching work of our foundation
technique, a necessary preliminary for all who enter this class. Our
foundation process will give you the mastery of the muscles of the
feet, the upper leg, the lower leg and your whole body, without which
you will never be able to learn this type of dancing. It requires
concentration, patience, incessant practice, on your part, but you
soon see the good results of your efforts in the strengthening and
flexibility of all your muscles.

This class is organized for a period of not less than twenty lessons,
during which time you will have the satisfaction of acquiring four
complete routines. Each routine consists of not less than ten steps.
Some have more, but the average routine consists of ten steps, one to
bring you onto the stage, which is called a travelling step, eight
steps in the dance proper, usually set to about 64 bars of music, or
the length of two (2) choruses of a popular song, and an exit step,
which is a special step designed to form a climax to the dance and
provoke applause as you go off stage. Now, there may be two travelling
steps to bring you onto the stage instead of one, depending upon the
arrangement of the routine, but you will be taught about two steps
every lesson, in the beginners' courses, so that at the end of each
week, or five lessons, you will have learned one complete routine.

You must learn to throw your personality into the dances. And when you
get further along in the dances you can begin to work your facial
expressions into your dancing. There are many things to learn about
dancing besides the steps, and you will do well to improve your
opportunities in every way you can while you are preparing for a stage
career. Go to see as many expert professional dancers as you
can--study them--and absorb all you can about stage dancing from the
"Ned Wayburn News" and other dance magazines.

This course teaches complete professional routines such as you would
do on the stage, and may be used as solo dances. "Routine" is a
professional term for musical comedy or any kind of a stage dance. It
is a sequence of steps. Routines are arranged so that they will
provoke applause. Maybe the fourth or the eighth step will be
"climactic" steps, especially arranged to make a climax in the dance
and win applause. In different routines, the climax you will find
comes on different steps, depending upon the arrangement of the
routine. In order to put over a climax you must throw your personality
into it.

Exits as well as entrances are difficult of successful accomplishment.
It takes a great artist to make an effective exit. The exit should
always be made with the face toward the audience (unless there is some
special reason why the back is turned), so that the audience gets the
full effect of your facial expression.

All the dances in my courses are taught in a professional way. That
does not mean, of course, that you have to go on the professional
stage. Many girls and boys study with me who have no intention of
ever going on the stage. They do so because they know that my
limbering and stretching work and my type of dancing will make them
healthy, flexible and graceful, but nevertheless they are all taught
in a professional stage way, which is the only successful method.

My stage dancing is the type of dancing that gets over with an
audience. The old folk dances and the old-fashioned fancy dances no
longer appeal to the interest. But I teach the kind of dancing that is
in demand. If you should appear in any kind of entertainment for
charity or any private theatrical performances, you can make use of my
really professional stage dances; and since you are properly taught,
you will make a success, providing you profit by expert advice and
devote ample time to practice every day.

One reason that we get such good results in our school is on account
of the way in which we organize and conduct our classes. Everybody
must conform to discipline. You certainly will get discipline if you
go on the stage.

Everybody should get a copy of our booklet, "Your Career", if you
haven't already done so, and read it through from cover to cover. (A
copy will be sent free on request.) Read the call-board outside in the
office. In the professional theatre the call-board is usually placed
near the stage door. Anything of interest to the company is posted on
the call-board. Pupils in my courses are required to read the
call-board because in reading the call-board, the booklet and the
other literature that we get out, you will absorb a lot in the way of
showmanship and stage-craft. Any one of you, after taking my course,
should make a success on the stage because you will know how to dance
in a professional way. You will know how to sell your dancing.
Specialized training is very necessary in order to get a foothold,
and the rewards are enormous for those pupils who do get over. Make an
effort to acquire an easy presence. This you must get by appearing
before an audience. Now, I represent your audience. I come in to visit
your class in order to make constructive criticism, and to watch your
physical progress. Whenever any of our pupils are appearing in the
city theatres you should go and see them, because from their work you
will get inspiration, and you _must_ have inspiration. Without it you
can't do anything; you won't get any benefit out of the work at all.
You must concentrate on the work and enjoy it. Only through patient
practice will you ever make a success of it. Some girls come into the
musical comedy work and are inclined to take it lightly. They don't
practice enough. Or perhaps they get discouraged if they miss one step
and can't seem to get it at first. You must be enthusiastic about your
work if you are going to succeed.

[Illustration: SCENE FROM "NED WAYBURN'S SYMPHONIC JAZZ REVUE"]

I want to tell you about a group of my girls who recently started out
on their professional work. They were in the Ned Wayburn "Symphonic
Jazz Revue," which was arranged by my producing department for the
Middle Western Moving Picture Theatres. These girls had all been
around the Studios for about six months, practicing and working hard,
and this was the first experience for most of them. They were a
wonderful bunch of girls, mentally and morally. Four of the girls had
their mothers with them as chaperones. One of them saved $275.00 in 24
weeks out of a salary of $50.00 per week.

Ned Wayburn's "Honeymoon Cruise" is made up of pupils from the Studio,
also, and has made a great success. They are girls and boys of good
breeding, personality and good minds.

I want you to come to me and advise with me about what you are going
to do with yourself. Let me be the one to guide you, please. Don't
listen to any girl you may meet in classes. You will learn to like
some girl in the class very much and you will become great friends.
All of a sudden she gets an idea about a professional engagement and
she drags you along with her, and you both think you are ready to
start in and do something big. But there is a right way and a wrong
way to go about getting started, and you must start with the right
manager for the sake of your whole future success. Remember that I am
always glad to talk with you and to help you about engagements when
you are ready, but you must prove your ability first.

No girl or boy can get an endorsement from me who misses a lesson
without offering a plausible excuse. You must be regular in attendance
and you must be punctual. If you miss a class you are obliged to
telephone in before the class starts. If you are ill you must bring a
doctor's certificate the next time you come to class. Your excuses
must be sent to me personally. If you telephone in, be sure that it is
sent through to me. I keep track of all the past pupils, and I do not
recommend pupils who have not worked faithfully or who have been
irregular in attendance.

There is a great incentive in class work, since you can get
encouragement and inspiration from the other girls. Some girls in the
class will take to the work more easily than others because they are
in better physical condition, but if a girl gets along faster and
better than you do, don't be discouraged by it. Just let it make you
more ambitious to do as well. Your time will come if you keep at it.
Do not try to practice in this room. This is a place to learn.
Practice your lesson, go over the exercises, at home, several hours a
day or use the practice rooms we provide. Don't be satisfied to come
into class and try to perfect your routines there. It isn't possible.

When you go on the stage professionally you will be expected to be
already fully informed as to certain necessary facts that concern all
actors everywhere. Much information about showmanship is given in our
makeup classes. You must take lessons in makeup before you go on the
stage. You will do well to practice the same things here in the
studio, now and all the time, in order to make you stage-wise and
perfect in necessary stage deportment.

One of the things required of you on the stage is to _stand still_.
Don't move about or turn your head or lop around or move your hands or
feet. You will have a fixed position established at rehearsals, when
you enter upon professional stage work, and if you do not hold it and
observe the rules about standing still, you will not be wanted and
will not last long. It seems a very simple thing to do, when you think
of it, but unless you do it right _here_, while you are learning the
basic facts about a stage career, you may fall down on it _there_.
Heed this advice, and you will be grateful to me for it sometime.

If you are on the stage and someone is playing a scene, and your head
is going from side to side, you attract the attention of the audience
from the actor to yourself. When you do it here you take the attention
of the class away from me, and you also take my attention away from
the class, and if one or all of you do a "go as you please" about your
movements, your talking and your attitudes in class, we have a
pandemonium here that will drive your teacher frantic and prevent you
from getting the instruction that you are paying for.

In this studio we insist upon and enforce discipline, just as your
stage director will do when you join some company. It is good for you
to get the disciplinary practice now that you must expect to receive
when you pass from here to a regular stage. Those of you who really
mean business and are going to succeed do pay attention to the studio
discipline, always.

[Illustration: NW]

[Illustration: ANN PENNINGTON]




NED WAYBURN'S TAP AND STEP DANCING

SOMETIMES CALLED CLOGGING

[Illustration]


You will remember that in a preceding chapter I said that Tap and Step
dances were those composed chiefly of motions of the feet which
resulted in combinations of various sounds made by different parts of
the foot tapping or beating the floor, these sounds or beats being
called "taps." This type of dancing expresses the American syncopated
rhythms. It was the most popular type of stage dancing about forty
years ago, when it was most beautifully performed by the greatest
American dancing stars like the late George H. Primrose, the famous
American minstrel.

Buck-dancing is done to syncopated rhythms, and you must get the right
accent on those syncopated beats or taps or you cannot get the knack
of doing a buck dance properly. So it is most important that you
practice over and over again the four kinds of "taps" and "hops" which
I shall describe now. First of all, stand in an imaginary circle the
diameter of your feet, with your heels together, your right toe
pointed right oblique and your left toe pointed left oblique, your
weight equally distributed between the two feet, as described in a
previous chapter.

Every dancing step is in counts of eight. Remember that all of your
counts begin with the left foot unless you are instructed to the
contrary. Remember always, when you hop, to land with the knees bent;
otherwise, the landing of the body with stiff legs after the hops will
be a shock to the nervous system which in time will undermine your
health.

[Illustration: _Straight Tap_]

The first tap is called a "straight" tap. Put your weight on the whole
right foot. The left foot should be held about one inch from the
floor. Tap the floor with the ball of the left foot for seven counts,
working the foot on a hinge from the ankle, keeping your feet directly
opposite and inside the circle or place. On the eighth count put the
flat of the left foot down on the floor, shifting your weight to the
left foot. Now in doing these straight taps count: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6,
7, flat. And when you say "flat" you shift your weight to the left
foot by putting it flat on the floor. Then comes the same with the
right foot--seven taps with the ball of the right foot and "flat" on
the eighth count. Now do the sixteen counts, first with the left, then
with the right. Thus: (left) 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, flat; then (right)
1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, flat.

[Illustration: _Front Tap_]

The next tap is a "front" tap. The front tap goes front--it gets its
name from the direction it takes. Swing the lower leg (from the knee
down) like a pendulum. The tap is made with the inside edge of the
sole of the shoe, striking the floor as the foot goes front only,
clearing the floor as it goes back, the back swing being made to the
count of "and." Put the accent on the number as you say it out loud.
"_Front_-and," "_2_-and," "_3_-and," "_4_-and," "_5_-and," "_6_-and,"
"_7_-and," and "_8_-flat" (weight on the left foot). Swing the lower
leg from the knee back and forth, not the upper leg at all, striking
or tapping the floor only on the front swing. Then execute the same
taps with the ball of the right foot, stopping after the count of
"8-flat" with both feet flat on the floor, the weight equally
distributed between them. Now, you have had the "straight-tap" and
"front-tap" with both feet.

[Illustration: _Back Tap_]

The next is the back tap. Make the back tap like the snap of a whip,
swinging the lower leg from the knee only, like a pendulum, with a
sharply accented move to back, striking the floor with the ball of the
foot as it goes back only to the counts, and swinging it front to the
count of "and" when the foot must clear the floor each time. Snap it
down--"_Back_-and," "_2_-and," "_3_-and," "_4_-and," "_5_-and,"
"_6_-and," "_7_-and," "_8_-flat" (with the left foot); then with the
right foot, "_Back_-and," "_2_-and," "_3_-and," "_4_-and," "_5_-and,"
"_6_-and," "_7_-and," "_8_-flat."

[Illustration: _Heel Tap_]

We now come to the heel tap, which is made and counted like this:
Heel, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, flat (8 counts). The same with the right heel
for the same counts (8).

Practice these four taps, the straight, the front, the back, the heel,
and the hop faithfully before you try to learn the buck dance, because
from these four taps and the hop are built up many combinations which
form complicated steps which you will want to learn later on. And the
more you practice these fundamentals the better dancer you are going
to be. Be sure to review, too, over and over again, the eight stage
directions--front, left oblique, left, left oblique back, back, right
oblique back, right, and right oblique.

In "tap" dancing, as in the musical comedy dances, there will usually
be ten steps; one "travelling" or entrance step which will bring you
onto the stage (from "off stage" into the line of sight of the
audience), eight dance steps, and one exit-step to take you "off," out
of sight of the audience, which will always be in the nature of a
_climax_ to provoke applause.

But, as I have said above, in buck-dancing or in any type of tap and
step dancing, the rhythm is most important, and in order to be
thoroughly grounded on syncopated rhythms, I shall give you first of
all a beginner's "time-step." After that you will learn a beginner's
"break."

The "time-step" and "break" are the keys to tap dancing and must be
mastered before the tap dance can be learned. The "time-step" and
"break" must be perfectly timed to the syncopated rhythm. And it is
going to take long, patient periods of practice in order to perfect
them. Do not get discouraged. Apply yourself keenly to both of these
fundamental steps.

[Illustration: PRIVATE LOCKERS IN DRESSING ROOMS]


THE TIME STEP

The purpose of the time step is to get the syncopation into the
dancing step, and establish the "tempo" of the dance.

With the weight on the left foot, front tap with the right, back tap
with the right, hop with the left, with the right foot back and raised
from the floor. The count is "And a _one_," with strong accent on
"one." Now straight tap with right foot to count "two" and accent it.

Do a front tap with the left (count "and"), left foot straight front
(count "three" and accent), right foot straight (count "four" and
accent).

With the weight on the right foot, front tap with the left, back tap
with the left, hop with the right, with the left foot back and raised
from the floor. The count is "And a _one_," with strong accent on the
"one." Now straight tap with left foot to count "two" and accent it.
Do a front tap with the right (count "and"), right foot straight front
(count "three" and accent), left foot straight (count "four" and
accent).

Repeat all six times.


THE BREAK

With the weight on the left foot, front tap with the right foot, back
tap with the right, hop with the left, with the right foot back and
raised from the floor. The count is "And a _one_," with strong accent
on the "one." Tap right foot straight (count "two" and accent). Tap
left foot front, tap left foot back, then left foot straight, to the
count of "and three and." Now right foot straight, to count of "four"
accented. Hop on the right foot with the left raised from the floor in
front, count "five" and accent it. Front tap with the left (count
"and"), straight tap front with the left (count "six" and accent it),
straight tap with the right, place the right toe even with the arch of
the left foot (count "and") then left foot flat front to count of
"seven" accented.

Now, first of all you had the eight different directions; after the
eight different directions the four different parts of the foot and
the "hop," and then the different kinds of sounds or taps that I just
gave you. We begin to make all sorts of combinations of those sounds.
For instance, one of the primary steps which you must know is a
combination of front, back and straight tap together. Stand on the
ball of each foot; the weight is off the heels, and equally
distributed between the balls of the feet.

Now beginning with your left foot, do one front-tap, one back-tap, and
one straight-tap, _accenting_ the straight tap--counting it 1, 2, _3_.
Now, begin with the right foot and do one front-tap, then one
back-tap, and one straight-tap, counting it 1, 2, 3, and then
alternately with each foot. On the third count your weight should rest
on that foot. When perfected, that makes the first actual step in "Tap
and Step" dancing.

One of my pupils of whom I am very proud is Miss Ann Pennington,
another of the "Follies" stars. She became one of the leading
exponents of "Tap and Step" dancing, and although she has reached this
high point in her career, she still comes to me for advice and for
pointers, and I am glad that she does this, because it shows that she
realizes the necessity of new ideas and hard work to keep herself at
the top. In dancing, as in many other professions, one must "keep
everlastingly at it." The story of Miss Pennington's career is similar
to that of many who have come to me for instruction. She had innate
ability, good looks, a sense of rhythm and a willingness to work hard
and patiently, and with these qualities has achieved success.




MR. WAYBURN ADDRESSES A CLASS IN TAP AND STEP DANCING

[Illustration]


What you are learning in this class I like to call "bread and butter"
dances, for if you succeed in mastering them thoroughly, as you surely
will if you give attention to your instruction here in class and then
practice several hours daily at home, you will possess as your own
individual property a means of livelihood that will remain at your
command all your stage life.

When you know how to execute the routines of these dances and add to
and develop your routines to keep them fresh and up to the hour, you
have a lot of neat steps that will get over with the producers of many
of the better types of modern shows. That is what I mean by "bread and
butter" dances; something you can sell most easily in the present show
market, and get not only food and raiment and lodging, but build up a
savings bank account for the future as well. So it is well worth while
to take your instruction here seriously and earnestly, as I am sure
you intend to do. There is big money in this line of dancing if you
practice and keep at it long enough. There are many four-figure
salaries being paid every week to qualified dancers with an
established name and reputation, and the way to earn these big
salaries is to become qualified yourself. We teach you right and start
you right--then it's practice for you; practice and more practice.

Let me tell you just how you should practice from now on in order to
become a competent solo specialty dancer. Practice one step at a time.
In a routine take the first step; practice that step until you are
tired, then sit down and rest five or ten minutes. As soon as you feel
like getting up again, take the second step and practice it until you
are tired; sit down and rest again. Then do the first and second
steps--no more; then sit down and rest again. Practice until you feel
yourself tiring, but DO NOT overdo it. Practice faithfully and don't
slight any one step. Then practice the third step the same way. When
tired sit down and rest--then get up again. Put the first, second and
third steps together, and so on all through the routine of eight or
ten steps. No other way you can think of to practice will result as
well as this particular way. It is a systematic, practical way.

I am taking a big responsibility with you, because when you finish
your course you are going to appeal to me and ask if I know of an
opportunity for you; where I think there is a good chance for you to
begin; how you can get started. You are now getting along in advanced
work. Try to get on in some charity entertainment; some place where
you are employed in the day may have some benefits. Try for church
entertainments. Some evenings in the neighborhood where you live there
may be little entertainments. No matter how small an affair, try to go
on. Get in front of an audience and feel the tension of an audience;
it will give you encouragement, and on each succeeding appearance you
will gain confidence and see how you "get over" with an audience.
After a few appearances any feeling of stage fright will gradually
disappear, and eventually you will gain confidence in yourself. Do not
try to go on at first in any Broadway benefit. Be satisfied to make a
very small beginning.

You have to begin now to put yourselves in the work. You can't be
looking down at the floor and wondering what step comes next. That is
no longer possible. You must acquire a method of executing the step; a
little smile on your face; a little personality behind it; inject
character into all your work.

Recently the Friars put on a Minstrel Show in New York that was a
sensation. It shows that the public are gradually coming back to the
old-time Minstrel Shows. The show business moves around in cycles;
styles change in dances the same as in fashions. Light operas and
musical comedies are coming in. Those of us who watch the theatre know
that the styles are changing, and when I tell you this type of dancing
is coming in you can believe it. Many prominent society women are
studying this style of dancing. The Universities are taking it up, and
we are gradually establishing it. Kansas City, Atlanta--the Junior
League Follies, all did this type of work. There are 10,000 dancing
teachers in America, and out of these, 2,350 are already teaching it,
and there is every incentive for you to learn it, for it is popular
and profitable, and with our foundation technique already acquired as
a basis for this work you should not find it difficult to master.

This class is going to be taught four complete professional stage
dances this month. If you got that outside of this school you would
have to pay not less than $100 to $200 for each routine. I make it a
point to give my scholars the very best there is in the line of
instruction, and at the same time charge them only a reasonable fee.

We also give you the backing of every part of this
establishment--publicity, advertising, and bookings when we can, but
not until you have made good during your study.

Now there is one little thing I am going to talk to you about that
really is a bigger thing than it seems--and that is gum--chewing gum.
If you had had stage experience you would know that gum is taboo in
the theatre, and the reason for this is not only that to chew in sight
of an audience would be an insult and result in immediate dismissal,
but also for this very important reason, that a cud of gum if dropped
on the stage would destroy that stage for dancing--your own dancing
and everybody else's. And it would be the same way here in the studio.
We have here the finest of clear-maple dancing floors in every one of
our studios. Drop a piece of gum on this floor and then try your dance
and see what would happen to you. You'd step on it and you'd get a
fall; you couldn't help it; and an unexpected fall like that might
break your ankle, very easily. It has been done before now. Just make
believe that you are under a theatrical producer on a Broadway stage,
while you are with us here, and park your gum on a lamp post before
you come into this building. Then you and the rest of the young ladies
will not be in danger of meeting with an accident from that source.

Real flowers are not allowed on the professional stage for a similar
reason. A flower petal falling on the floor acts as a banana skin
would, making a slip and a bad fall possible to anyone on the stage.
You'd not like to have your dance spoiled by a wad of gum or a flower
petal, and perhaps get put out of commission and have to forfeit a
contract because of a personal injury. So let's play we are on the
professional stage here and do as real professionals do--cut out the
cud and forego the posies. If you have flowers handed to you over the
footlights when you get to be stars, ladies, let it be at the final
curtain. Then you won't break anybody's neck.

[Illustration: THE THREE REILLY'S--ALICE, GRACIE AND JOHNNY]

I say often to every class, and I say it again to you--come and see me
in my office and tell me how you are getting along here. And I mean
this for every one of you. If I wasn't certain that I am going to be
able to help you I wouldn't ask you to do this. If I didn't care I
might do as some others do--take your money and let you go along in
the class work as you choose to without bothering myself whether you
made good or not. But that is not my way--not this studio's way at
all. You must make good, for your own sake--and for the sake of this
school's reputation. Now remember, there is absolutely no charge for
my advice or counsel about anything that concerns you--your health,
your reducing, your improvement in dancing--anything you want to know.

One day a girl came to me for the first time after she had been in the
school about four months. I asked her in some surprise why she hadn't
been in to see me before. "Why, Mr. Wayburn," she said, "I understood
that you charge a high price for consultation, and I didn't feel that
I could afford it."

Not only do I not charge anything for counseling you, I esteem it a
favor to myself to be allowed to advise you. Candidly, I have never
yet had a girl or boy take my courses here who has made a success of a
dancing career who didn't write to me or talk things over with me
first. If you don't come, you cannot get my ideas, cannot coöperate
with me in matters that concern you.

Come to my office at any time. Between 11 and 1, or 4 and 6 are
usually the best times. If I am busy with some important matter I may
have to ask you to wait awhile or come in at some other time. I'm a
pretty busy man some of the time, myself!

Weigh yourself and tell me about your weight.




NED WAYBURN'S ACROBATIC DANCING

[Illustration]


There is a very decided distinction to be drawn between acrobatics
pure and simple, and acrobatic dancing, which is quite another matter.
It is, of course, acrobatic dancing that you see on the stage
accompanying and accentuating the more formal dancing steps in musical
comedies, revues, and spectacular performances, and it is this
acrobatic dancing that receives wide attention in the teaching of the
dancing art in the Ned Wayburn courses.

There are properly two divisions into which acrobatic dancing is
naturally separated:

(1) _Bending exercises_; including the back bend, hand-stand,
inside-out, front over, back limber, cartwheel, tinseca, nip-up, the
various splits, and several more advanced feats that should be
attempted only after thorough physical preparation.

(2) _High-Kicking exercises_; including all the so-called "legmania"
varieties of dancing, which are best acquired by thorough preparation
of the body in the Ned Wayburn foundation technique and studious
attention to the drill in the Ned Wayburn Americanized ballet
technique.

All of the acrobatic dancing tricks that are properly classified under
bending exercises have for their foundation the back bend and the hand
stand, as they are called, both of which must be mastered absolutely
before attempting other and more complicated acrobatic exercises.

I want to go on record with the emphatic statement that acrobatic
dancing must not be attempted except by those who are entirely and
absolutely physically fit. The acrobatic dancer must possess unusual
strength in the arms, in order that the weight of the body may be
safely supported; and there must be strength and flexibility of the
waist muscles and the abdominal muscles, and of all the muscles of the
back and shoulders, to enable the performer to execute the front and
back bends and their companion strenuous exercises. First, the pupil
must have an unusual adaptability to this type of dancing, and then
must prepare carefully and properly in advance of entering upon the
real work of the course.

The best development comes from our limbering and stretching
exercises. There is nothing else like it nor anything equally as good
as a foundation for all types of dancing, and it is especially needed
by the amateur entering upon an acrobatic dancing career. We have put
literally thousands of pupils through this course, and every student
of our acrobatic dancing classes who has taken this essential
preliminary course has come through in fine shape.

You must be extremely careful if you have or ever have had any
abdominal trouble. You must get the abdomen strengthened before you
undertake any acrobatic work. If you have had an operation for
peritonitis, appendicitis, hernia, or elsewhere in the abdominal
cavity or region, you must, out of consideration for your own health,
avoid any violent bending exercise. This does not imply that you
should not exercise properly. You should, for it is easily possible to
strengthen the tender muscles into a normal condition by suitable and
systematic exercises.

Try this test: Lie flat on your back on the floor. Now, without aid of
the hands or elbows or any outside assistance, bring your body to a
sitting position. If you cannot do this, get your back muscles into
training before you attempt any difficult exertion. If you succeed in
your test, you can safely consider your abdominal muscles to be in
sufficiently good condition to go ahead with acrobatic dancing.

Let me describe a few of the most common of the acrobatic tricks that
all acrobatic dancers must know, and you will no doubt recognize them
as being also favorite tumbling acts of boys and girls on the lawn.
The most complicated and difficult acrobatic exercises are taught in
full in the Ned Wayburn Studios, and are printed in detail, with
simple instruction for their successful accomplishment, in the Ned
Wayburn Home Study Course in Stage Dancing. The few we give you here
are not difficult, and can be mastered at home by anyone who
persistently practices and follows the descriptions with care.

[Illustration: ACROBATIC DANCING PRACTICE.]


BACK BEND

Stand erect. Spread the feet about fifteen inches apart. Have the toes
pointed well out, at about a sixty degree angle. Raise the arms
directly overhead, the hands shoulder-width apart. Put your head
back, pushing forward with your knees. Lean back, bending the arms as
far back as you can, till the palms of the hands rest on the floor. In
doing the back bend, relax the lower jaw and keep the mouth slightly
open to breathe. Throw the strain of the bend in the small of the
back. To come up, acquire a little rocking motion forward and back,
lean forward, and you will come up easily.

_How to do a back bend while standing near a wall._

Stand about 3 feet from the wall, with your back to the wall, feet
about two feet apart. Bend back, touch the wall with the palms and
walk down the wall with your hands until you touch the floor. Then
walk up with your hands until you are erect.

[Illustration: _The Back Bend on the Flat, and Near a Wall_]


HAND STAND

Take a wide step forward with the left foot, place both hands flat on
the floor at least eighteen inches apart in front of the left toe,
fingers open and pointed directly front, right leg perfectly straight,
extended straight back. Swing the right leg up and over and follow it
with the left leg, and when you come down bring down the left leg
first, then the right leg, bringing the left knee close up to the
chest. Do not kick hard or you will go over.

_How to do a hand stand while standing near a wall._

Advance whichever foot comes natural to you to do this act (people are
right and left footed as well as right and left handed); let us say
your right foot. Stand facing the wall with the right foot advanced to
within about two feet of it. Place both hands on the floor, about
eighteen inches apart, in front of left foot, fingers open and pointed
front, right leg extended back and straight. Kick up with the left
foot over your back so as to bring the soles of both feet against the
wall, the left foot reaching the wall first; knees straight, heels
together.

[Illustration: _The Hand Stand on the Flat (A, B), and Near a Wall_]


CARTWHEEL

The cartwheel is the hand stand done sidewise. Instead of kicking up,
as in the hand stand, put one hand down and then the other, going
sidewise, kicking your feet up. Keep your head back, so as to retain
your sense of direction.

[Illustration: _The Cartwheel_]

One of my star pupils in acrobatic dancing is Miss Evelyn Law, a
principal dancer of the "Follies," and in "Louie the Fourteenth." She
came to me four years ago, a little girl fifteen years old. There are
few girls who have worked so hard to succeed as has Evelyn, and there
are certainly few who have achieved the top line in their profession
as quickly as she has. In every respect, Miss Law is a credit to the
American stage. She started in her first appearance in an engagement
which I got for her at a salary of $75.00 a week. Then her salary
jumped to $125.00 a week, in "Two Little Girls in Blue," plus her
mother's fare; later, as a featured member of the "Follies," which
engagement I was also very happy to secure for her, her weekly salary
reached the $750.00 mark. But Evelyn deserves her good fortune,
because she has worked hard. Indeed, no girl could do the remarkable
work which she is doing were she to live anything but a life of
rigorous attention to every detail pertaining to health and physical
fitness. She not only has ability, but she has the capacity for
putting her heart into her job. She writes: "The encouragement which I
have received urges me on to greater effort; and I am constantly
trying to improve myself. I realize that only by constantly striving
can I hope to win the recognition of producers and at the same time
please the public." She writes of her present work that it is "a
privilege which must be honored by my unflagging effort to put forth
my best."

There's inspiration for all my dancing pupils in Evelyn Law's success.

[Illustration: NW]

[Illustration: EVELYN LAW]




MR. WAYBURN ADDRESSES A CLASS IN ACROBATIC DANCING


I have watched this class with a great deal of interest. You really
are getting a physical foundation here for wonderful dancing; you are
beginning to handle yourselves in a scientific way. I congratulate
you.

To make a success at acrobatic or any other dancing you must not
strain yourselves. Train, but don't strain. Be patient and keep
practicing, and you will go far.

You are very wise to develop your ability along the line of acrobatic
dancing rather than as an acrobat. There is a vast difference. As a
mere acrobat one has to be a top-liner and wonderfully expert to get
any kind of a salary at all, but as an acrobatic dancer you can
command a place in the very best stage productions, high class musical
comedies, musical revues, vaudeville, etc., and also in the better
grade motion pictures and presentations, and get a very good salary.
But if you let the acrobatic tricks dominate your dance, you will be
classed as an acrobat, and not as an acrobatic dancer; so look
out--keep your dancing up to grade and throw in these acrobatic tricks
as a surprise and a climax, and you've got something the public and
the producers want and will pay for.

[Illustration]

After you have acquired these wonderful tricks and gotten hold of your
bodies, and succeeded in bringing out in a physical way all the grace
that nature gave you, then you can be taken and schooled in the soft,
beautiful Americanized ballet work, and you will find that after this
training you are now getting, our ballet technique will delight you
and be comparatively easy for you. You know, of course, that in this
course the ballet is not taught in the old, antiquated way, taking
years of your time before you are permitted to do solo work. We teach
you our own modern, scientific way, giving you first our foundation
technique, then letting you learn how to use your arms, head, the
upper part of your body and your legs gracefully and prettily, and
making you as good ballet dancers as the old long-drawn-out practice
ever made, enabling you to qualify for a paying engagement without a
discouraging wait of years and years. Pavlowa, you know, was kept
subordinate twelve years before she was permitted to attempt a solo
dance in public. Imagine our American girls submitting to such
apprenticeship! Not one of you would consider such a thing. And
fortunately you do not have to, for we have revolutionized all that.

Now you are getting a wonderful dancing repertoire, with acrobatic
dancing, musical comedy work and the tap and step dancing. When you
add our ballet course to that, then you are ready for any call that
may come to you in your lifetime. This is my aspiration for you. We
are trying to realize ideals. When you have finished here you will be
accomplished dancers, not mere machines going through a bunch of set
exercises. Add the spiritual touch to your work now as you start on
the home stretch. Finish here going strong, and your speed will carry
you far.

Don't be satisfied to qualify merely as acrobats. When you come to me
for a letter of recommendation to some first-class theatrical manager,
I don't want to have to say to him: "Enclosed you will please find one
acrobat." I have better hopes of the graduate pupils of my courses
than that.

I want to say a word here to any who feel that they are slow and not
keeping up with the pace set by the rest of the class, and that word
of advice is, take the same class for another four weeks' period.
Don't have any false pride about it. You want to fit yourself
perfectly for your profession. If the four weeks you have already had
here are not time enough to do that, go in for another month. Really,
two months is a very short time for completing a training of so much
value to you.

I tell pupils in the courses in the other branches of dancing we
teach, that if they feel stiff or have difficulty in performing their
steps, they would do well to go into this class, the acrobatic dancing
class, for a month, because here the students get all sorts of primary
acrobatic tricks and gain in strength and flexibility. All dancing is
easier to those who take this work. And besides, if you go out and
accept an engagement you will be proficient in cartwheels, splits, and
many other neat tricks that will be of great service to you. These are
stunts that you cannot learn in a theatre; no one has time to teach
them to you, nor the necessary equipment or facilities, and you want
to be ready when the stage director calls for those who are capable of
doing something unusual, to show him on the spot. And you cannot
afford to try to learn things from another girl. You may injure
yourself severely if you do. These difficult feats should only be
attempted under the best instruction. Do not allow any girl or boy who
is inexperienced to try to teach you anything in the line of acrobatic
work.

Fresh air in your lungs, correct diet, and nine glasses of water a day
will do wonders for you in many ways. You have heard me say this
before. Well, I shall say it a good many times more, just as long as
I have students under my charge who want to be "healthy, wealthy and
wise"--and good looking and good dancers. And please do not treat this
advice lightly. I can only ask you to observe these simple rules. I
have no way of enforcing them, and possibly because they are simple
you do not give them the consideration they deserve. Now let me tell
you some facts, and then you decide whether or not you think it wise
to neglect yourself.

Surely none of you will object to taking a glass of water nine times a
day. Do not drink ice water, nor take water with meals. Liquids taken
while eating will bloat you, make you fat, or make it impossible to
assimilate your food properly, and that will keep you underweight.
Take a glass on arising, one after breakfast, one before and after
dinner and luncheon, one at about eleven in the morning and another at
four, and one just before getting into bed. Water taken into the
system this way induces a healthful perspiration which eliminates the
bodily impurities. Your skin must be ventilated, which means that the
pores must be opened, and water-drinking as I have directed will do
this. If you drink milk, sip it slowly; don't pour it down. Don't eat
between meals. Have a meal an hour and a half before class or before a
performance, then the digestive process will have had time to complete
its work and leave you in the best condition for mental and physical
exertion.

After exercising here in your class, do not dress and hurry out into
the street until your pores are closed. You have free shower baths at
your disposal in your dressing rooms here in the studios, put there
for just the purpose of enabling you to get into perfect condition
before you go outdoors. Use them, with my compliments, please, and
keep fit; then take a good rub down.

It is important to you to have a good clear skin and complexion. Some
of you have it, and you want to keep it; some will be glad to know how
to get it. I am going to tell you just how to acquire it and keep it,
and clear up any little blemishes on your skin,--but it is so simple I
am afraid you won't think it worth doing. To have clear skins you must
have pure blood and good circulation of the blood, and to obtain these
you must breathe deeply and correctly and so get fresh air, full of
oxygen, into your lungs. That's all there is to it. And now, here is
the correct way to breathe to accomplish all this, and I wish you
would practice it now here in the class as I tell you about it:

Breathe in through your nostrils, with the mouth closed. Inhale slowly
and way down deep, filling your lungs as full as you can; then exhale
slowly through your mouth. Do this as an exercise, and do it ten times
before you stop. Then do it again whenever you think of it, not less
than three times a day. You cannot do it too often, no danger of that!
It won't hurt you or cost you a cent. The air drawn into your lungs
this way expands your chest and increases your lung capacity. This
makes good wind for dancing, and all dancers need lots of wind; you
have to have it, you have to call for lots of breath when you dance
rapidly or long. Start in right now, and by the time you have a stage
engagement you will be prepared with a bellows that will furnish all
the air you call for--and meanwhile watch your skin and your
complexion put on the clear, healthy, beautiful appearance that every
woman envies. The air in this room, as in any room, is not entirely
free of impurities; it is not the best air for your breathing
exercises. Outdoors--say, over in Central Park, only a block from
here--is where you find the beautifying, pure oxygen that will start
your blood tingling, expand your chest, and give you the real beauty
of skin and complexion that nature meant all women should have. Walk.
Exercise. While you're out walking, take your beauty-breathing
exercise as you go.

In my office I have a list of foods, with sixteen rules for good
health. The word "diet" suggests starvation and going hungry and a lot
of disagreeable things like that, I suppose, and so you would much
rather not hear about it. Well, it isn't as bad as you think, and a
proper diet is a health insurance, and should be carefully observed.
Do you know that I have made a study of diets and dieting, and of
anatomy--the structure of the human body? My interest in dancing and
in my pupils here--and in my own health--has prompted me to study that
subject thoroughly. I could tell you a great deal about getting and
keeping healthy, if you cared to hear it and if I had time to go into
the subject.

My best dancers, and all good dancers, diet. That is, they are careful
to eat what is best for them, and not everything that may tickle the
palate yet raise a rumpus inside one and upset the whole system, and
make them cross and cranky and homely and bad actors generally.

Good food, pure air, plenty of water, internally and externally, the
right amount of sleep, not more than eight hours, and not less than
seven, proper exercise and practice--all of these are essential to
make good dancers--to make _you_ good dancers.

Come in to my office tonight after class. Weigh yourselves before you
come in. Then talk to me about yourself and get my diet list to take
home, please.

[Illustration: LINA BASQUETTE]




NED WAYBURN'S MODERN AMERICANIZED BALLET TECHNIQUE

[Illustration]


I have invented a method of teaching the ballet that eliminates the
long and tedious training formerly considered necessary, and fits the
pupil for a stage appearance in the briefest possible length of time.
That my method is a perfect success is evidenced in the best theatres
everywhere. I have taken amateurs who never did a ballet step in their
lives, put them in training by my personally devised method, and made
perfect solo dancers of them in a few months' time, secured them
engagements, and their fame as ballet dancers par excellence is today
world-wide. Elsewhere in this book I shall name several of these whom
you know best, and you will admit that I am right in what I have just
said when you peruse their names.

I am assuming that you are aware of the fact that in all foreign
countries the ballet student is taught for years before she is allowed
to attempt a public appearance or permitted to consider a professional
engagement. This ultra-conservative custom has been brought across the
water, and the idea has always held here in America that the four,
six, ten year apprenticeship was a necessity; that no dancer could
qualify for a professional appearance in a shorter period. It was
taken for granted that there was no short cut to this trade, and up to
the recent present there has been none. But our American girls who are
gifted with a talent for this superb form of graceful dancing will
not consent to devote the best years of their lives to unproductive
labor. The idea of signing away several years of their happy lives in
order to become entitled merely to a critical teacher's approval, and
all this time without compensation of a financial nature, does not
appeal to any, and least of all to that very person, the young person
who would make the best dancer.

Yet there was an increasing demand for capable ballet dancers, and the
supply was limited and dwindling. So, in order to make a world happy,
I put my wits to work and evolved a plan that has revolutionized the
entire industry. And I have called it Ned Wayburn's Modern
Americanized Ballet Technique; and it is a Ballet Technique at its
very best. If I had done nothing else in the years of my theatrical
experience, I should still feel that I had accomplished much that is
worth while.

And, really, it is all very simple. The wonder is that others did not
figure it out before I did. And it is no secret. I am going to tell
you all about it, and what the results have been, and then you can see
for yourself why it is no longer best or necessary to go to foreign
lands and take lessons the old way, for years and years.

There is what is called the Universal Ballet Technique. It is the
standard of the dancing world, recognized and observed everywhere that
the ballet is taught or danced. My method follows this Universal
Technique closely, and is identical in many of the essentials. The
chief difference between the old way and my new method is in the
preparatory work. Now, this will never become a world full of ballet
dancers, because not everyone could learn this graceful undulation if
they wanted to. (All the more reason, I say, why those who have the
talent should profit by it.) Not all of my pupils, nor all of my best
pupils in other forms of the art, can hope to become solo artistes in
ballet work. I can glance over a class at work in any of my studios,
and select the few who may hope to perfect themselves in the ballet. I
have had to discourage and no doubt disappoint some of my ambitious
ones who have aspired to master the great art of ballet dancing; but I
know I did what was best for them in advising them as I did. These
same girls will be topnotchers in other fields of stage dancing, and I
would rather direct their pathway to sure success than to let them
wander into byways where their feet might stumble. So first of all,
the candidate for ballet dancing must have my approval, she must be
qualified according to my high standards, and when I say "Yes," and
the student enters faithfully upon the work as I lay it out, she is
going to make good.

And the first instruction she will receive in my courses is in the
nature of a muscle culture, a foundation technique that consists of
exercises, on the felt floorpad, in limbering and stretching. It is
very beneficial to everyone in every way, and unqualifiedly essential
to the beginner in stage dancing in any of its forms. The prospective
ballet dancer, by going through these exercises in the studio for a
series of twenty lessons or so, and practicing three hours or more at
home daily during the same period, develops strength in the muscles of
the back, legs, ankles and feet that fits her for the ballet
technique; and it is this foundation work that enables her to
eliminate the antiquated exercises and some combinations of steps, and
the unduly long, tedious and once necessary trials that fell to the
lot of the old-country ballerina. So the secret is out; it is our
special foundation work in limbering and stretching combined with my
Americanized Ballet Technique that builds our American pupil into a
strong, healthy, flexible, graceful person, well prepared for
advancement into the beautiful art of the ballet.

This does not mean that the entrant for ballet honors has nothing to
do but go at once upon the stage, a completed artiste. If this
statement of my easier plan suggests such a thing, let me hasten to
correct so erroneous an impression. There is work, and hard work, too,
and lots of it, before our pupil becomes a ballet dancer, even under
our less strenuous and much shortened course of training.

Grace of the entire body is sought and taught, graceful movements of
the head, arms, legs and torso. In addition to grace and poise, there
is need of great muscular strength, and this we are able to develop in
our pupils without bunching the muscles of their calves, thighs or
arms into unsightly knots. And this fact is not one of the least of
the recommendations of our system. We insist upon symmetry and beauty
of figure. This is really more important to the professional dancer
than beauty of face. To possess both, a beautiful face and form, is
the ideal condition, of course, but the figure is susceptible of being
made attractive by our development technique, and any imperfections of
the facial contour or features, and any defects in the complexion, are
easily disguised or corrected by my method of teaching stage-makeup.

[Illustration: MARION CHAMBERS]

It must be considered that in the ballet the movement of the arms is
very important, and to perform it properly requires long study and
extreme accuracy. Just as the art of painting blends and composes
colors, and by the composition of scenes and figures makes a whole
that is pleasant to the eye, so the movements of the arms in
dancing add many and diverse forms of grace to the body, guiding and
regulating its movements so as to result in a harmonious whole. One
authority has styled dancing "the music of the eye." The dancer who
neglects the difficult study which the arms require because she
believes that the only necessity is brilliant execution in the legs,
will be an imperfect artist. It is not enough to know how to dance
with one's legs; the ballet must also be executed with the trunk of
the body and the arms. Their movements must be graceful and in harmony
with those of the legs, since they constitute a weight for the
equilibrium of the body when it rests on one leg. The arms must
accompany the trunk, making a frame for it.

The movements of the head, of the eyes, the expression of the face,
all are of tremendous importance in perfecting the ballet. It is
because of the necessity of bearing constantly in mind the various
attitudes of head, torso, arms and legs that I believe that the ballet
contributes more than any other type of dancing to the general
development of grace and poise of the whole body.

In addition to teaching what we call the legitimate American Ballet,
we add to the students' repertoire what are known as "tricks," which
earn applause for the dancer. Many of our pupils go directly from our
courses to the professional stage, since it would be difficult for
them to earn a supporting salary in the musical comedy field doing
straight ballet work alone. We teach straight toe dances, and also
eccentric toe dances, as will be demonstrated in another chapter.

You are now a student in our beginner's ballet class. First, you must
provide yourself with soft ballet slippers, as without them it would
be impossible to do this type of work. As you enter our ballet room
you note full length mirrors on the walls, to enable you to watch
yourself as you dance--the original "watch your step" propaganda. Also
you will see a wooden rod, technically known as a "bar," running
around the walls of the studio. This is about three and a half feet
above the floor, and is easily grasped by the hand for support in
practicing.

In your practice at home, in the absence of such a bar, substitute an
ordinary chairback or other firm object as a support, being careful
that its height is correct.

Now the first thing to acquire is a knowledge of the fundamental rules
of the dance, since everything depends upon them, and no one may hope
to attain proficiency without this knowledge.

The fundamental positions of the ballet are five, and their complete
mastery has been the prime factor in the success of every ballet
dancer since the dance was invented. You will be constantly referred
to "first position," "third position," and the others throughout your
instruction, and you must know instantly and intuitively what each
reference means as you hear it or read it, and to do this you must
have the five position thoroughly absorbed into your inner
consciousness. That means, practice the five positions over and over,
day after day. No ballet dancer ever was entitled to this name without
she knew these five rules of the dance.

The five positions for practice at the bar are here given, and the
primary exercise at each position described and pictured.

_First Position:_ Stand erect, with the head up, the legs straight,
the heels together, the toes pointed out, the weight of the body
evenly distributed between the two feet. Extend one arm to lightly
grasp the bar, and carry the other arm straight out from the shoulder,
in a slightly relaxed position, as shown in the diagram. The thumb
should rest on the tip of the first finger, the middle and ring
fingers slightly bent, the little finger extended so that it is
slightly separated from the others, the wrist bent slightly downward.
The whole attitude should be flexible and graceful.

[Illustration: _First Ballet Position_]

Now lower the body by bending the knees. The feet should be kept flat
on the floor, the heels raised from the floor as little as possible
when bending the legs. The knees should be extended to the sides, as
shown in the diagram. The free arm should follow the attitude of the
legs--that is, it should be lowered to the waist when the knees are
bent. This bending should be repeated four times.

[Illustration: _Second Ballet Position_]

_Second Position:_ From the first position, keeping both legs
straight, slide the right foot sideways until leg and foot are fully
extended without moving the torso. Then place the weight of the body
on both feet with heels on the floor. The head should be in a straight
line above the center of the space between the heels. Now bend and
rise slowly four times, without raising the heels from the floor.

[Illustration: _Third Ballet Position_]

_Third Position:_ From the second position, shift the weight to one
leg, fully extending the foot and toes of the other leg. Then glide
the extended leg slowly in front of the other, the heel leading, until
the ankle of the leg behind is covered by the front leg. Bend and rise
slowly four times; keeping the head in a straight line above the heel
that is in front.

[Illustration: _Fourth Ballet Position_]

_Fourth Position:_ From the third position, slide the front leg
forward as far as possible without moving the body, until foot and
toes are fully extended; then put the heel on the floor, the foot
turned outward. Place the weight of the trunk on both legs, the head
being vertically above the heel of the front foot. Bend and rise
slowly four times.

[Illustration: _Fifth Ballet Position_]

_Fifth Position:_ From the fourth position, shift the weight to the
back leg, fully extending the front leg and foot. Slide the front leg
slowly back to the other leg with heel well turned out, until the feet
are on a parallel line, with the heel of the front leg in front of the
toes of the back leg. The weight of the body should rest on both legs,
and the throat should be virtually above the ankle of the front leg.
Bend and rise four times.




TERMS USED IN NED WAYBURN'S MODERN AMERICANIZED BALLET TECHNIQUE

[Illustration]


_Arabesque_--A posture executed with one foot on the floor.

_Assemblé_--To bring the feet together.

_Attitude_--A posture executed with both feet on the floor.

_Balance_--A combined slide (glissé), closing of the feet, rising on
the toes and lowering of the heels.

_Changement de Pied_--Changing the position of the feet.

_Chassé_--A chasing step in three movements: Slide (glissé), cut
(coupé), slide (glissé).

_Ciseaux_--The scissors step: A point and swing with one foot while
hopping twice on the other.

_Coupé_--To cut.

_Dégager_--To sway; to transfer.

_Demi Pas de Basque_--A half or incomplete pas de basque.

_Écarté_--To jump from a closed position, open the feet in the air,
and land in a closed position.

_Échappée_--(Escaped.) Any changement done on the toes.

_Élever_--To rise on the toes.

_Entrechat_--To spring into the air and change the position of the
feet as often as possible before landing.

_Fouetté_--A swinging of the leg.

_Frappé_--To stamp the foot.

_Glissé_--To slide.

_Glissade_--Three movements combined: Élever (to rise on the toes),
glissé (to slide), assemblé (to close the feet).

_Grand Battement_--High beating.

_Jeté_--To leap or throw the weight from one foot to the other.

_Movement_--An activity of the body from a resting position; also a
change from one activity to another.

[Illustration: THE BIRTH OF VENUS]

The nine standard dancing Movements are:

(1) _Droit_--to swing the foot forward and backward;
(2) _Overt_--to swing the foot from right to left;
(3) _Glissé_--to slide;
(4) _Tourné_--to turn;
(5) _Tortiller_--to twist;
(6) _Battu_--to beat;
(7) _Sauté_--to hop;
(8) _Jeté_--to leap;
(9) _Coupé_--to cut.

_Pas_--A step.

_Pas Ballonné_--A combination of hop, step, hop.

_Pas Boiteaux_--A limping step in three movements: Hop on right foot
and raise left leg forward with the knee straight; step forward on
left foot; step forward on right foot.

_Pas de Basque_--A step of three movements: Demi rond de jambe, jeté
(describe half circle in air with leg, leap); glissé (slide); coupé
(cut).

_Pas de Bourrée_--(Stuffing step.) Three little steps on ball of the
foot.

_Pas de Chat_--(Cat step.) Four sideward movements: Leap, slide, step,
step.

_Pas Marché_--(Marching step.) Four movements: step, swing, step,
close.

_Pas Sissonne_--Imitation of opening or closing of a pair of scissors,
done by bending in fifth position, hopping to one side, at the same
time lifting opposite leg in second position; then leg down in front
and assemblé in front with the leg that did the hop.

_Petit Battement_--Low beating.

_Petit Battement avec Port de Bras_--Low bending [Transcriber's Note:
beating?] with arm movements.

_Petit Battement sur le Cou de Pied_--Small beatings around the ankle.

_Petite Rond de Jambe_--Small foot circles described on the floor.

_Plier_--To bend the knees.

_Pirouette_--An artistic turn executed on one foot.

_Pointe_--The toe.

_Port de Bras_--Carriage of the arms. The five arm movements are:
Bending, stretching, raising, lowering, turning.

_Rond de Jambe_--Circles in the air executed by the leg.

_Sauté_--To hop.

_Step_--A placing of the foot in any direction and transferring the
weight onto it.

_Terre à Terre_--A series of pas de bourrées of four or more steps.

_Three-step Turn_--A complete turn, right or left, in three steps.

_Tortiller_--To turn or twist the leg.

_Tour de Basque_--A basque turn; pirouette de basque.

_Tour Jeté_--Jeté with a turn; one step sideward to right, one leap
and complete turn; one step sideward onto right foot.

_Tour Sauté_--One step, one hop, turning completely around in
direction of the step.




MR. WAYBURN ADDRESSES THE BEGINNERS' CLASS IN BALLET TECHNIQUE

[Illustration]


You have now advanced in your studies to where it becomes necessary to
train yourselves for the stage mentally as well as physically. You
have acquired the flexibility, strength of body and symmetry of form
that was promised in my earlier courses to those who faithfully
attended class and persistently practiced at home.

You have progressed through the hard foundation technique to a point
where you are physically fitted to undertake the beautiful work of our
ballet technique.

But now that you are entering on a new phase of your life work, it is
no time to let down and by carelessness lose what you have already
acquired by your obedience to your studio instruction. I am sure you
will not disappoint me by doing this.

Please bear in mind you have still some hard work before you, both
mental and physical hard work, before you are ready to capitalize your
efforts, to get the substantial rewards that come to the graduate
pupils of these courses. You can by looking back a few weeks see your
own improvement. You are able today to do many things of value in a
stage career that when you entered here you found impossible of
accomplishment. But you are still in the formative period as to the
finished product, as represented by the solo ballet, the stage work
par excellence, to which you all aspire, and in which you will realize
your fondest hopes when you possess its full technique as we teach it.

You are more fortunate than you may realize in having available the
benefit of our ballet technique instead of having to go through the
long years of excessive labor that would have been your lot if you
lived abroad and wished to become a premier danseuse. Long training,
at least four years' daily instruction and practice, is required of
ballet students in England, France, Italy, Russia, or anywhere else in
the world. The foreign methods tend to bunch the muscles. You have
seen dancers with knotted calves, bunchy knees, huge thighs, all the
result of the old technique. As you know, we insist upon your
preparing for the ballet course by taking our limbering and stretching
exercises, and today you know why. You have a genuine foundation to
build upon. Your bodies are lithe and supple, your muscles hard yet
not misshapen, and you have advanced by easy stages through the
foundation work to where you are today, ready for the finishing
touches.

In your ballet work you must be careful how you land when you jump
into the air. My system lands the body with the knees bent, otherwise
you might undermine your health. To come down full weight on your
heels repeatedly would prove very injurious.

Keep your muscles exercised. There is no better exercise for the
dancer than walking, and three miles a day is none too much. Take long
deep breaths out of doors. Horseback riding, golf, tennis, all are
good for you. Dancing itself is the best exercise you can have, but
when you have a one-hour lesson or more, and then practice at home
three or more hours daily you will find walking a rest, a relaxation,
because it is a change of work.

Occasionally we have a Pupils' Frolic in our own Demi-Tasse Theatre,
to give you a chance to do a turn before a friendly audience. This is
good experience and encourages talent.

Some of you sing. Some are accomplished in other forms of dancing. I
like to hear your voices and see your dances. They may be valuable
aids to you in your stage work, even if not just of a stage character.
I can tell about that when you sing or dance for me. Anyway, they
indicate that you have talent and are accomplished and able to improve
yourself, and that suggests that you possess a personality of your
own, one of the great essentials of your future success. Sometimes we
arrange special exhibitions for charity affairs and call upon our best
talent to appear in these. Such an opportunity is very valuable
experience for you and I am glad for your sake always when I can get
you a chance to appear in public or social affairs, to give you
self-confidence and inspiration.

Now one more very important lesson you must learn before you finish
here, and that is in the art of makeup. For it is an art, and one that
every actress must be fully posted upon. If you don't know how much
depends upon correct makeup, come and ask me about it and I will tell
you. We hold classes in makeup in our Demi-Tasse Theatre on occasional
Saturday afternoons. I advise you to secure a place in this class
soon. You will find it very interesting and valuable. Your application
should be made at the counter in the main business office. The charge
is $2.00 for a class lesson, and we teach our own methods, dry, cream,
and grease-paint makeups. Usually we take three girls, a blonde, a
brunette and a red-head, and make them up in class, explaining the
work as we do so. For private instruction in makeup our charge is
$5.00 a lesson.

It is very practical instruction and you will obtain much positive
benefit from it. It is not always the girl who is most beautiful on
the street or in the parlor who makes up best. Often the contrary is
the case, and the girl with the ordinary street appearance becomes
very attractive looking on the stage with the proper makeup. In any
event, my makeup directions will make a vast improvement in your
appearance for stage effect, as well as for street.

There is no doubt but that you are obtaining in my courses the most
valuable ballet instruction in America, if not in the entire world.
The instructors I am supplying you with have had years of professional
ballet training and experience both abroad and in this country, as I
am sure you all know. Furthermore, they are not only remarkable
dancers, but also very competent as teachers. So if you give attention
to their instruction and watch them as they illustrate the various
elements that constitute the complete ballet technique, and learn the
several basic positions and the graceful movements and attitudes and
kicks that go to make up the complete whole, you may expect to become
expert in this beautiful art yourselves. But you must practice,
practice at home, every day, many hours a day, and keep it up right
along. There is no other way to succeed in any dancing, and especially
in ballet work.

You have been told in your former classes in this studio about keeping
yourselves fit and healthy and charming by consuming nine glasses of
water daily, aided by deep breathing, correct and careful diet and
eight hours' sleep. Continue to observe these simple laws of health
and beauty, if you value your present opportunities and your future
success, as I am certain you do. Form regular habits now, treat your
bodies well. The recompense is so great if you do, you cannot afford
to be careless in any respect.

Feel free to come to my private office any time, or write me, and
discuss with me personally any matters that concern yourself in
relation to your health or prospects for the future. We are both, you
and I, interested in and working steadily for your future. This is a
forward-looking establishment where futures are made to order. Your
future, and that of the hundreds of young pupils who favor us here
with their presence, may depend in large measure upon your energy and
studiousness while you are with us and under our tutelage. Let us help
you. Let me help you. It is my mission in life to direct folks
straight along the pleasant paths of health, beauty and financial
independence, and I feel sure I can be of aid to you and your future
if you will give me the opportunity to do so.

[Illustration: NW]

[Illustration: VIRGINIA BACON]




NED WAYBURN'S TOE DANCING

[Illustration]


All forms of modern toe dancing--and there are several--are based upon
the ballet technique, of which a synopsis of my own Americanized form
appears in a preceding chapter.

There is toe dancing of the really classical school in the perfected
ballet. That is the kind with which we are most familiar. When a
mother says, "I want my child to be taught toe dancing," she usually
expects to be understood as referring to the ballet in its entirety,
of which dancing on the toes seems symbolical.

But of later years there has developed in the terpsichorean art other
forms and combinations of toe dancing besides the strictly classical,
as for instance, the eccentric toe dance and the acrobatic toe dance.

As to the classical form, reference to the ballet chapter will find
its present development duly set forth.

The eccentric toe dance and its fellow, the acrobatic toe dance, both
have their beginnings in the fundamental ballet technique, in which
one must be well and properly schooled before expecting to succeed in
the more advanced work of these laterday favorites.

For they are favorites, as an hour at any modern playhouse where the
newer dances are featured, will demonstrate.

It is at the behest of the great American audience that these newer
toe dances are with us. You and the rest of the public that constitute
our audiences demand action, tricks--or at least tricky and novel
touches here and there--in your dancing entertainment. The old stuff
doesn't "get over" with you any more. So we invent new things that
present what you are bound to like, and the eccentric and acrobatic
toe dances are the result.

It may be jumping down a flight of steps on the toes, or a continued
hopping on one toe for 16 counts to music, or a swinging of one leg
back and forth, like a pendulum, in an acrobatic way while the dancer
hops on one toe--such stunts as these are the applause-getters
nowadays, and they are well worth applauding, too, for they are
pleasing demonstrations of real skill, and are acquired by the dancer
only after long and continued effort and practice. Few if any, I am
sure, fully appreciate the time and labor it takes to make a modern
toe dancer, one who shall be able to perform something new and catchy
in a clever way,--a real feat nowadays, and one that theatrical
producers are quick to see and seize when it appears.

The fact is, the tricks I have spoken of must never dominate the
dancing, but must be entirely secondary and incidental, as it were.
Otherwise the dancer becomes an acrobat. You don't care for straight
acrobatics, Mr. Public, but acrobatic dancing, or dancing with a neat
acrobatic stunt thrown in incidentally as a bit of seasoning, is
really very palatable and pleasing to you. It must remain a beautiful
dance, aided and added to by a pretty surprise in the form of a bit of
unexpected toe work--then you like to see it, so we are careful in my
courses to promote in this kind of work only that form for which there
is a demand,--and this is equally true with every other kind of
dancing that we teach.

Before any toe dancing is undertaken by the ambitious student there
must be a foundation laid to build upon that shall be lasting and
efficient. The body must be under perfect control; every muscle
immediately responsive and ready, strength placed where it is
essential. Our students who have passed through the limbering and
stretching course (foundation technique) and have advanced to the
ballet work and through that, are ready for the advanced features in
modern toe dancing. We work this way with such of our more promising
pupils as desire it, and then teach them the "tricks," as we call it,
that are so effective when properly done. Every toe dancer should have
one-hour lessons five days each week till perfected, and at least
three hours daily practice six days in the week at home.

I have already stated and now say it once more in this connection,
that children should not go on their toes in the dance until they have
taken what I know to be a necessary foundation course, to fit them to
do so without danger of permanent distortion of feet and legs,
enlarged ankles, and other ill effects. It is the parents' fault, of
course, when children are forced into toe dancing at too early an age
or without proper preparation. I simply will not consent to do it. I
have seen children of sixteen who ought to be at their best at that
age in this work, yet because of the forcing process in early years
were incapable of sustaining themselves on their deformed feet.

Many of my well-known graduate pupils have been seen in the Follies
and other first class productions. Their work is an inspiration to all
who love exquisite dancing of this kind. They secured the right
foundations on the start, and now have strength, speed, grace, and
ability to do what their dances call for. There are lots and lots of
toe dancers graduated from my courses, and I cannot think of one who
has failed to make good.

That, I think, is because their personality plus practice plus honest
and capable instruction and a knowledge of showmanship and stage-craft
absorbed from my "inspirational talks" has brought forth the natural
result.

[Illustration: NW]

[Illustration: GILDA GRAY

[Handwritten] With sincere appreciation to Ned Wayburn whose producing
genius created the record breaking "Follies of 1922" Gilda Gray]




NED WAYBURN'S SPECIALTY DANCING

[Illustration]


There is a wonderful field for the dancer who can create an appealing
dance of his or her own, or who can take some type of dance and by
sheer personality so develop it as to be identified with it as the
representative of that form of dancing.

Not everyone can be a specialty dancer of this sort, but to be one is
well worth the effort of every ambitious exponent of the dancing art.

Any kind of stage dancing may become a specialty dance. But it really
takes a person with good mental capacity as well as expert dancing
ability to develop what others may do well, make of it an outstanding
and triumphant success, and identify it with one's self before the
public as one's very own.

But the rewards are great for those who accomplish this, and I am
always glad to see an effort made along these lines, since it means so
much in the way of fame and fortune to those who make the grade.

And one may become a specialty dancer in more than one line. Gilda
Gray, for instance, in the Follies of 1922 did three separate and
distinct specialties in her work at every performance: A musical
comedy specialty, an Hawaiian dance, and her "Come Along" character
dance, which she built up under my direction into a pronounced hit.

So with these facts before us, that any dance may be made into a
specialty, taken out of the ordinary and individualized, and that no
dancer is limited to a single line in this work, but can spread out
over the entire field if competent to do so, there is surely ample
encouragement to the dancing pupil to make an effort to profit by the
opportunity my studio instruction affords, and become not only a good
dancer but also a good, better, best specialty dancer--something quite
worth while on every stage, European as well as American.

Almost any pupil will naturally specialize in some one form of dancing
in the learning process. Thus one may show a preference for the
musical comedy work, or tap and step, clogging, acrobatic dancing,
whatever it may be. It is preferred because one takes to it easiest,
or is most proficient in it, or has a personal liking for it. That is
the dance for you to specialize in. Perfect yourself in it. Do a
little better than anyone else does, and you are on the boulevard
headed toward becoming a specialty dancer.

Legmania is a form of specialty dancing. The Charleston, at present so
popular with the multitude, is another. The Hula Hula and all other
kinds of character dancing are specialties. Clogging, the ballet,
interpretive and toe dances--why enumerate them. Let it go at this:
Any form of dancing that you like best and are most efficient in can
be made _your_ specialty dance if you give it personality,
atmosphere,--if you vitalize it so that it stands out alive and
distinctive--your very own.

It takes brains as well as legs to become a specialty dancer of real
quality, capable of controlling the public's interest. Yes, and it
takes competent instruction to guide you right, and it takes practice
on your part after you get the instruction, too. But it is quite worth
while. The rewards are sure if you merit them.

[Illustration: NW]




NED WAYBURN'S EXHIBITION DANCING

[Illustration]


What is technically known as Exhibition Dancing is an exaggerated form
of the usual social or ballroom dancing. It is "team" work, performed
by two, a man and a woman, and is never given as a solo dance, by a
single artist.

There is no end to the styles of dances that may be employed in
exhibition work. The public is thoroughly familiar with those most
often presented to view in public and private ballroom, at social or
other functions, which are either the Exhibition Fox Trot, the
Exhibition One Step, the Tango, the Exhibition Waltz or the Whirlwind
dance.

This by no means covers the possible field. Its limitations are
measured only by the ability of the "team," and the popularity that
demands this or that style of dance, as the fickle public fluctuates
in its preference.

An exhibition dance of whatever nature must have an element of the
spectacular and theatrical in its presentation in order to appeal. The
dancers must inject some surprise steps in an effective place, throw
in a little "tricky" stuff that is new or startling--do something neat
and out of the ordinary to make the dance qualify as "Exhibition" and
not just the usual every-day type of some well-known form of the
dance.

[Illustration: MAURICE]

Among the best-known exponents of exhibition dancing one naturally
recalls Vernon and Irene Castle, Maurice and his several partners,
Florence Walton, Leonora Hughes and Barbara Bennett, as well as the
"teams" of Clifton Webb and Mary Hay, and Basil Durant and Kay
Durban. All these and many other professional exhibition dancers have
amply succeeded in their efforts to please the public, and have found
the financial returns to be most satisfactory. It is a very profitable
line of work for dancers of the right qualifications.

Exceptional personality is essential, as well as great skill in the
art of dancing, and less than a commanding supremacy will not suffice
to carry the work through to a successful issue. Yet there is a large
field here, open to many who may not as yet even dream of their
adaptability to such a career as this suggests.

It has been my pleasure to assist in the direction of every exhibition
dancer whose name I have quoted above. Some of them received their
first impetus along this line from me, followed my advice and
instruction, and in consequence became internationally famous and
successful. I am still taking those well adapted to this line and
putting them in the way they should go. I know the type of person best
qualified to make a success in exhibition dancing, and if those I
select will be guided by my experience and knowledge there is no
reason why they should not reap the rewards their merit earns, as well
as those I have named have done.

There is a knack in acquiring the necessary ability as a dancer of
this type that not every instructor is able to impart. I do not teach
exhibition dancing in classes in my studios. Individual private
lessons is the only successful way, and that is my way. Most other
forms of dancing are learned as well or even better in classwork.

I doubt if exhibition dancing will ever be overdone. It is popular,
and good dancers for this line of work are not too numerous. So it
seems likely to be in continued demand indefinitely.




NED WAYBURN'S PROFESSIONAL STAGE MAKEUP

[Illustration]


The Ned Wayburn Courses teach every form of stage makeup, for men as
well as for women, and for every known character part as well as the
"straight" makeup for youth. To put all the expert professional makeup
knowledge into this book would be to practically crowd out everything
else or so enlarge the volume as to make it cumbersome. To avoid this
and at the same time meet a strong public demand, I have in
contemplation a book devoted exclusively to this important subject,
that shall post a world of waiting aspirants for stage honors in every
detail of the art of correct makeup. Meanwhile, the subject has an
important bearing on the art of stage dancing and so demands a
prominent place in this present work.

I have, therefore, chosen for demonstration here the one most popular
stage makeup, which is that adapted to the use of the professional
stage woman in every modern theatre, opera house and music hall, and
am here giving it a complete and thorough exposition. In presenting
this form of makeup thus prominently, I do not wish in any degree to
convey the idea that men and male youth are ignored in our studio
teaching of makeup, and that our sole concern is to make the young
woman presentable on the stage. This is not the fact. We teach makeup
to men as well as to women, and every correct form of the art.

Do not confuse a stage makeup with the customary society makeup that
milady applies in her boudoir. They are two entirely different
problems.

To makeup correctly for the modern stage, with its multiple lights of
great intensity and all the colors of the rainbow, requires special
study of yourself individually and a knowledge of what effects the
various lighting schemes will produce on the human countenance.

Three ladies standing side by side on the same stage may require three
different makeups, depending upon their types, in order to appear at
their best to the audience. The brunette, the blonde, the
auburn-haired, each needs a different treatment, and if through
ignorance or indifference any omits proper attention to a single item
of the very important detail of her facial makeup, the result will be
disastrous. All of which emphasizes the need of one's being properly
taught on the start just how to makeup in a manner to bring out one's
personality, to enhance one's beauty, and create the most pleasing
appearance before her audience. We are now speaking, of course, of the
woman who is to appear in a youthful part; character makeup is an
entirely different proposition, with which we are not concerned here.

It is impossible to go on the stage today without makeup. Should any
actress try to do so, the appearance of her features would be almost
deathlike. She would be repulsive to the eyes of the audience, a
condition that neither she nor the producer of the show would
tolerate. The very lights that render superbly beautiful the person
with proper makeup cause the bare flesh to lose its natural tints,
cast shadows under the brows and above the face, create hollows where
they do not exist and are not wanted, and utterly destroy the pleasing
picture.

Makeup, then, is one of the first essentials to stage success, and it
makes no difference how truly beautiful you may be in features and
natural coloring off the stage, the fact persists--you must makeup,
and makeup right.

But the uninstructed amateur, whose sole knowledge of makeup is
confined to the boudoir, is very prone to overdo in her maiden
attempts at stage makeup, and so disastrously decorate her face that
under the unaccustomed and little understood lights of the theatre she
appears hideous to the folks out in front. And this is especially true
of the most beautiful type of women, who think they know, and don't.

Anyone with regular features can learn to apply makeup so that on the
stage she will be as prepossessing as her naturally more favored
sister-woman. A beauty unadorned by facial makeup, or a beauty not
properly made-up, will be far outclassed in apparent beauty on the
stage by the plainer woman who has mastered the art of makeup and
knows how to apply it judiciously and correctly. It is all in knowing
how, and the learning is not difficult. The professional actress will
not fail to obtain personal instruction in this art from expert
teachers, which is decidedly the best way. Pupils in our studios avail
themselves of our classes and private lessons in makeup and in doing
this lay a foundation of invaluable knowledge that will continue with
them through life. The aspirant or amateur who for personal reasons
cannot come to our studios for this instruction will absorb much of
value by a perusal and study of this chapter. For, while it is not
possible to advise an unseen person, whose type you do not know, with
the same exactness as you could if she stood before you, there is much
here that is general in its application to all types, and the care we
are taking to make our information broad enough to cover all these
greatly simplifies matters for the absent students.

There are two steps to a correct knowledge of your personal needs in
the makeup art: First, what to use; and second, how to use it.

I am going to start you right on both of these steps.

Any actress of experience will tell you that her most valuable stage
possession is her Makeup Box. It contains the necessary tools of her
trade, without which she would be helpless to carry on. It is to her
what the brush and colors and palette are to the painter; the needle
and thread to the seamstress; the hammer and saw and plane to the
carpenter. Before you enter upon a stage career supply yourself with a
complete makeup box equipped with all the needed tools and ingredients
for making up for the part you are to assume. This is a necessary
purchase, and will prove one of the best paying investments you ever
made.

Ordinarily a makeup box stocked with the best materials will cost
about $12.00 and is not extravagantly expensive at that price. So many
of our students sought our advice as to their purchases in this line,
as they left our studios for the professional stage, that we fitted
out a line of makeup boxes, completely stocked, for each complexion
type, which we are selling to them over the counter at $9.50. The
actual cost to us of each set is about eight cents more than we sell
it for; plainly indicating an absence of grasping commercialism in our
nature, for which we hope and expect due commendation.

[Illustration: THE NED WAYBURN PROFESSIONAL STAGE MAKEUP BOX AND
OUTFIT

A--BLACK COSMETIQUE. B--BLACK MASCARO. C--BABY BRUSH. D--BLACK CRAYON
PENCIL. E--DARK BLUE PENCIL. F--CARMINE GREASE PAINT. G--BLUE LINING
GREASE PAINT. H--FOUNDATION GREASE PAINT. I--ORANGEWOOD STICK.
J--PAPER FELT LINERS. K--COSMETIC STOVE. L--PINK VELOUR POWDER PAD.
M--FACE POWDER. N--COLD CREAM. O--DRY ROUGE. P--RABBIT'S FOOT.
Q--MOIST LIP ROUGE. R--ART STEEL BOX. S--SPECIAL MIRROR.]

Buying expertly and in quantities has enabled us to get together this
_Ned Wayburn Professional Makeup Box_ of the best stuff in the world
for its purpose, some of the ingredients being made in America, others
in Paris, and still others in Berlin,--all standard goods and used
every day in the year in every theatre of the civilized world,--and
at the same time keep the cost to our students down below a ten dollar
bill. (Applause.) We thank you.

Now we are getting orders for our professional makeup box to be sent
by mail and express to professionals and amateurs throughout this
continent, and while we are glad to accommodate all who honor our own
profession by their presence in it, please do not expect us to do so
at cost. It is one thing to hand a box over the counter, and quite
another to pack that box for shipment so as to conform to established
requirements by the government post office or the express companies,
prepay postage, insure it, and deliver it to the New York postal
authorities. So we have put a price of $10.95 on this makeup outfit
for parties who do not call for it in person at our studio, with
postage extra, according to the zone in which you reside, if it goes
by mail. We would rather send it by express and let you pay the
charges for carriage at your end, if it is all the same to you. The
weight of this outfit packed for shipment is about seven pounds. We
insure it in transit at $10, which adds a few cents to its cost to
you.

It will save correspondence and the disappointment of delay if when
you order you tell us your age, sex, color of hair, color of eyes,
color of complexion, for what character you wish the makeup (youth,
maturity, old age, advanced old age, or any of the possible character
parts known to the stage); the nature of the play; whether for a large
theatre or the more intimate small theatre or hall; if for moving
pictures (which calls for a decidedly different makeup from all other
stage work), and everything else bearing on this matter that you can
think of. Always bear in mind when you order, that each box is fitted
for one type of person only, and cannot be used indiscriminately by a
brunette and a blonde and someone else who ranks between the two in
coloring and type, and that in consequence each must have a personal
makeup box of her own.

The Ned Wayburn Professional Makeup Box for a "straight" stage makeup
for a blonde youth, suited to the use of a young woman with light
hair, blue eyes and light complexion, in musical comedy, light opera
or any dancing or speaking part in the usual stage performance, for
presentation in a hall or theatre, with modern stage lighting
facilities, is as follows:

_The Box._ Art steel, about 6-3/8 in. wide by 9-1/2 in. long, 5 in.
high, with handle and lock and key. Strongly made on purpose to stand
the wear and tear of travel and dressing room handling, and should
last a lifetime. Have your name painted on it as soon as you get it,
to make it your very own. It may be your frequent companion for many
years.

_One-half Pound Tin of Cold Cream._ Usually Stein's, to which we give
the preference, since it is slightly less hard and contains a little
more oil than most of the others. This cold cream is the same for all
types, blonde, brunette and the others.

_One-half Pound Tin of Face Powder._ Stein's No. 2. (Brunettes would
use Stein's No. 2-1/2 face powder.)

_One Glass Jar Moist Rouge._ Stein's medium. This medium lip rouge is
suitable for blonde and brunette types. It is standard, can be bought
anywhere, is always uniform and the colors run true. If you are ever
in Chicago, visit Warnesson's. He specializes in lip rouge and makes a
very good kind.

_One Stick Foundation Grease Paint, Flesh._ Stein's No. 2. (For
brunettes, Stein's No. 3.) This is the large stick.

_One Stick Grease Paint, Special Blue Lining Color._ Stein's No. 11.
For lining the eyes.

_One Stick Grease Paint, Carmine._ Stein's No. 18. Red foundation, for
both blondes and brunettes.

_One Box Mascaro, Black._ Leichner's No. 60. For darkening the
eyebrows.

_One Package Cosmetique, Black._ Roger and Gallet. For beading the
eyelashes.

_One Box Dry Rouge._ Dorin, No. 18.

_One Pink Velour Powder Pad._ Gainsborough No. 350. This is about the
finest procurable; is of large size, so it will not fall in the powder
box and scatter the contents.

_One Black Crayon Pencil._ 6B Venus, American Pencil Co. For putting
shadows under the eyes.

_One Dark Blue Pencil._ Faber No. 6625. For shading around the eyes.

_One Orange Wood Stick._ For applying beading to the eyelashes.

_One Rabbit's Foot._ Also called rouge paw.

_One Baby Brush_, with handle. For blending. Very necessary tool.

_Paper Felt Liners_, one package. To outline lips and to place red
dots in corners of the eyes.

_Cosmetic Stove, Lockwood's._ For heating cosmetique to bead the
eyelashes. This stove is approved by Fire Insurance Underwriters. It
encloses a candle in a safe way and avoids the use of dangerous fuels
in the dressing rooms.

_One Mirror._ 6x8 inches, in wood frame, with metal support. Will
stand alone or serve as hand mirror. Strong, clear glass. The best to
be had for its purpose.

[Illustration: MARY EATON]

This completes the list of contents in the Ned Wayburn Professional
Makeup Box, for a "straight" stage makeup, for young ladies. For other
types and different characterizations the ingredients are changed to
suit each case, while the price remains uniform.

There is but one necessity for completing the makeup that is not
included in the outfit as given, and that is Liquid White, which comes
in white or flesh. This is to be applied as a wash to exposed flesh
not otherwise made up. It comes in liquid form only, and can be
purchased locally in any first-class drug store. We know Suratt's make
of liquid white to be good, and there may be others.

A towel, a cake of soap, a basin of water and a few yards of cheese
cloth should be assembled before commencing makeup operations.

A makeup is easiest applied while seated at a table with your
materials spread out conveniently before you. If possible, elevate
your mirror so that you can see the reflection of your features
without the necessity of bending over. Always make up in incandescent
light, never in daylight.

When making-up is a matter of daily routine the clothing will become
badly soiled in a short time if worn during the process. To save your
costume, either wear a washable kimono over it, or better, don the
kimono over undergarments and put on the costume after the makeup is
applied.

In private lessons at our studios we teach all the required forms of
stage makeup, taking every type of person that comes to us and
developing each individually along such lines as the character or part
demands. Men, women, and youth come to us here for development of
their correct makeup in private lessons.

In our class instruction in this line of work only the "straight"
makeup for youth is presented, that being the one our young lady
pupils find especially adapted to their stage needs. These special
classes are held as occasion requires to meet the students' demands,
and are given in our own Demi-Tasse Theatre, connected with the
studios. Usually a demonstration is made with a blonde, a brunette and
a red-head, to show the class the different requirements of the
different types. Following this demonstration, each member of the
class puts on a makeup under the advice and constructive criticism of
the teachers, until thoroughly versed in the art, as it applies to his
or her own individual type.

Since the reader of this may not be coming to us for either private or
class lessons, we will describe the correct manner of applying makeup
in simple language that will enable the distant aspirant to learn all
that may be learned by reading without the presence of a personal
teacher.

You are now seated at your dressing table, your mirror at a convenient
elevation in front of you and between two good lights, your lay-out of
tools and materials spread on a towel on the table top, a kimono or
other garment spread over your person. Now take a strip of cheesecloth
three or four inches wide and tie around the forehead, back of the
ears, and behind the neck; or one may use a close-fitting skull cap.
Tuck in all straying locks. The idea is, of course, to keep powder,
grease paint and cold cream from getting into and soiling the hair.
Now you are going to apply makeup.

_First stage._ Cold cream. Apply this liberally all over the face from
the hair line to the upper part of the throat, but not on the neck.
Rub it in thoroughly to fill all the pores of the skin. Be careful to
cover all the space around the eyes, also rub in on the eyelashes,
using care to keep it out of the eyes, for it will cause stinging.
Greasing the eyelashes this way makes the removal of the makeup much
easier. Now rub your face with a piece of cheesecloth until all the
superfluous cold cream has disappeared. If the face shines too much,
you have not removed enough of the cream. The surface should give the
appearance of being well oiled, but not have a sticky, pasty or greasy
surface.

_Second stage._ Foundation Grease Paint. The quality of your makeup
depends upon this. It will be smooth or rough according to the way you
develop it. Rub the end of the grease paint stick several times on
each cheek, once across the chin, once or twice on the forehead and
once down the nose. Use the ends of the fingers and pat this into
place rather than rub it, till it is thoroughly worked into all the
surface you have just covered with the cold cream. Every pore must be
filled with the grease paint. Do not apply it too thick, which would
give the face a pasty, unnatural look. Do not forget underneath the
chin. Do not apply it to the ears or behind them. Leave no streaks or
neglected spots. Have it uniform all over. Blend the paint till the
face has an even tone. Watch your mirror carefully. It is better to
have the grease paint a little too thin on the face than too thick,
but you will soon learn to get it just right, which is what you are
aiming at.

_Third stage._ Under rouge; foundation red; Stein's No. 18 carmine.
Make a few dots with the carmine grease paint stick on each cheek and
on the end of the chin. Use but little, and blend it by patting with
the first and second fingers of both hands, rather than by rubbing.
Begin well up against the nose, go under and around the eyes, and
toward the temples, working it down below the ear and off the jaw in
case there is a hollow in the lower part of the cheek. The color
should extend down on the cheek, over on the temple and well up to
the eye, patted and blended till no one can see where the red fades
into the foundation. The chin is then blended in the same way, to
leave no line between foundation color and under rouge. If your chin
is pointed, blend in front, not below, or it draws the chin way down.
Put on a lighter makeup for a small, intimate theatre, and a heavier
one for the large auditorium.

_Fourth stage._ Enlarging and beautifying the eyes. This is a very
important detail of correct makeup, and is indispensable on every
well-lighted stage, where even the most soulful orbs with long, thick
lashes will dwindle to half their size and have a faded, dull
appearance if not properly made up. It is essential that the two eyes
match in every detail, and to secure this result will require the
taking of considerable pains and close study of your mirror. Stein's
No. 11 blue lining stick is for use by the blue-eyed, regardless of
the color of the hair or complexion. Stein's No. 17, for the
dark-eyed. Titian-haired folks use Stein's No. 21 purple for the same
purpose. With this grease paint stick of the color suited to you, draw
a line across the upper eyelid between the eyebrow and the eyelashes,
as close as possible to the lashes. With the fingers blend this line
into a shadow, making it dark close to the upper lashes. Either pencil
can be used for this purpose also. Do not get the shadow up to the
eyebrows, but cover all the upper eyelid, and a little beyond the eye
at the outer corner. Use the Faber No. 6625 blue pencil or Venus 6B
black for shading under the eye. Draw a line with it directly under
the eyelashes, and with the fingers blend this into a shadow. Carried
too far down this blue suggests illness, so be careful. The shadows
thus placed above and below the eyes serve to outline them to the
spectators in the theatre, where otherwise the eyes would practically
disappear and not be seen at all owing to the strong footlights.

_Fifth stage._ "Fixing" the makeup. Powder No. 2 for blondes; No.
2-1/2 for brunettes. The creamy tints are for the dark skins, the
flesh and delicate pinks for the fair ones. Press the powder first on
the chin. It is feminine instinct to start on the nose, but let your
start in this case begin with the jaw or chin. Don't rub it in. Pat it
on thick till the underlying paint is fully covered up. The powder
absorbs the grease. From the chin work upward, reaching the nose after
the pad has lost some of its original load, and the nose will not
stare out so white on your face as it would if you began there first.
Raise the eye and powder underneath; look down, and powder the space
beneath eyebrow and eyelid.

_Sixth stage._ Smoothing off and blending. Use the baby brush for
this; there is nothing else so good. It is surprising in its results.
Do not press the brush too hard on the face; dust the surplus powder
off carefully with a light touch, to leave no streaks or patches
anywhere. If now the face has a greasy look, you have not used
sufficient powder.

_Seventh stage._ High lighting. Take some of your No. 18 Dorin's dry
rouge on the rabbit's foot and dust a very little on your cheeks. Do
not press it down, just tickle about the edges of the rouge to be sure
it blends perfectly with the foundation. If there is too much white
about the nose, dust it lightly with the rabbit's foot. You can turn
the paw around and blend with the end that is free of paint. Never
show a white ear to the audience. If ears come into style again, as
they will, the lobe and rim should be made a healthy pink, but not a
strong red, with the rabbit's foot.

_Eighth stage._ Darkening the eyelashes and eyebrows. Use Leichner's
No. 60 black mascaro; dark brown for light blondes. The lower lashes
are better left without the treatment, since they are almost certain
to smear the face if treated, and the shadow you have already placed
there takes care of the lower lashes all that is necessary. Apply the
mascaro to the upper lashes with the brush that comes with the
mascaro, or any fine brush will do. Start a delicate line on the edge
of the eyelid at the outer corner of the eye, let it curve slightly
downward at the start. This line should not exceed half an inch in
length and is never carried beyond the eye socket. Do not make the
line heavy nor longer. A very little mascaro must be brushed lightly
on to the eyebrows, following the curve of the upper eyelid. Fix the
eyebrows carefully about three-quarters the size of the mouth, using
black or brown mascaro according to whether your type is dark or
light.

In this place we are going to tell you how to bead the eyelashes, but
unless you are a professional actress and your part will be decidedly
enhanced by having the eyes very much in evidence, we advise against
your undertaking it. It is not a necessary stage in the makeup
process, but it comes into the story of makeup naturally and we give
it here for the benefit of those who may wish to make use of it.
Beading the lashes consists in placing a small bead of cosmetique on
the extreme tip of each lash. This is best done on the upper lashes
only, leaving the lower ones free. The Lockwood Cosmetic Stove is a
small affair that holds a piece of candle and a baby-size frying-pan,
or skillet, and is one device for its purpose that has the approval of
fire insurance companies and so will not be objected to by the theatre
fireman. There are some heating devices that you are not permitted to
use in any theatre, and persistence in their use after being once
cautioned has caused arrest more than once.

[Illustration: CLASS IN STAGE MAKEUP AT THE NED WAYBURN STUDIOS]

In this connection many interesting true tales might be told of
principal actors being taken bodily from the stage in the midst of a
play and landed in the local jail, causing the curtain to be lowered
and the audience dismissed. The stage fireman, assigned to every first
class theatre during a performance, has authority to enforce all
ordinances intended to prevent fire and eliminate fire risk in
playhouses, even to go to the extremity of arresting offenders against
the public's safety. So be careful to use only a Lockwood Cosmetic
Stove or some equally safe affair in your dressing room.

You light the candle, place a small amount of Roger and Gallet black
cosmetique in the little pan and heat it over the candle flame till
melted. Take up some of this molten cosmetique on the flat end of your
orange wood stick and apply it with a deft quick stroke to the upper
lashes, painting each one separately and without clotting, so that a
little bead hangs to the tip of each upper lash. Use care not to drop
any of the black on your makeup. The effect of this beading is to
beautify the appearance of the actress by bringing out her eyes in a
wonderful manner under the strongest of spot lights.

_Ninth stage._ Red dots in the inner corners of the eye. Dip the paper
felt liner in the moist lip rouge and with it make a tiny red dot in
the extreme inner corner of each eye, but on the lid--not in the
eye--to space the eyes and make them look to be the distance of one
eye apart. Keep these dots well away from the nose, or they will tend
to make you look crosseyed from the front.

_Tenth stage._ Rouging the lips. Stein's moist lip rouge, medium. If
the lips are left their natural color the footlights bleach them white
and colorless. Shape the upper lip into a cupid's bow and round out
the lower lip. Dip the little finger into the rouge and press it
tightly against the lips, being careful not to smear it; open the
mouth and draw the upper lip tight over the teeth. When necessary the
upper lip can be shortened in appearance by blending and putting the
cupid's bow a little higher. Do not put color on the lips beyond the
angle of the nose, otherwise it will make your mouth appear very
large. A blonde should not apply the rouge full strength, as it is too
dark for her. The lips should not be heavily painted, and the line
about the edges should be soft and smooth.

_Eleventh stage._ Finish with a little powder, dusting the face very
gently, using a swan's-down puff. Put a very little powder on the
lines about the eyes, but not enough to dull them.

Now look in your mirror with critical eyes. Your handiwork should have
resulted in a velvety, soft yet rich complexion that will stand the
strong lights of the modern theatre.

What you have just put on is known as a grease-paint makeup. There is
also a cream makeup, so called, but it is less desirable for the
modern professional stage. It fails to give the right effect for a
real musical show with powerful lights. I have used both and do not
hesitate to give this opinion based on my own experience.

There is also a dry makeup, with powder, known in theatrical parlance
as a "lazy" makeup, suitable only for a "dumb" chorus girl who has no
interest in her work, who comes in late and does not care whether she
appears to advantage or not.

To complete any makeup, apply liquid white with a soft sponge to the
neck, chest, arms and other exposed flesh that is not already made up.
If, as in some of the modern revues, the legs are not covered with
stockings or tights, they too must have an application of liquid
white. To look right, any flesh that is exposed must be made up,
because the lights bleach the exposed flesh, making it appear
bloodless and giving one a gruesome, corpse-like color.

You are wise if in the matter of makeup you study your own face.
Experiment, and note the results. When you are certain you have
acquired the best for your own purposes, practice it often, till you
can put it on properly and always with the same result. Don't seek to
look made-up, ever, but to look your best for the part you are
playing, always. If the makeup ingredients are in evidence to the
audience you have not created the proper illusion and must practice
making up until you acquire skill. It usually takes about one-half
hour to put a good makeup on after you have perfected the process with
your own features.

_Removing Makeup._ First remove the beads of cosmetic from the lashes.
Then get rid of the little red spot in the inner corner of the eye.
Work this toward the nose with cold cream. Then take plenty of cold
cream on the fingers of both hands and massage the face thoroughly, to
soften the makeup all over. Wipe it off with cheesecloth or an old
towel, that you can throw away. Now wash the face with warm water and
soap, dry thoroughly, apply a bit of powder, and you are all ready to
dress.


SOME MAKEUP NOTES

You makeup for the lights of the theatre, which nowadays are very
strong, and may come from many directions and in various colors. The
switchboard controlling all the lights is in the first entrance of the
stage, and the electrician in charge has his plots and cues all
carefully planned for each act. He does not throw lights on or off for
the fun of it or at his pleasure, but exactly as carefully designed
and mapped by the show's producing director.

The front lights are those in the body of the house as distinguished
from the stage. On the stage we have the footlights in red, white and
blue, a row of each, and overhead are the border lights in the same
three colors. There is the first border, second, third--sometimes even
seven border lights, according to the size of the theatre stage. The
spotlight is an arc light. It has usually a color wheel that revolves
so that either red, blue, straw, light straw, or pink or any other
color may be projected onto the "spot" on the stage that it is to
illuminate and emphasize. There are dimmers for the footlights and the
border lights. With these you can go from daylight effects to sunset,
to moonlight, dawn, etc., with gentle gradation. There are two kinds
of moonlights on the stage. Number 29 blue in the spotlight gives a
summer moonlight; number 35 is best for a winter moonlight scene. Good
gelatines, or "mediums" as they are called, are made by the Gelatine
Products Company, in Brooklyn, or may be had from Kliegl Bros., the
New York Calcium Light Co., the Display Stage Lighting Co., all
first-class concerns in New York City.

Under strong blue lights the under-rouge in the makeup will come to
the surface, which is not desirable, so get to your dressing room and
powder your makeup down if you are going to be under a blue light. The
makeup will stand a white spotlight or a pale yellow, but will not
look well under too much blue and never well under green.

* * * * *

Put liquid white on with a soft sponge. Put this on only exposed flesh
that is not otherwise made up, as the arms. Never put powder on the
arms. It comes off on everything it touches. Liquid white is far
preferable in every way.

* * * * *

The baby brush for blending facial makeup is one of the most important
tools in the makeup box. If you try to buy one in a small town they
will insist upon your buying a tray and comb, and everything else that
goes with the baby set--everything, practically, but the baby. Better
buy the outfit than try to go without the brush, but it is still wiser
to supply yourself with the brush in time. You can buy it separately
in the large cities.

* * * * *

Never put your mirror in your makeup box, for powder and grease will
ruin the best mirror made. The mirror furnished with the Ned Wayburn
professional makeup box is almost non-breakable; it is clear as well
as strong, and in every way one of the best for its purpose. It will
stand up where you want it.

* * * * *

Never makeup while in your street clothes or in stage costume. A drop
of cosmetique on satin slippers or silk stockings will never come out.
A washable kimono or bath-robe is the best garment to wear. Long
fingernails will cut and ruin thin stockings. Don't ever wear the
fingernails pointed.

* * * * *

In using the 6B Venus pencil to darken the upper eyelid, use the side
and not the point of the pencil. Do not use a pencil sharpener, for it
leaves too sharp a point. Keep your pencil free from grease. Wipe it
often.

* * * * *

Rouge will fade under bright lights. Much depends upon the condition
of one's health as to how long rouge will keep its color on the face.
There will be certain times when rouge will disappear rapidly and you
will have to renew the outer rouge, perhaps before the act is over.

* * * * *

Do not throw powder at your face, nor rub it in or smear it. Pat it on
gently with the pad and use the blending brush.

* * * * *

The tiny dot of rouge placed in the inner corner of each eye is to fix
the distance of the eyes apart. When the eyes are finished they should
appear to be about the distance of one eye apart.

* * * * *

Rarely is makeup used in the nostrils. A big nose will look very wide
if made up, but a small and very straight nose can stand a very little
number 18 rouge in the nostril--not lip rouge, which would be too
dark. But it is very seldom that the nostrils are made up.

* * * * *

Unless very careful in removing makeup, your face will feel raw and
chafed when you go out in the wind. Take time and plenty of cold cream
in the removal of makeup, and dry and powder your face before exposing
it to outdoor weather.

* * * * *

If you wish to you can leave the mascaro on the eyelids, working over
and under it in removing the rest of the makeup, and so use the
mascaro on the street. On matinee days you will see shadowy eyes on
Broadway, as some of the ladies of the cast keep the mascaro on till
the evening performance.

[Illustration: NW]

[Illustration: $100,000.00 WORTH OF DANCING COSTUMES IMMEDIATELY
AVAILABLE.]




STAGE COSTUMES


On the stage, as on the street, effective costuming is a matter of
good taste. The dancer must be particular always to appear in a
costume in keeping with the idea and character of the dance. The
producer will be certain to adhere to this rule in all cases where the
company supplies the stage costumes, as is customary. In vaudeville,
or in a home-talent show, where the dancer furnishes the outfit, the
same rule of fitness and appropriateness must be observed, or the
resulting incongruity will greatly mar the presentation. Have your
stage costumes prepared with the idea of creating proper atmosphere
for the dance you are giving or the scene in which the dance appears.

There are special designers of stage costumes in all the large cities,
here and abroad. Bakst, the Russian artist, is a name all have come to
know because of the bizarre effects he creates for the stage. In
London, Comelli was an outstanding name as costume designer for the
Drury Lane productions; Erte, in Paris, and there are many others
abroad. New York has several concerns of the first grade whose work
along these lines is in evidence in the best theatres throughout the
country and overseas.

[Illustration]

The first step in costume making for the stage is made when the
costume designer and the scenic artist are brought together under the
producing director to arrange and settle upon a definite color scheme
for each act and scene, so that colors of costumes and stage settings
shall be in full harmony throughout. This is most important for the
pictorial effects and is given careful study. With the color schemes
effectively planned, there follows a further conference between
producer and costume designer, in which plot, locale, atmosphere,
characters, lyrics, music, and everything else with a bearing on the
dance or play in contemplation is fully gone over and considered. The
personality of the principals is given attention, and the various
possible effects of the ensemble or chorus groupings, evolution and
pictures are carefully planned, with regard to lights and color
effects.

The designer thus consulted submits pencil sketches of his ideas. The
next step is a water color design in the actual colors to be employed.
The accepted costume plate in color becomes now the working basis for
the actual process of manufacturing the garments. The cost of these
color plates for each design is at least five dollars, but usually
more, as high as $25.00 sometimes, before a garment is cut or a stitch
taken, the price for a costume plate or design depending a good deal
upon the standing or reputation of the designers.

Materials as well as colors are given careful thought. Sometimes the
artist's design is made around a sample of the actual materials,
though usually the color idea is developed first and the goods to be
used in the garments considered later. The quality of the material for
stage costumes should be the very best to be had regardless of cost.
It is unquestionably true that the best is the cheapest in every way.
Not only do costumes of cheap fabrics not hold together, and the
colors fade out when exposed to the strong modern stage lights, and
repairs and renewals become a frequent necessity, but the very people
on the stage who are compelled to wear the inferior costumes are
literally let down to a lower level in morale as a consequence.

[Illustration: A CORNER OF WARDROBE ROOM]

It is human nature for a well-groomed man or woman, on the stage or
off, to be in better spirits and a better mental attitude for the very
reason that they are correctly attired. Cheap garments and inferior
costumes detract from the dancer's ability to do the best work,
however unconscious of this fact the dancer may be. So I contend that
it pays to use the best material and employ the best workmanship, if
only to keep the performers up to pitch and put the show over in a way
that spells success.

Then, too, there is the audience to be considered. They know the
difference between silk and cotton, and are quick to judge the show by
the appearance of the costumes that greet them on the stage. It is
little less than an insult to modern American audiences to expect them
to pay modern prices for seats in the theatre and then parade a lot of
second-rate costumes before them as your idea of something that will
"get by" without detection or adverse comment.

The cost of costumes varies, of course, and the range is wide.
Professional costumes worn in Broadway productions under my direction
have been made for as little as $23.00 and as high as $1500.00 for an
individual costume. Chorus costumes have been shown on Broadway
costing $50.00 to $400.00 for each girl in the ensemble. However, a
satisfactory chorus costume can be produced today for around $75.00
and that for a principal about $100.00.

There are large and satisfactory rental establishments in New York,
Chicago, Philadelphia, Boston, and others of our prominent cities
where costumes can be rented for almost any character of show, in
single garments or for a complete production. In the east, among the
best are Brooks or Eaves, of New York, and Van Horn of Philadelphia.

In the wardrobe department of the Ned Wayburn Studios there is carried
a varied line of up-to-date costumes well over a hundred thousand
dollars in actual cash value. There is one set of twelve dancing
costumes there alone worth $4800.00, or approximately $400.00 per
costume. Any of my stock of costumes is available on a rental basis
for amateur shows when my organization is employed to stage the
productions, and an expert wardrobe mistress goes along with the
outfit to insure proper adjustment and fitting of all the costumes to
their wearers.

The complete costume when rented from any concern includes headdress,
bloomers and parasols (if the character calls for them), besides the
gown or costume proper, but never includes wigs, shoes, stockings or
tights, which must be purchased outright.

In our studio work and during the rehearsal period on the stage we
recommend the Ned Wayburn rompers as a form of practice dress best
suited for ladies' use, except in our foundation technique and
acrobatic dancing classes, in both of which the bathing suit is given
the preference.

[Illustration: NW]

[Illustration: MILDRED LEISY WEARING TYPE OF PRACTICE COSTUME WORN FOR
BALLET DANCING.]

[Illustration: POLLY ARCHER WEARING COSTUME (BATHING SUIT) FOR
LIMBERING AND STRETCHING, AND ACROBATIC DANCING.]

[Illustration: OLIVE BRADY WEARING PRACTICE ROMPER SUGGESTED FOR USE
IN ALL CLASSES EXCEPT THOSE IN BALLET DANCING.]




DANCING TEMPOS

[Illustration]


One must possess an inherent sense of rhythm in order to become a
successful stage dancer. To be able to walk or dance to music in
perfect time, and find enjoyment in doing it, is one of the first
essentials. I can tell by the way a person walks across the floor when
an orchestra or any musical instrument is rendering a sprightly bit of
dance music, whether or not the walker has the dancing sense that is
so necessary to perfection in the art.

In dancing, the term "rhythm" refers to the coincidence of movement
and music, and is the symmetrical regulation of time and the
periodical repetition of the same arrangement. The measure of speed in
music and dancing is designated as "tempo." It is the "time" in which
a musical composition is written, and is shown upon the "staff" by
figures. Of the many kinds of dance measures, the most common are what
are known as 2-4, 3-4, 4-4, and 6-8.

[Music: March, Stars and Stripes Forever

John Philip Sousa

Used by Permission of The John Church Company, Owner of the
Copyright]

[Music: March, Over There

GEO. M. COHAN.

Copyright by Leo Feist, Inc., Used by Special Permission]

Among the 2-4 rhythms, the principal ones are the March, which is
indicated either in "Alla Breve" (C), as "The Stars and Stripes
Forever," or in 2-4, as the more rollicking "Over There," or the well
known Cake Walk, "Georgia Camp Meeting." By increasing the tempo of
the 2-4 March it becomes the One Step dance.

[Music: Cake Walk, Georgia Camp Meeting

Mills

Copyright by MILLS.]

Marches are also written in 6-8. Then they are called Two Steps, as
"The Handicap March," and Sousa's "Washington Post" March.

[Music: Pizzicato Polka by Leo Delibes]

Among the other 2-4 rhythms are the Polka, suitable for Ballet work.
The "Pizzicato Polka" is a very good example of this type. The Gallop
and Can Can are in a very fast 2-4 tempo.

[Music: Can-Can from "Orpheus"

Offenbach]

Waltzes are in 3-4, played sometimes in a lively tempo, one in a bar,
or slow, 3 in a bar. "Three o'Clock in the Morning," a ballroom waltz
is in the slow tempo, while "In the Good Old Summertime" is more
rapid, adapted for fast movements and waltz clogs. "Valse Coppelia,"
played one in a bar, is the type for dainty Ballet work. The stately
Minuet is in 3-4 time.

[Music: Waltz, Three o'clock in the Morning

by Julian Robledo

Copyright by West's LTD. London Eng.

Leo Feist Sole Agt.]

[Music: Waltz, In the good old Summertime

GEO. EVANS

Copyright by HAVILAND.]

[Music: Waltz from Ballet Coppelia

LEO DELIBES.]

[Music: Minuet by Mozart]

The Gavotte, played 4 in a bar, is principally suitable for Ballet,
while the Song and Dance ("Narcissus"), on account of its rhythm, is
mainly adapted for the soft shoe and its kindred dances. It is also in
4-4. The Fox Trot is written "Alla Breve," 2 in a bar in moderate
tempo. It has a somewhat strict rhythm, while the "Charleston," played
usually in the same tempo, is rhythmically different. As one can
notice, it has an anticipated second beat.

Perhaps the most popular music for the Charleston dance is the
Charleston number from "Runnin' Wild."

[Music: Song and Dance Rhythm

"Narcissus"

Nevin]

[Music: FOX TROT. I LOVE YOU

by HARRY ARCHER

Copyright by Leo Feist, Inc., Used by Special Permission]

[Music: "Charleston" Cecil Mack & Jimmy Johnson

Copyright MCMXXIII by Harms, Inc., N.Y.]

There are a great many varieties of national dances, all having a
peculiar rhythm of their own, portraying the character of their
people. Among these are the "American" characteristic dances, as "The
Rube Dance" and the peculiar rhythm of the Stop Buck, the "Essence"
played in moderate 6-8 tempo, as in "Comin' Through the Rye."

[Music: Essence, Coming Thru' the Rye.]

Among the Irish Dances, the most popular are the Jig, a fast 2-4; and
the Reel, a fast 6-8. The Scotch have their "Highland Fling," a fast
4-4, and there is the Hornpipe.

[Music: Irish Jig]

[Music: Irish Reel (Rory O'More)]

[Music: Highland Fling.]

[Music: Scotch Hornpipe]

The Spanish dancers are particularly fond of the Waltz, played lively,
and when still more increased in tempo it becomes the "Fandango," a
wild and merry dance. The Tango is in 2-4, played in moderately slow
tempo; its rhythm is also adapted for the Habanera.

[Music: Valse España

(Fandango) Waldteufel]

[Music: Tango (Habanera)--Paul Dupont

Copyright Sam Fox Cleveland O.

("Rosita" Tango Fox Trot)]

The Italians have their "Tarantella." It is played very fast. It is
supposed to cure the bite of the tarantula, hence the furious tempo.
The Egyptian (Oriental) Dance is of a more sensuous type, either
moderately fast in 2-4 or slow (in 6-8).

The Soft Shoe Dance is played 4 in a bar in Schottisch tempo.

[Music: TARANTELLA--BURCHENAL]

[Music: Egyptian Ballet

(fast movement)

A. LUIGINI]

Most any 2-4 March movement is suitable for "buck" dances, but they
must be in syncopated rhythm with characteristic melodies and
accompaniments and not what is called straight marches, but must have
the right atmosphere musically in order to inspire the dancer.

[Music: Egyptian Ballet (slow movement)--A. LUIGINI]

There are a number of very good dance albums published annually with
popular dance melodies and piano arrangements. Among the best are
those published by Leo Feist, Inc., Jerome H. Remick & Company,
Shapiro, Bernstein & Company, Harms, Inc., and M. Witmark & Sons, all
of New York.

[Illustration]




DIET AND DANCING

[Illustration]


There are three kinds of people who should use care in all that they
put into their bodies in the way of food and drink: The thin, the just
right, and the stouts. That seems to cover about everybody on earth,
doesn't it?

Well, that is just the idea. It is my way of saying that everyone,
everywhere--you and I and the other folks, will be better looking and
in better health and better spirits, more capable every way, if we pay
attention to our diet.

This treatise is intended for men as well as for women and is equally
applicable to both. It is addressed to the ladies, for reasons that
surely are obvious, but the rebuilding of the figure is accomplished
by the same methods in both sexes. Remember this, and substitute "man"
for "woman" in your reading and application of this chapter if you are
a male.

Incidentally, it is not stage dancers alone who need to be told what
is best for them, but as our professional dealings here in the studios
are with dancers, we are directing our advice to them. For really the
need is greater in the case of the lady whose "job" and salary depend
upon her bodily appearance and health and mental condition, than it
is in the case of any other of her sex. The lady of society wishes to
look at her best, and usually succeeds in doing so, but her "job"
doesn't depend upon it, as yours does.

[Illustration: SCENE FROM NED WAYBURN'S "HONEYMOON CRUISE"]

So believe me when I say that what I am about to put down here in
black and white is not said for the fun of it nor for any other
purpose but to enable every woman to increase her capital stock and
secure the largest possible dividends in the beauty market.

The thin, slight, under-nourished woman will heed my words on this
subject with satisfaction. Her procedure is pleasant and easy,
comparatively. She can and will improve rapidly if she is determined
to do so and will stick to what I tell her.

The "just right" woman wants to remain in her perfect form, and the
words here printed will serve as a sign-post to direct her in the way
that is best for the accomplishment of that desirable end. Her task is
easiest of all.

The stout woman who would regain the more pleasing figure that nature
intended she should have can do so if she will, but her inclination to
indolence and indulgence must be overcome--by herself, not by anything
anyone else can do for her--and she must make up her mind that she has
a real task before her, and one that calls for all her will power and
stern determination. And she must be patient, for in her case results
are apt to be slow. But let her be encouraged: Some of the most
admired women of the stage have experienced her same difficulty with
too abundant flesh and have perfected themselves by this identical
plan set forth here. So it has been done, and can be done in your
case; but it all depends upon you, your zeal and your stick-to-it-iveness.

To see how your present weight conforms to the proper standard, I
present here a table of average weights based on heights and age. In
this table the weights are taken in scant costume, a single garment
and no shoes. Any table of this kind can be only approximate, however,
for the frame and general build vary in different people and the bone
structure must be considered in fixing the weight.


STANDARD TABLE OF AVERAGE HEIGHTS AND WEIGHTS OF MEN AND WOMEN OF
VARIOUS AGES

WOMEN

_Heights_ _Weights_

15-19 20-24 25-29 30-34 35-39 40-44 45-49 50-54 55-59
Ft. In. yrs. yrs. yrs. yrs. yrs. yrs. yrs. yrs. yrs.
4 11 110 113 116 119 122 126 129 131 132
5 0 112 115 118 121 124 128 131 133 134
5 1 114 117 120 123 126 130 133 135 137
5 2 117 120 122 125 129 133 136 138 140
5 3 120 123 125 128 132 136 139 141 143
5 4 123 126 129 132 136 139 142 144 146
5 5 126 129 132 136 140 143 146 148 150
5 6 130 133 136 140 144 147 151 152 153
5 7 134 137 140 144 148 151 155 157 158
5 8 138 141 144 148 152 155 159 162 163
5 9 141 145 148 152 156 159 163 166 167
5 10 145 149 152 155 159 162 166 170 173
5 11 150 153 155 158 162 166 170 174 177
6 0 155 157 159 162 165 169 173 177 182

MEN

_Heights_ _Weights_

15-19 20-24 25-29 30-34 35-39 40-44 45-49 50-54 55-59
Ft. In. yrs. yrs. yrs. yrs. yrs. yrs. yrs. yrs. yrs.
4 11 111 117 122 125 127 130 132 133 134
5 0 113 119 124 127 129 132 134 135 136
5 1 115 121 126 129 131 134 136 137 138
5 2 118 124 128 131 133 136 138 139 140
5 3 121 127 131 134 136 139 141 142 143
5 4 124 131 134 137 140 142 144 145 146
5 5 128 135 138 141 144 146 148 149 150
5 6 132 139 142 145 148 150 152 153 154
5 7 136 142 146 149 152 154 156 157 158
5 8 140 146 150 154 157 159 161 162 163
5 9 144 150 154 158 162 164 166 167 168
5 10 148 154 158 163 167 169 171 172 173
5 11 153 158 163 168 172 175 177 178 179
6 0 158 163 169 174 178 181 183 184 185
6 1 163 168 175 180 184 187 190 191 192
6 2 168 173 181 186 191 194 197 198 199
6 3 173 178 187 192 197 201 204 205 206

[Illustration: FRANCES WHITE]

Now first of all, weigh yourself and see how near you come to the
standard, and take note how many pounds you have to add or subtract to
reach the perfect mark. Weigh yourself at regular intervals, every
Sunday or Monday, but weekly, if possible, and keep a record of your
weights and the dates they are taken.

First I am going to direct the too thin as to the best method for them
to put on flesh, fill out hollows, become symmetrical and graceful and
pleasing to the eye.


HOW TO GAIN WEIGHT

1. If you are thin, have an examination by a competent physician to be
sure you have no organic trouble, before you try to put on flesh.

2. Calm yourself. "Learn to accept the trivial annoyances and the
small misfits of life as a matter of course. To give them attention
beyond their deserts is to wear the web of your life to the
warp."--Hubbard.

3. Exercise and air. Take at least 10 minutes of Ned Wayburn exercises
every morning as soon as you get up. Begin with a small number of
movements and increase gradually. Be in the open air as much as
possible.

4. Sleep. Resistance is markedly lowered by a lack of sufficient
sleep. Have a rest period during the day if possible. Do not sleep
longer than eight hours. For every hour you are in bed over that time
the fat piles on or else you are losing flesh.

5. Avoid unnecessary exertion. Don't talk too much. Delete the
details. Never talk about your ailments except to your physician. You
pay him to listen (or should).

6. Avoid tea, coffee and nicotine and other stimulants.

7. Masticate your food thoroughly and leave your troubles behind when
you go to the table.

8. EAT. Stretch your stomach and train it to take care of more food.
You must eat three meals each day at regular intervals. They must
consist of what your system requires and not just what tastes good on
your palate. Never eat between meals. Give your digestive apparatus a
chance to function as it should, three times daily, at the same time
each day, always giving it an opportunity to rest as well.

9. EAT. Eat whether you enjoy it or not. You will enjoy it later.
Don't heed the advice that you should not eat as a matter of duty. You
should.

10. EAT. But no second helpings.

I have seen printed advice never to eat unless you enjoy your food and
to avoid eating as a mere duty. I tell you to discard that advice. Do
eat whether you enjoy it or not, and do eat as a matter of duty.

Once the food is in your system, whether you like it or not, a large
part of it will be assimilated. Perhaps not so well nor so readily,
for we know that the enjoyment of food adds to the efficiency of the
digestive juices.

There is a small bird called the ortolan, which is highly esteemed by
the Italian gourmands. When it is fat it is very delicious, but as it
feeds normally only once a day, when the sun rises, it naturally has
no fat on it. So the Italians confine these birds in a darkened room
and succeed in getting them to eat four or five times a day in the
following manner:

They put a lantern at a little window in the room. The ortolans,
thinking the sun has risen, hop around and eat. The lantern is
withdrawn and they are left in darkness four or five hours. Now the
lantern is again put in place. The ortolans, evidently an
unsuspicious, guileless type of bird, thinking the sun has risen again
to perform its duty by telling them it is time to eat, hop down from
their perches and busy themselves very seriously and dutifully with
their breakfast.

Apparently they do not keep track of time and do not suspect that only
four hours of the 24 have elapsed. This same sun rises for them four
or five times during the day and each time they obey its summons and
gallantly eat. The result is that they are converted into little balls
of delicious fat.

You can get a lesson from these birds.


DIET TO INCREASE WEIGHT

Thick soups. Thick gravies. Plenty of butter and sugar.

_Fruits._ The best fruit to fatten is bananas, eaten slowly with cream
and sugar. Any kind of stewed fruits, cooked with sugar. Orange juice,
with plenty of sugar. Grapefruit, with plenty of sugar. Any kinds of
berries, with plenty of cream and sugar.

_Cereals._ Oatmeal, Cream of Wheat, Corn Flakes. Avoid bran foods.

_Meats._ Anything fried is good. Roast beef, roast veal, roast pork,
roast ham, veal chops, pork chops. No lamb. Must have steaks rare. Ham
and eggs.

_Vegetables._ White potatoes, creamed, hashed, any kind of fried
potatoes, sweet potatoes fried, mashed potatoes with butter. Beets are
fattening boiled--not pickled. Spaghetti, macaroni, boiled onions,
spinach, creamed, creamed carrots, lima beans, peas.

_Bread._ White bread, fresh bread, hot tea biscuits, plenty of butter.

_Pastries._ Pies, cakes, puddings, bread puddings, any sort of French
pastry, and candy (in moderation).

_Beverages._ Sweet milk, cocoa, chocolate, malted milk. Perhaps one
cup of coffee a day, not too strong, with plenty of cream. Weak tea
with cream and sugar.

Keep your system well flushed. Drink plenty of water, about 45 ounces
a day, say nine tumblerfuls. A glass of water before and after each
meal, one in the middle of the morning, one in the afternoon, and
another just before going to bed, are essential. This induces
perspiration, which opens the pores and lets out the impurities, the
worn out tissues, and keeps the system healthy, incidentally relieving
the kidneys. Never take any liquids during a meal. This interferes
with the work of the digestive juices and prevents the proper
assimilation of the food.

There is no hardship involved in selecting one's meals from this
extensive and comprehensive menu, and if proper eating were all that
is necessary to perfect your figure the process would be a joy indeed.
But we are seeking to make you not only pleasant to look upon, but
also physically adapted to a stage career, which means that vigor,
strength, endurance, "wind" and flexibility are demanded as well, so,
in order to accomplish both, we unite exercise to diet, and the
combination of the right food and habits and the Ned Wayburn
Foundation Technique brings about the direct result; you become
shapely, graceful, strong, and accomplished in a great art, all as the
result of the same instruction, and simultaneously.

* * * * *

NED WAYBURN'S DAILY MENUS FOR THE UNDERWEIGHT


MONDAY

BREAKFAST

Shredded wheat with sliced banana, 1/2 cup thin cream or top milk and
1 rounding teaspoon sugar; poached egg; 2 slices toast, 2 squares
butter; coffee with 1/2 cup hot milk or cream and sugar as desired.

LUNCHEON

Cream of tomato soup; 3 saltines; Swiss cheese and rye bread sandwich;
1 square butter; prune whip, soft custard sauce; 1 glass milk.

DINNER

Vegetable soup; roast beef with gravy; baked potato; lima beans;
French roll; 2 squares butter; hearts of lettuce, French dressing; ice
cream, chocolate sauce; coffee if desired.


TUESDAY

BREAKFAST

Baked apple (large) with 1 tablespoon cream; scrambled eggs with 2
slices bacon; 1 cornmeal or graham muffin; 1 square butter; coffee as
above.

LUNCHEON

Club sandwich with mayonnaise; lemon meringue pie; coffee with half
cup hot milk.

DINNER

Fillet of sole, Tartar sauce; boiled potato; lettuce and tomato salad,
French dressing; 2 slices bread; 2 squares butter; ice cream; glass of
milk.


WEDNESDAY

BREAKFAST

Grapefruit with sugar; 1/2 cup oatmeal with 1/4 cup cream and 1
rounding teaspoon sugar; 2 boiled eggs; 1 slice toast; 1 square
butter; cocoa.

LUNCHEON

Lamb chops (2); creamed asparagus on toast; tomato and lettuce salad,
mayonnaise; 2 rolls; 2 squares butter; 1/2 cantaloupe.

DINNER

Broiled steak with gravy; scalloped or mashed potatoes; buttered
beets; 2 slices whole wheat bread; 2 squares butter; ice cream; glass
of milk.


THURSDAY

BREAKFAST

1 orange; 3 griddle cakes with 2 squares butter and 3 tablespoons
syrup; coffee as in breakfast (1).

LUNCHEON

Fruit salad, mayonnaise; raisin bread and cream cheese sandwich;
doughnut; glass of milk.

DINNER

Substantial soup such as minestrone, chowder, petite marmite or pot au
feu; roast chicken or duck with stuffing and gravy; candied sweet
potatoes; green peas; 2 rolls or bread; 1 square butter; raw fruit,
honey-dew melon or 1/2 cantaloupe; coffee.


FRIDAY

BREAKFAST

6 stewed prunes and juice; cornflakes with 1/2 cup top milk or cream
and 1 teaspoon sugar; 2 slices hot buttered toast and marmalade or
jam; 1 glass milk.

LUNCHEON

Cream of pea soup; ham omelette; French fried potatoes; 2 slices
buttered toast or bread; strawberry ice cream; tea as desired.

DINNER

Breaded veal cutlet or roast leg of veal; spaghetti with tomato sauce;
string beans; celery; French roll; 1 square butter; apple brown Betty,
hard sauce; glass milk or coffee with hot milk.


SATURDAY

BREAKFAST

1 serving strawberries, raspberries or sliced peaches with 2
tablespoons cream and 1 teaspoon sugar; 1/2 cup wheatena with 4
tablespoons cream and 1 teaspoon sugar; 3 slices bacon; 1 French roll;
1 square butter; cocoa.

LUNCHEON

Chicken or egg salad with mayonnaise; 2 rolls; 2 squares butter; baked
apple with cream; glass of milk.

DINNER

Cream of asparagus soup; baked ham; potato salad; mayonnaise; fresh
green or red cabbage, cooked; 2 slices rye bread; 1 square butter;
raspberry sherbet or peach ice cream. Coffee.


SUNDAY

BREAKFAST

1 glass orange juice; 3 tablespoons grapenuts with 4 tablespoons
cream; cocoa; creamed eggs on toast.

[Illustration: NED WAYBURN SHOW GIRLS, FOLLIES OF 1922.]

LUNCHEON

Macaroni and cheese; spinach with oil and vinegar; 2 slices whole
wheat bread; 2 squares butter; chocolate cornstarch pudding with
cream.

DINNER

Beef stew with vegetables; red beet or cabbage salad, French dressing;
2 rolls; 2 squares butter; strawberry short cake; glass of milk or
coffee with hot milk.

Note: If underweight is marked, it may be advantageous to take
additional nourishment at 10 A.M. and 4 P.M., such as a glass of milk
or cocoa with 2 graham crackers and a glass of hot milk and crackers
at bedtime. This will add 750 to 1000 calories to the day's total.

Any one of the above breakfasts contains 800 calories. Any one of the
above luncheons contains 1000 calories. Any one of the above dinners
contains 1200 calories. This gives a day's total of approximately 3000
calories of heat or energy.

* * * * *

HOW TO LOSE WEIGHT

To get rid of superfluous avoirdupois is one of the necessary steps to
beauty. A ponderous actress has a limited field. Certain character
parts, a few vaudeville acts, a singing turn, or a burlesquing of her
own abnormality (if she has the personality to carry it off with), and
there her availability for stage purposes ends. But you cannot dance
and waddle at the same time. "It isn't done." If you aspire to be the
kind of stage dancer that the public demands and that we produce in
our courses, you will have to submit to diet and exercise, the only
coin of the realm that will buy physical beauty and perfect
development. There is no other way. Medicines for this purpose are
dangerous, because they contain poisons, like arsenic and mercury.
Make up your mind to either abandon all hope of a dancing career, or
to faithfully follow the prescribed routine of proper exercise and
non-fattening foods. If you continue to take into your body the foods
that build fatty tissue, no exercise alone will dispose of the excess
fat that is sure to result. While our exercises in the studio do help
greatly, they cannot entirely correct a basically wrong condition
unless supplemented by proper diet. And diet alone is not sufficient,
either; you must have the exercises along with it.


DIET TO DECREASE WEIGHT

You must partake of no soups, nothing that is fried, no gravies. The
only meats that you will be permitted to eat are roast lamb, lamb
chops, broiled or boiled white fish, or white meat of chicken or
turkey; no other meats of any kind, no other fish of any kind.

_Vegetables._ You may have any green vegetables, especially plain
spinach, carrots, string beans, lettuce, celery, onions, sliced
tomatoes, never any stewed tomatoes or beets. But you can have beet
tops. Radishes are hard to digest.

You are not permitted to have any pastry, and by that is meant pie,
cakes or cookies; no candies of any kind; no ice cream or ice cream
sodas, no sarsaparilla or ginger ale, no liquor, no smoking, no
cigarettes. _You are not to take any liquids while having your meals._

You are not to partake of whole milk, cream, or white bread. Use
_little_ or _no_ sugar or butter. The only kind of bread that you are
permitted to eat is the whole-wheat bread, gluten bread, or whole rye
bread. You may take stale bread toasted. Gluten bread is good when
toasted.

You are prohibited from taking coffee. You may take very weak
tea--very weak--but there should be no sugar in the tea, nor should
there be any cream in it. You may have a slice of lemon in your tea.
Lemon juice can be squeezed on the lettuce instead of using sugar or
rich dressing. Vinegar on the lettuce or spinach, and plenty of it, is
permissible.

Buttermilk is excellent, and so is postum, but the postum should be
taken without sugar and used with hot skimmed milk, not cream.

For fruits: take baked apple, applesauce, grapefruit, orange juice,
raspberries, blueberries, huckleberries, a few strawberries--not
many--occasionally.

About potatoes: no potatoes except a baked white potato,
occasionally--no sweet potatoes, no French fried, home fried, hashed
or creamed potatoes--no mashed potatoes; the only kind you are
permitted to partake of being the _well-baked_ white potato, and you
may eat the skins if you like, but do not butter the potato.

For cereals: take bran, bran flakes or hominy--but the hominy must be
cooked for one hour and a half. That is the best cereal for your diet.
The hominy should be flavored with about one-half teaspoonful of
currant jelly, put into the hominy and stirred up, just to give it a
little taste. Do not use any cream, milk or sugar on your hominy,
which is really the most nutritious cereal when cooked this length of
time.

I am reproducing here the Ned Wayburn daily menu for a reducing diet.
It is one I have worked out carefully and studiously and used
successfully on many of my pupils and myself. By means of this diet
and my studio exercise I reduced myself from 262 pounds to 207 pounds
in twelve weeks--a loss of 55 pounds, and felt better when I got
through than I did when I began, but, I do not advise anyone taking
off weight too fast. With my method of reducing all of the unhealthy
fatty tissue will be gotten rid of before the remaining firm muscular
tissue will be distributed about the body. You may get thinner in the
face first, and about the thighs last. Be patient; it may take you six
months or longer. Unless you have gland trouble or some other serious
disorder it will go in time, provided you will work to get rid of it
and stick to the diet for not less than three months. Those taking the
conditioning work lose an average of about one pound per week, while
those who are trying to build up gain about one-half pound each week
after they have gotten rid of all the unhealthy unnecessary tissue,
those underweight frequently losing five pounds before they begin to
show any gain. It will surely bring back youthful buoyancy and insure
your health and figure for the future. After you have succeeded in
getting down to the right poundage you can go on my balanced diet for
those who have reduced, but you will still have to do about ten
minutes of my exercises every morning, and you must never over-eat
again.

* * * * *

NED WAYBURN'S DAILY REDUCING MENUS


MONDAY

BREAKFAST

Orange (without sugar) 1 medium; 1 poached egg on thin slice toast; 1
small pat butter; coffee with 1 teaspoon sugar and 1/2 tablespoon
cream or coffee with 1/4 cup hot skimmed milk.

LUNCHEON

Lettuce, tomato and cream cheese salad, with 1/2 tablespoon French
dressing; 2 thin slices whole wheat bread; 1 small pat butter; 1 glass
skimmed milk.

DINNER

Bouillon, clear; lean roast beef; 1 medium baked potato; spinach; 1
small pat butter; pear or apple.


TUESDAY

BREAKFAST

1/2 grapefruit (without sugar); 1 egg and 1 thin slice crisp bacon; 1
thin slice toast; 1 small pat butter; coffee with hot skimmed milk.

LUNCHEON

Cheese sandwich; asparagus salad with 1/2 tablespoon mayonnaise; tea
with lemon.

DINNER

Roast or broiled chicken (no stuffing or gravy); green peas; lettuce
and cucumber salad with 1/2 tablespoon French dressing; baked apple
(no cream).


WEDNESDAY

BREAKFAST

3/4 cup strawberries with rounding teaspoon powdered sugar; 1/2 cup
oatmeal with 1/4 cup skimmed milk and 1 level teaspoon sugar; glass of
skimmed milk.

LUNCHEON

Cream of tomato soup; medium serving cold meat; 2 thin slices rye
bread; 1 small pat butter; 1/2 small cantaloupe.

DINNER

Broiled sirloin steak, moderate serving; 1 ear corn on cob; tomato and
lettuce salad, with 1/2 tablespoon French dressing; 1 small pat
butter; cup custard (small).


THURSDAY

BREAKFAST

1 apple; 1 egg omelet; 1 bran muffin; small pat butter; coffee with
hot skimmed milk.

LUNCHEON

Macaroni and cheese; lettuce with French dressing; fruit gelatine
pudding (clear).

DINNER

Beef or lamb stew with vegetables; 2 thin slices whole wheat bread;
small pat butter; tapioca cream pudding; black coffee.


FRIDAY

BREAKFAST

1 peach, with 1 rounding teaspoon powdered sugar; shredded wheat with
1/2 cup milk; 2 thin crisp slices bacon; thin slice dry toast.

LUNCHEON

1 French lamb chop; 1 medium baked potato; lettuce with 1/2 tablespoon
French dressing; lemon ice.

DINNER

Vegetable soup; broiled halibut or other white fish with lemon; 1
medium baked potato; 1 slice bread; 1 small pat butter; French ice
cream (small serving).


SATURDAY

BREAKFAST

1/2 orange; 1 French roll; small pat butter; glass of skimmed milk.

LUNCHEON

Clam or corn chowder; 3 saltines; moderate serving peach or strawberry
ice cream, or apple, cream, or custard pie.

DINNER

2 small lamb chops or 1 large one; tomato salad with French dressing;
mashed turnips; 1 thin slice whole wheat bread; 1 small pat butter;
raw peach.


SUNDAY

BREAKFAST

1 banana; 3/4 cup cornflakes; 1/2 cup skimmed milk; 1 slice toast; 1
small pat butter.

LUNCHEON

Egg or chicken salad; 1 slice bread; 1 small pat butter; 1 small piece
loaf cake, or 2 plain cookies; tea with lemon, no sugar.

DINNER

Hamburger steak with tomato sauce (2 cakes); string beans or
asparagus; 1 thin slice rye bread; 1 small pat butter; glass of
skimmed milk or coffee with skimmed milk; raw apple, orange or pear.

Note: If overweight is _excessive_ omit all desserts given in menus
except raw unsweetened fruits.

Any one of the above breakfasts contains 350 calories of heat or
energy. Any one of the above luncheons contains 500 calories. Any one
of the above dinners contains 650 calories. The day's total will be
1500 calories.

* * * * *

You will no doubt be interested in hearing the story of a young lady,
Miss Ann Constance, who came to me a little over a year ago to be
reduced. She was sixteen years old, was five feet five inches in
height and weighed one hundred and seventy-nine pounds. At the end of
nine months, under the treatment I am recommending for those who are
overweight, she tipped the scales at one hundred and nineteen pounds.
Her photographs, in this book, taken "before and after," will tell the
story better than I can in words. Miss Constance is in better health
today than she has ever been before in her life; and she has become
an exceedingly good dancer--recently with the Greenwich Village
Follies and at this writing just beginning a career in the movies with
the Famous Players at their Long Island Studios. She is, however, only
one of many girls whom my diets and exercises have helped.

[Illustration: ANN CONSTANCE.

(Before she entered the Ned Wayburn Studios.)]

[Illustration: ANN CONSTANCE.

(After she entered the Ned Wayburn Studios.)]

We have never failed in reducing any of our pupils who came to us for
that purpose, but we have to have their coöperation, of course. Quite
recently we had a very puzzling case that challenged the Sherlock
Holmes in us, and I think it will interest you to know how we solved
it.

A young lady of really huge proportions, resident of another city,
called on me at the studio accompanied by her mother, and placed
herself in my charge for reducing. I studied her, arranged a special
diet for her and she entered the class in limbering and stretching. I
watch the progress of all my pupils, and expect them to record the
change in their weights every week. I watched this young lady with
especial care, and was dumbfounded to notice that she was steadily
gaining in weight. She never lost a pound but kept on adding fat to
more fat all the time, notwithstanding that she was working her head
off in the classroom--when she came to class. She skipped seven
lessons of the twenty in the first month's course, reporting for only
thirteen, finally insisting that the lessons were not doing her any
good.

I felt that there must be something wrong and wrote the mother of the
girl about it, as she had requested me to do. She told me that the
girl had a charge account at a certain hotel where she took her meals.
I asked the mother if it would be possible for me to get the meal
checks signed by her daughter, which would show just what she had
eaten. The meal checks were turned over to me. I found that the girl
had been eating the prohibited things; that about once in two weeks
she had followed my diet, and at every other time she had eaten
everything she liked--enormous meals, consisting of starchy foods and
all sorts of desserts--mostly sweets. I also found out that she had
been taking some of the other girls at the studio along with her,
fattening them up. The mother was inclined to be easy with the girl. I
called her father's attention to the matter, because the girl paid no
attention at all to me, and as far as I could see was hurting the
school. Of course she was only fooling herself.

I insisted that we were not going to fail with her, and her father
came to New York to see me. About this time the girl was taken ill,
suffering with acute indigestion and finally the mumps. On my advice
her father took her home. Lately I have heard from the young lady, and
she wants to re-enter the school. If I decide to take her back, she
will have to keep strictly to her diet and attend regularly, which I
believe she is now ready to do, as she has gained much weight since
leaving here.

Lillian Russell was a beautiful woman, with a personality and a stage
presence. She was fond of the good things in life, and was obliged to
watch carefully a tendency to embonpoint. She has gone on record as
saying that lots of walking, lots of dancing, and two meals a day was
all the reducing exercise she ever employed. She advised a light
breakfast, no luncheon, and a good dinner, with no between-meals, no
"piecing," no candy. The chief trouble with this plan is, that one is
apt to become ravenous by dinnertime and over eat at that meal, and
thus undo what you are attempting. The best way is to follow the Ned
Wayburn diet faithfully, and take three meals each day, just as I have
suggested.




DANCING AND GOOD HEALTH

[Illustration]


The dance is its own justification. It needs no excuse, nor do the
many millions who share its delights need to be told how beneficial it
is to them. They know that they are healthier and happier men and
women, and therefore get more out of life and give more to others,
because they dance. If the purpose of life is, in the words of an
immortal document, the pursuit of happiness, surely those who train
their bodies to move in harmony with natural laws are fitting
themselves for capacity to enjoy all that life brings. To live well
requires good physical health, for which a prime requisite is an
abundance of pleasant exercise. Not alone to those who are free from
the necessity of the various forms of exertion that are termed "work,"
but to every human being, exercise is as necessary as food. To those
whose daily callings involve substantial physical labor, the need for
exercise is just as great as for those of lighter employments. And
nowhere can there be found so satisfactory a bodily exercise as in the
dance. Sports, outdoor games, horseback riding, etc., have their
place, but are available to a comparatively small percentage of all
the people. Now that the introduction of the automobile has turned
America into a nation of riders on soft cushions, the need for proper
exercise has become more important than ever.

To live well, breathe well, sleep well, the body demands activities
that will develop and strengthen it. The most delightful form in which
this want can be supplied is in the dance.

The universal desire of mankind is for enjoyment; the qualification of
physical, mental and aesthetic needs. To enjoy requires the possession
of the Roman prime essential; a sound mind in a sound body. So closely
are physical and mental health related, so complex the reactions of a
disordered nervous system on bodily health, or the effect on the mind
of physical weakness, that the wisest doctors do not pretend to say
this illness is either wholly mental or physical. They do know that
some violation of the laws of right living, some neglect to follow
natural impulses, is chiefly responsible for the long list of ills
that afflict mankind. And they are unanimously agreed that proper
diets and an abundance of exercise are far better than cures; they
prevent disease.

It is not necessary to go into physiological details to explain why
the well-nourished body demands suitable exercise. That it does is an
admitted fact. The question that confronts the millions who know that
their bodily condition is not what it should be is: "What must I do to
make myself stronger, and capable of enjoying life better?" The
obvious answer is: "Dance."

In dancing there is found a form of exercise that stimulates
circulation of the blood to the remotest finger tip; that develops,
under proper training, every muscle; that aids digestion to perform
its functions of supplying nourishment to every tissue of the body,
and brings to the dancers the glow of vigor and animation. These
effects of the dance have long been proved by the experience of
millions of men and women. Other millions who have not yet tried it
will sooner or later make the experiment. They will find that life
takes on a new outlook, that instead of listless indifference they are
actively interested in many things that they formerly ignored; that
with restored bodily vigor they have quickened minds and better
appreciation of all their daily contacts with their fellows, and that
they are enjoying each day's existence with a zest never known before.

The dance is a physical, mental and moral upbuilding. It brings a
greater capacity for success in the daily tasks and duties. It
stimulates and restores. It shows the door to the glooms and welcomes
gladness. It brings self-confidence in undertaking new enterprises,
and banishes the mental depressions that result from bodily ills. It
forms new circles of agreeable companions, and affords opportunities
for congenial friendships. It avoids wasted expenditures for nauseous
drugs and doctor's bills. It puts humanity in harmony with fundamental
natural laws, and makes of all who resort to it healthier, happier and
better men and women.

[Illustration: NW]




SHOWMANSHIP

[Illustration]


Do you know what "repeaters" are in the language of the stage?

They are people who like a show well enough to patronize it more than
once--well enough to spend their money to see it a second or a third
time, perhaps many times, and bring their friends to enjoy it with
them. There are many more "repeaters" on occasions when attractions
have real merit of one kind or another than the casual public dreams
of. The show manager watches for them and spots them, and rejoices
greatly when he finds them abundantly in evidence, night after night,
for he knows then that he has displayed real showmanship in his
selection of a cast, a play, and in its rendition. The frequent return
of a pleased patron accompanied by his companions attests the success
of a show in stronger terms than any other one thing could possibly
do. I go on record as saying that no show was ever a real financial
success without it produced "repeaters." It is a real test of genuine
showmanship, recognized as such the world over by every shrewd
theatrical manager.

Good showmanship consists of the ability to anticipate the verdict of
the playgoing public. The successful showman must have his fingers on
the public pulse in matters that concern entertainment. He cannot
afford to guess. It is too expensive. He must correctly diagnose the
case in advance of prescribing for its needs if he expects to be
successful.

The wise showman always plans his play to have the very widest
possible appeal, for the public is many sided, and a single narrow
idea will fail to touch it at all points, as it must do if it is to
have a popular acceptance. He knows, being a wise showman, that people
come to his playhouse for entertainment, pleasure, laughter and
relaxation, and not for a learned discourse on some abstract or
wearisome theme. There are proper places for the lecture and the "big
wind," but that place is not in the theatre of the wise showman. It is
his business to create his proffered entertainment into a valuable
piece of property that shall declare actual cash dividends at the box
office. That is being a successful showman, and he who does this
exhibits real showmanship.

The successful stage dancer must possess showmanship. That is why the
subject is brought into this book on stage dancing--that dancers may
be made to realize a need of which they may be wholly uninformed.

It takes showmanship on the part of the dancer to get fully in touch
with the audience, get down to their level, if you like to say it that
way, and never go over their heads. Successful dancers always use good
judgment in their offerings. The same kind of dance does not do for
vaudeville, musical comedy, revue and opera. Each requires its own
kind of dance. The revue has its own audience, the musical comedy one
of another character, vaudeville still a third kind, and opera still
another. Here is where the dancer's showmanship comes in--to
recognize this difference and adapt the offering to the audience
before whom he or she appears.

Dancers who would profit to the fullest extent in their profession
must learn how to absorb this essential element known as showmanship,
in the various ways in which it may be done.

Reading along right lines is very important. Read the dramatic reviews
and criticisms in the daily press, and read regularly the leading
theatrical weeklies. Identify yourself with your profession in this
way; read "shop" and talk "shop." Make it a point to see and study
other dancers, in vaudeville, musical comedy, opera and revue. Meet
your fellow dancers in their own habitat, behind the scenes. The
actual experiences that you are recommended to undertake in your own
behalf in the chapter I have called "Making a Name" will be invaluable
aids to you in harvesting a lot of the best grade of showmanship.

Travel will help you learn a lot. The traveled and successful
theatrical person is always alert, quick, bright, posted in all
important matters that concern the profession and all who are
connected with it.

Those who take my courses as students of dancing are given a wide
mental as well as physical training, to prepare them to cultivate
showmanship that shall complement their skill as dancers when they
become professionals. I call my lectures "inspirational talks," for I
do want what I say about their future careers to be inspiring to them,
and encouraging and beneficial. I speak to my pupils from many years
of stage experience, and I know if what I say is heeded and given full
consideration they will be better dancers and secure better
engagements, and do so in less time, as a result.

[Illustration: HELEN FABLES]

Good showmanship in dancing consists also in being able to "sell"
one's own personality in a dance. Select your offerings to suit your
public. Put in the effective "tricks" in your exits that are so
important in inviting applause. And learn to leave your audience
"hungry" for more of you. Let them go away with a wish that they might
see more of your dancing. That is your cue in successful showmanship,
my dancers. Let the audience come back to see the same show again in
order to once more enjoy your pretty work. That means "repeaters," and
repeaters, as I told you, mean successful showmanship, and both
artistic and financial success.

It is never good showmanship on the part of the dancer, or of an actor
or actress in any part, to let the audience know that you know they
are out there. The way you handle an audience will have much to do
with the opinion of your work that will be held by the big men in the
theatrical world, who may be among those present at any performance,
you never can tell when--and they, remember, are hiring good dancers
now and then. Their judgment of how you handle an audience is worth
consideration.

And bear in mind, too, that the most important part of your dance is
the very end of it, the finish, upon which always depends the applause
and the recall. You like to earn your bow, and that is right. Take
your bow in front of the audience gracefully and quickly. Don't milk
the audience dry by your bows. Never do that. Get general applause,
but don't work up a lot of bows. Come right back, bow modestly and do
a short dance, to acknowledge the applause. Such good work as that
will stand the inspection and secure the approval of every theatrical
manager whose approbation you value. An audience does not want to see
you take bows. Bows simply gratify the vanity of the artist.

So, you see, there is quite a bit of showmanship for the dancer to
study and acquire, and it is very much worth while for all stage
dancers to put it into practice, early in their career.

There are entertainment values that the showman himself must be able
to create from his available material, which he will find and develop
in dialogue, lyrics, tuneful music, voice, singing, dancing,
characterization, costumes, settings, scenery, properties, lighting,
and everything else connected in any way with the stage picture or the
presentation of his offering. The publicity and exploitation of the
show will tax his showmanship from another angle and is of great
importance to the success of the play or the artist. The selection of
proper music also has much to do with the appeal to the auditors. No
musical show can ever be made a success without beautiful, appealing
melodies, or "song hits," as we call them.

And now one final word of advice to my dancers: Three minutes is long
enough for your solo dance. Concentrate your efforts. Do not present a
long-drawn-out and padded dance that will weary everyone. Brevity is
the soul of good dancing as well as of wit, and you will be wise to
heed this from the very start of your professional stage career. Never
show a dance to any prospective employer unless your dance has been
thoroughly set and properly rehearsed with whoever is to play the
music, pianist or orchestra. Never offer any excuses at such a time.
Be sure of yourself, and only do one dance, your very best one.




"WHO'S WHO" IN THE SHOW

[Illustration]


To the members of an audience attending a theatrical performance it
may appear as though the actors were the entire show and the only
principals concerned with the carrying on of the affair. Of course the
man in the box office, the ticket taker, and the ushers have been in
evidence, and there is the orchestra and its leader. Others than these
have not been seen or heard, and so perhaps are given no
consideration. Who the "others" may be, or if there are any others,
and of what their services to and interests in the show may consist,
would puzzle many theatre-goers to determine with any degree of
accuracy.

Let me take you "behind the scenes," as you may call it, but
"back-stage," as we say in the theatre-world, in this matter and
disclose the forces that move the puppets on the stage; the powerhouse
that generates the current that moves the whole machinery of
production. The intricacies of theatre management may come as a
surprise to you.

Chief of all comes the owner, the promoter, known to the profession as
the Theatrical Manager. He it is who selects the author of his
contemplated production, and also the writer of the lyrics and the
composer of the musical score. He engages the producer, the creative
genius who realizes the possibilities of the production and directs
and rehearses it, and the principal actors and singers, and some of
the members of the chorus as well, but the producing director usually
recruits his own chorus and dancers. A most important step is the
choice the manager is to make of a producer, or production director,
on whom is to devolve the entire handling of all matters back of the
curtain line from the day of his selection to the rising of the
curtain on the initial public performance. He is well aware of the
importance of this choice, and places his reliance only on a man known
to be thoroughly experienced and competent in this line of work.
Having selected him, the theatrical manager steps out of the picture
and the producing director assumes control. And this control is
absolute in his domain. Not even the power behind the throne, the man
who placed him in his position, is allowed to interfere in any way
whatsoever with his orders or plans. The wise theatrical manager
possesses full knowledge of this and keeps hands off. Should he
venture to countermand a single order of his producer, the latter
would be certain to say "Take your show and direct it yourself," and
walk out.

And the reason why no producer of the first magnitude will brook
interference, opposition or disobedience from any source is, that he
is held strictly responsible to the owner for the form that the show
takes and for the manner in which it is performed. His own reputation
is always at stake in every production of which he accepts control. He
makes the show a success, if he is that kind of a producer, and is
entitled to the credit of successful accomplishment. If, on the other
hand, he gains a reputation of "breaking" rather than of "making" the
show, his career is abbreviated in short order. His job depends upon
making good; he is the "realizer," the dominating and master-mind of
the show.

Let us name some of the duties that devolve upon the ubiquitous
producer:

He must know by heart the book, lyrics and music of the entire play,
and bring out to the full, in all of the actors, principals and
chorus, every possibility that their parts, acts, songs, dances and
groupings permit or demand. All the comedy must be developed and
emphasized, and the personality of the cast studied and properly
brought to the fore. The principal artists engaged for the production
are under his sole direction. He creates all solo and ensemble dances;
gives all readings of the dialogue, sets the dialogue syllable by
syllable, devises nearly all the entrances and exits for everyone on
the stage, indicates the tempo for all songs and dances.

He must be capable of inspiring the lyric writer and composer, the
costume designer and the scenic artist. He must possess imagination,
suggest the locale, color and architecture--the atmosphere--of all
scenes, select the color schemes for all costumes and scenery. He
makes up all orders for scenery, costumes and properties, and must, to
that end, know both qualities and costs; prices per yard of silks,
satins, and every kind of material required in the production, whether
for wardrobe or in the scenic effects. He must order the correct
number and size of shoes, stockings, tights, wigs--everything, in
short, that the company supplies to the players, which is usually all
save the street clothes which they wear into the theatre. The orders
for properties include all furniture, rugs, bric-a-brac, draperies,
and everything else that serves to dress the stage or the performers.
If period furniture is called for, the producer must be competent to
say what is correct for the locale and the period.

He must furthermore make out a plot for the switchboard, to control
every lighting "cue." There will be a front light plot for the
"floods" and "spot-lights" as well as separate plots for side-lights,
overhead lights, and all the rest, to be thrown on or off at a certain
cue. This necessitates his knowing how many and what colors he
requires in front of each lamp for his many different lighting
effects.

For each act the location on the stage of all scenery and furniture
must be definitely determined, as well as the exact place for each
performance, and the producer determines the location of the same, and
the different heads of the mechanical staff mark the stage
ground-cloth in colored crayons or water-colors for the guidance of
the stage carpenter, property man, and electricians, upon whom
devolves the duty of setting the stage, props and electrical
equipment. The producer is absolute monarch behind the curtain line,
his dominion extending not only over the actors, singers and
dancers--the entire company--but also over all members of the
mechanical staff and the orchestra. He alone is responsible to the
owner for the successful presentation of the performance. His is a
man's size job.

How many American producers of the supreme type, capable of the bigger
things, are there in the United States?

I know five. And I know them all. Five out of 110,000,000 people. How
many do you know of?

[Illustration: W.C. FIELDS]

The Stage Manager takes the show from the Producer after the opening
performance and is thereafter responsible for everything connected
with the show back of the curtain line. He it is who presses the
buttons that run the curtain up and down, and gets the performance
under way and keeps it moving, changing the scenery and lights exactly
as arranged by the Producer. He is accountable to the Company Manager
for the way every performance is given, and maintains a close
supervision over the principal artists and the chorus, sees to it that
they stick to their script and do not interpolate matter of their own
or "guy" each other or the audience. Actors or actresses who are
insincere in the parts assigned to them should be barred from the
professional stage. There is evidence of "guying" an audience at times
in some of the best companies on the part of some players of
established reputations who should be ashamed of themselves, and who
certainly should be punished for such offenses. I have known some star
comedians to go on the stage intoxicated, which is an unpardonable
offense, and for which such persons should be driven out of the show
business. If an actor would dare do such a thing in a company directed
by me, I would go before the curtain and denounce him to the audience
and refund the price of admission. An actor who would do a thing like
that is called a "ham," which means a common person with no mentality
or breeding,--a type that is practically extinct now in the theatre.

The Stage Manager is responsible for every facial makeup, and will
personally pass upon each individual's appearance. He is usually an
actor of long experience, and knows makeup thoroughly, but not the
straight makeup for youth as taught in the Ned Wayburn Studios which
is the makeup I perfected when glorifying the celebrated "Follies"
beauties. He is capable of maintaining discipline, and is the watch
dog behind the curtain. He commands respect by reason of his
knowledge, experience and good judgment. He has presence of mind and
is able to handle any emergency that comes up. He must thoroughly know
his business. He is versatile. Like the several instructors in my
studios, who have had long stage experiences and specialized training
for their jobs, the Stage Manager is able to answer any question that
can come up concerning stage matters, and he is able to understudy and
play most any part in an emergency.

The Assistant Stage Manager is under the Stage Manager. In the larger
productions there are often two assistants. He has charge of the
chorus, male and female, and is required to make all calls, to get the
principals and chorus to the stage. He calls "half hour," thirty
minutes before the overture time, "fifteen minutes," fifteen minutes
before the overture time, and "overture," and when the overture is
called everybody in the opening of the first act must come to the
stage. He does the clerical work for his department and keeps the
record of attendance, etc.

The Musical Director, who is the leader of the orchestra, is
responsible to the Stage Manager for the way in which all music is
played at every performance, as well as for the correct rendition of
all vocal numbers on the stage. Every tempo throughout the play is his
personal responsibility, and the composer exacts of him the most
careful and effective execution of the score as written. It is he,
too, who conducts all music rehearsals. He and his entire orchestra
are members in good standing of the American Federation of Musicians,
and the amount and time of their service in the theatre are definitely
agreed upon and duly set forth in a signed contract in established
legal form and binding upon both parties.

All shows carrying scenery require the services of a Stage Carpenter,
who is the custodian of all scenery and scenic effects, drops, solid
drops, cut drops, leg drops, gauze drops, borders, exteriors,
interiors, ceilings--all flat stuff and set stuff. (I am using the
usual stage nomenclature for these, assuming that you will know the
meanings of most of them, can guess at others, and won't care
especially if one or two are not in your vocabulary. Stage jargon has
crept pretty well into the understanding of the general public, till
now most theatrical terms are matters of common knowledge.) The
scenery is set for each scene on the exact floor marking indicated by
the producer. Stage-hands, known as "Grips" in stage parlance, set the
scenes.

There is usually a second stage carpenter, or second-hand assigned to
work at the side of the stage opposite the stage carpenter, and a boss
flyman, whose station is up above in the fly-gallery. He gives the
"flymen" the cues to lower and raise the scenery as required, upon
receiving signals by "buzzer" or "light-flashes" from the stage.

The property man, known as "Props," has charge of the furniture, rugs,
pianos, telephones, everything of this nature, as well as of all
hand-props, such as bric-a-brac, books, flowers, fruit, food for stage
banquets, table silver and china, everything in fact that the play
requires--even to a prop baby or any animals required. It is his duty
to see that all props are in place for each act, ready to the hand of
each player as the action calls for them.

There is also an Assistant Property Man, who has charge of the
clearers, the men who set the "props" and clear off the trappings
after each act, preparatory to setting the scene for the act
following. At the close of the last act of the play the stage is
again cleared, both of props and scenery, to permit unobstructed
passageway. This is a state requirement, enacted as a fire-prevention
measure.

The Chief Electrician operates the switchboard and is the custodian of
all lights on the stage; that is, of all portable lamps, of all that
actually light. A lamp that is merely a prop or a decoration and not
used to yield light is under the control of props and no electrician
will touch it. The Assistant Electrician has the responsibility of all
lamps in the theatre other than those on the stage.

Nobody ever touches a light in the theatre. A call goes out for the
electrician if anything goes wrong with a light anywhere. Nobody ever
shifts or moves any part of the scenery except the stage carpenter or
the crew under him. None but props ever places a piece of furniture on
the stage. If you want a chair moved half an inch you must call the
property man to do it, otherwise the several unions involved will
immediately and without any question stage a drama of their own that
is not down on the bills; one that may really turn out to be next door
to a tragedy, since the penalty for failing to observe union
requirements would undoubtedly be to stop the performance, walk off
the stage and fine the stage-hand who was guilty of over-stepping the
bounds $100.00 and ban him from the union.

Every musical production has its wardrobe mistress, and sometimes, if
large enough, her assistant, both good seamstresses. The dressing room
assigned to them is called the wardrobe. All costumes are in the care
and charge of the wardrobe mistress. She alters and keeps them in
repair, and sends out to be pressed or cleaned when occasion demands.
The wardrobe women also have a union.

The Company Manager represents the owner of the show and controls the
"front of the house." He has nothing whatever to do with matters back
of the curtain line, which are strictly within the province of the
producer or stage manager. He has enough cares and important duties of
his own without going back stage to find more to add to them.
Moreover, any effort on his part to dictate to the producing end would
cause an immediate rupture. He knows that, and attends strictly to his
own affairs. Probably in no other craft, trade or profession is the
line so carefully drawn between the business end and the producing end
as in the show business. It is the Company Manager who is the
custodian of the funds, handles all the finances and acts as
paymaster. He maintains a close supervision over the sale of tickets
sold at each performance and with the aid of the resident house
manager and house treasurer "counts up" the tickets directly after the
sale has stopped for each performance, usually after the curtain goes
up on the second act. He makes up the payroll at the end of every week
and pays the company on Saturdays during either the matinee or evening
performance, as is required by the standard theatrical contracts.

The Company Manager is the watch dog of the show from "front." The box
office receipts tell him a story that he must heed, and he is quick to
catch its warning. There comes a time when even the most successful
play must be withdrawn from the stage or continue at a financial loss.
He is a wise company manager who can correctly determine the exact
point to call a halt and terminate a run for the best interests of the
owner and all others concerned. And it is because he can do this that
he holds the important position that he does. He is almost invariably
an experienced showman. Furthermore, his multiple duties require him
to be a diplomat if he would maintain his standing for preeminence.

When the company travels, he arranges the transportation, provides
rail or other transportation, supervises and controls everything
connected with the entire trip. He is held financially responsible,
and signs many contracts. The Company Manager handles everything
connected with money and transportation and is an important cog in the
wheels of things theatrical.

There is a press representative connected with the show who finds
plenty to do in attending to all newspaper advertising and advance
writeups, publicity, photographs, billboard posters, photograph lobby
frames and other display matter, as well as all other printing,
including the newspaper ads and the distribution of printed matter.
The fixing of the prices for tickets, which is most important, is
usually his duty, provided he is a shrewd showman. The Press
Representative, or Director of Publicity, or "Agent" as he is known
professionally, is generally found about two weeks in advance of the
company arranging every detail to anticipate a successful opening or
presentation in each city, or "stand," as it is called.

So much for the personnel of the show's management and working crew.

Now we will say our company has just arrived in town and taken over
the theatre in which it is to appear for an engagement.

It finds at the theatre a resident house manager, a resident house
treasurer, in charge of the local box office, and his assistant
treasurer, who acts at times as relief for his chief, opens the box
office in the morning, and sells the gallery tickets at show time.
There is a house music director, a permanent chief usher and the other
ushers, front ticket takers, an advertising agent, bill poster, a
day and night stage door tender, who are usually watchmen, who are
custodians of the building, besides the janitor and cleaners.

[Illustration: RAY DOOLEY]

There is no conflicting of authority by reason of the arrival of our
show upon the scene. It is understood by all hands that the show staff
takes precedence of the house staff, and all work together for the
general good, to put over a perfect and complete performance and get
the public's patronage and approval.

One thing you will do well to remember if you ever become a member of
any theatrical business or mechanical staff:

If you have occasion to purchase anything for the show or theatre at
any time, be sure to get the company's stage manager's OK, or order or
voucher of some kind in advance. It is an invariable rule of the craft
that any purchase of over five cents made without this formal sanction
will not be paid by the management, but will be considered as a
donation--however involuntary--on your part.

There is one very important man behind the curtain at every
performance on every stage, whose rule is arbitrary and absolute, and
who is not on the company payroll. This is the house fireman, a city
officer, with the power of the city and state behind him. The fire
regulations are posted in plain sight on every stage. "No smoking" is
one peremptory order that admits of no violation. Woe unto the actor
or actress, principal or chorus girl, who tries to sneak a smoke in a
dressing room, if found out! The fireman is using his nose as well as
his eyes, and the familiar odor of a surreptitious cigarette will lead
him straight to the culprit. Mr. Fireman is authorized by law to enter
any dressing room under such circumstances, and no matter what the
state of your toilet, he will exercise his authority, enter your
room--and remove you forthwith. Fine or imprisonment, or both, are the
legal penalties for violation of the no smoking law, and for using a
flame or canned fuel, in most theatres. Principals have before now
been taken off the stage in the midst of a performance and landed in
jail, necessitating the dismissal of the audience. It is a mighty
important man who can do a thing like that, and consequently the
fireman commands the profoundest respect of every member of every
company, from the chief all the way down the line.

No man is ever employed back of the curtain line in any first class
theatre who is not known to be of good character. Those who are old in
the theatrical business know this fact. If you harbor any other idea
of these men, get it right out of your mind. Every theatre manager
today demands that his employees be qualified in respect to character
as well as in ability.

Now that I have taken you back of the curtain line and out into the
front office and shown you just how the wheels go 'round that make the
show go, you have become aware that there is something more in the
theatre business than a mere group of good actors and singers and
dancers doing their best to please you up on the stage. The more the
machinery of the stage is kept out of sight, the better the management
and the greater the satisfaction, both to the folks behind the curtain
and the audience out front. Your attention should not be distracted
from the play, the opera, the spectacle, by the intrusion of any noise
or the appearance of anything or anyone not concerned with the actual
presentation. The drop curtain or the tableau curtain should move
silently and without revealing the human agents that manipulate them.

Scenes and sets should be made in silence and out of view of the
spectators. No person should ever be in evidence on the stage, not
even momentarily, save only the actors, whose presence you expect and
welcome. Otherwise the illusion is interrupted, perhaps destroyed--and
ours is an art where illusion holds a major place in imparting
pleasure. Such an extraneous element would also break the continuity.
It is not tolerated in the best houses.

So you see there is a definite reason why the "men behind the guns" in
the battery of the stage are out of sight and so, often, out of mind.
The hard work of the producer and his faithful subordinates is shown
only in the superior attainments of his troupe and the ensemble as
presented to your vision. They, themselves, the men who finance,
prepare, rehearse and drill the show into shape, are seldom in
evidence--never on the stage.

[Illustration: NW]




PROFESSIONAL COACHING AND PRODUCING FOR AMATEUR ENTERTAINMENTS

[Illustration]


I am often called upon to "put on" an amateur show, and the call is
not confined to New York alone, but extends to many far distant
cities. These are usually community or social affairs, charity
organizations, college shows, or entertainments by the employees of
some large establishment. Once I have put a show across for these
lovers of theatrical activities, the habit of continuing the plan of
giving a show seems to have become established, for with many cities
and clubs and associations the call continues year after year, an
annual or periodical production under my direction being demanded.
This indicates that I have been successful in directing the
non-professional in a theatrical way, and I am sure it is so, for I
have handled the whole situation and the "company" just as I would if
they were going on the professional stage, taken personal charge of
everything, coached principals and subordinates, put the show across,
and been on hand to see the results.

Spread here before you is the story of just how I organize, coach,
develop and handle an amateur company in a musical comedy or revue
performance to occupy a full evening's time on a theatre stage; from
the first "call" of an untrained troupe of inexperienced actors to
the final curtain of the actual, completed performance.

[Illustration: MOONLIGHT BALLET, FOLLIES OF 1923]

First of all, I make a call for anyone and everyone who would like to
take part in the entertainment. This call is usually made in a hall,
sometimes in the ballroom of a hotel, but usually in a large hall
where there is a good floor and a piano. I always have a pianist in
attendance.

I take the people who are going to take part in the ensemble first and
arrange them according to their height, always having the shortest
person to my left. Sometimes a great many people will try out for a
thing of this kind. I have had as many as three and four hundred at
many of the calls, and possibly more than that. I have always arranged
them, as I say, from my left according to their height.

Then I get them to stand in a huge semi-circle before me, as large a
semi-circle as the hall will permit, and if I have too many for that
one semi-circle, I put the others behind them into other semi-circles.
I begin by placing my first semi-circle shoulder to shoulder. I watch
their shoulder heights and their head-lines all the way along the
semi-circle. The semi-circle will begin at my left, cover the whole
side of the hall--whichever is the longest side--and the end of the
semi-circle will be at my extreme right. I have my table and chair in
the center, but near the wall opposite this semi-circle. The pianist I
usually have on my left-hand side, if it is convenient. He must have
his piano turned in such a position that by looking slightly over his
shoulder he can see me as well as the group.

I number the entire group, beginning with number one and running
consecutively from my left as far as they will go. Then they are
required to sit down in the same order. Each person must have a seat
and they occupy the same seat at each call, after the elimination
process. Before I do anything else I have their names taken, with
addresses and telephone numbers; the first and last names directly
opposite the number that I have given them. Then they stand up and I
arrange them in straight lines across. Sometimes I will have eight in
a line across, and I may have six lines of eight to begin with;
sometimes eight lines of ten, and perhaps as many as twelve in a line,
all depending on the shape and size of the hall.

After they have been arranged in perfectly straight lines one directly
behind the other, the next thing I do is to teach them the eight
different directions, which are so important. Let me recall them to
you: (1) left oblique, (2) left, (3) left oblique back, (4) back, (5)
right oblique back, (6) right, (7) right oblique, and (8) front. They
are taken through these directions until I am sure they understand
them thoroughly. Then I divide the foot into four different parts,
just as I do in my courses: the toe (the end of the shoe), the ball
(the half-sole), the heel, and the flat. I always make them stand with
their knees together, their heels together, the left toe pointed to
left oblique, the right toe pointed to right oblique, hands down at
their sides, the weight equally distributed between the two feet,
heads up, and looking straight front on a line with their eyes. I
insist upon their standing this way. Every time they come to their
places on the floor during rehearsal, I remind them of it.

Now, I begin to show them simple movements in order to get them to
shift their weight easily and to give them confidence. First the
hopping step. When they do this I can immediately tell just how far
they can go in my dancing--by giving them what I call the hopping
test. They hop on the ball of the left foot eight times and they
repeat that eight more times, on the ball of the right foot to a 4/4
tempo. Then they hop on the ball of the left foot for eight counts,
and alternately for eight on the right foot, through a number of
refrains or popular choruses. I caution them to be careful about
bending the knee when they land the weight of the body on the floor,
because many of them have never danced before in their lives. They
know nothing about it, but by bending their knee they make a cushion
for their weight, and they must land on the ball of the foot, not on
the heels.

After I try them out doing that, I put them in a circular formation,
where everybody can see me, for I stand in the middle of the ring. I
turn them toward the left hand, and I start them around in a circle on
the hopping steps; left hop, right hop, left, 2, 3, 4; right hop, left
hop, right 2, 3, 4; alternately through, in time with the music of a
popular 4/4 tune. This test has never failed with me. I can
immediately find the clumsy, awkward ones and select the apt ones.
This, of course, I do in my mind, making mental notes of their
numbers. After I get them back in a straight line at the end of the
hall I call out the numbers of those who have qualified, but I do not
hurry to do this because many times they are nervous at a first
tryout. So I encourage them as much as I dare to. One has to be
tactful at such times. But right away you can find your awkward people
and also those who have a natural grace. I can pick them out
immediately.

They move around in a circle. Many times I will stop them and divide
them into smaller groups, all the time noting the ones that get it and
the ones that don't. I will get to know number 1. I will watch her or
him, and I will say to myself, 1, 3, 5, 8, 9, 14, 16 and 18 have it;
the rest haven't. Then I ask them to sit down. I can find out just
about the way they are going to do my work from this little tryout. I
never individualize my criticism.

The main idea is to find out the ones who are interested. There are
always some people who come to these calls who are out for a lark, and
they must be eliminated at the first call. After the hopping test I am
able to pretty well decide just which ones are going to get the
ensemble work--and very often you will find some splendid natural
dancer in a group like this.

Then I have another little test that I use in a 2-4 movement. Two hops
on the left, two hops on the right, two on the left and two on the
right. Get them to do that to a 2-4 tempo.

After I determine in my own mind those who are most apt, I ask the
members present if they have ever done anything in the way of any
individual stunt, either a dance or a song, or if they ever played a
part in amateur theatricals. Usually a few will stand up, and I bring
them around my table one at a time to get an idea of what they have
done. I get them to write down their names and addresses and exactly
what they have done or what they think they can do, gradually getting
the whole thing on paper. In this way I am getting all of the
available talent organized.

In the meantime I am watching the members of the ensemble. I am trying
them out in some of the simple routines. I gradually work them into it
before they realize it. I get them all enthused about it, and through
long experience I am able to tell which group is going to be what I
call my dancing girls or boys. They will be the smallest ones, five
foot one, five foot two, three and four. Then I pick out those who are
a little slow in picking up the steps, and they will be the "mediums,"
the sort of "in between" ones. Then I pick out the very best type of
show girl, usually the taller girls, who can't move as fast as the
smaller girls, but who have grace and good figures, and who are good
looking. Until I have the three final groups, of course, I make all
the members of the ensemble dance. The show-girl will be more
dignified perhaps, with a stately bearing. Naturally I pick out the
girls who have natural aptitude to do my work properly and make them
the real dancers. I have eight, twelve or sixteen of these in a set,
never any more. Then the others who don't dance quite so well will be
the mediums, and then the show-girls who can stand in the back of the
stage, or at the corners, and dress the stage or do "parade numbers,"
or walking numbers. After I get these sets worked out I give them
their next call and take the principals in hand.

Then I have copies of the manuscript, and usually carry along three
sets of the parts. If it is a play, I have the play completely read.
If it is a revue, I have all of the skits and numbers with me.

I have the principals come in and sit down in a semi-circle before me
while I seat myself behind the table on which I keep my papers and the
brief case in which I carry the "scripts," parts, etc., and we have a
meeting similar to the meeting that was held with the ensemble. The
pianist is there, and they bring along their songs. Whoever is going
to be the stage manager of the company is also there. He is usually
one of my coaches that I carry with me. The local casting director and
usually the president or chairman, also sit at the table at the left
side of me, with my own assistant (the "coach") at my right.

Now, those who want to read parts for me are put at one side into one
group; that is, those who wish to try to handle important parts in the
dialogue. Then I place another group together which expects to do solo
dancing--at the other side. They are called principal dancers. Then I
make a separate group of those who expect to sing, or to do any sort
of a musical specialty, or any kind of a "stunt" that might be
included in the show. I have had the greatest variety of specialties
in a show. I have had them do magic, burlesque magic, play ukuleles,
and all sorts of stunts which I have placed effectively in a show. We
had a man in the Princeton show who did a little trick with a
cigarette that was a scream. I saw him standing around, and I asked
him if he could do a specialty. "I don't think so," he said. He was
smoking a cigarette at the time, and he said "This is the only thing I
can do." He took the cigarette from his mouth, broke it in two, lit
both ends of it, and he was smoking with both ends of the cigarette
sticking out of his mouth. Then he put another cigarette in his mouth
and did the same, and finally he lit the third cigarette without using
his fingers but from the other butts in his mouth. Well, I had him do
this stunt in the second act, in a proper spot, and it stopped the
show every performance. Some of those connected with the show told me
before the show that they didn't think what he was doing was going to
get over, but I told them in as nice a way as I could to mind their
own business, as I always do, and I put this "bit" in. I put a
50-ampere spotlight (very strong) on his face, and he did just this
little trick beautifully. Well, there was more talk about that than
anything else in the whole show. It had commercial value and it helped
the box office. People went especially to see him do it. We had stunts
there that had been planned for a year, and they didn't get as much
favorable comment as this one little trick did. Of course, it was
properly fitted in, cued in, as we call it, just as everything else
has to be in the right spot.

[Illustration: WILL ROGERS]

I only point this out to you to tell you that sometimes in arranging
your recitals or shows--whatever you may call them--you will find a
lot of talent which you would otherwise overlook unless you go about
it the thorough way that I do. I do the same with a professional
organization, because after all I am a builder of entertainments and I
must know entertainment values in order to make a success of my
business. I must be able to recognize and fully realize talent when it
is present. You must have a lot of patience to do this work. Some
people are able to do lots of things that will prove entertaining.
After all, what you are concocting is an entertainment. You should
always aim to present something different, something original or novel
that will surprise and amuse your audience, not the hackneyed old
stunts that everyone has seen time and again.

After I get them divided into groups and get their names down, I go
through the tests for principals. I will always hear the songs first;
but before you hear them sing they have to put down on paper what they
have ever done before, how much training they have had, and so on.
Then they go over to the piano and sing. But I usually try to be
tactful and let amateur singers tryout for me with no one listening,
to spare them embarrassment. From the piano they come up to the table
and sit down before me. As they are sitting before me, I note their
appearance. I engage them in conversation. I note their teeth,
mannerisms and personalities, incidentally classifying them in my mind
and casting them in my mind's eye. If they are in any way possible and
I feel that they should be given a chance, I make a note of it and the
songs I want them to try.

Then I grade them, number 1, number 2, 3, 4 and so on. All of those
who are trying for the leading parts are graded as they should be, but
always on paper so that I will not forget or overlook anyone.

After I am through with them I go through the solo dancers the same
way and mark them and what they can do. I get them down on paper. As
I see them dance I find out which is the best dancer, with the idea of
placing her or him in the show to good advantage. That's the important
thing in planning your show. They all have to be placed in a certain
sequence in the show. If the best numbers are all in the first act,
you kill the act or acts that follow. The success of any show is in
the way it is laid out. It is the placement of the personalities, and
what they are given to do--when they do it--that makes or mars the
entertainment. One with a great deal of personality can go into your
show, and if not cast properly he or she will kill the rest of the
show. Casting must be done with good judgment and common sense.

After I have my list of singers and dancers worked out, then I pick
the people who are capable of playing the parts. Some of them may have
had previous experience, but never perhaps professional coaching. Now
the reason why these amateur shows are usually so rotten is on account
of the incompetent coaches who put them on. It is always the fault of
the stager if the show doesn't go over. Some of them are terrible.
They don't know anything about the show business. They don't know how
to lay out a show. They don't know how to put on the dancing. They
don't know a comedy scene when they see one. They do not understand
how to rehearse dialogue or how to set the inflections of the voices
which make the lines get over as they should. These coaches are
usually people without any actual staging experience, consequently
they are not competent to rehearse anybody. Amateur organizations all
over the country are beginning to realize the necessity for
professional stage direction in order to register success, both
artistically and financially. It is not nearly so costly to employ my
organization as it is to have some other which is only giving a very
poor imitation of us, which means a thoroughly competent staff of
real producing directors, who are up to the minute with their dance
routines and everything else required. If you will take the trouble to
investigate you will no doubt discover that the coach you have
employed has been to my school for a very short time, just in order to
get our latest dances and ideas in staging. Why get this service at
second hand? It will cost no more to get it from me direct.

Before you let them read a part for you, you should first hand them a
copy of their part and tell them to go to one side and sit down and
read it through thoroughly. Some of them don't know anything about a
part. A copy of a part is typewritten, and the dialogue that they are
to speak begins at the margin. The cue that they speak on begins about
an inch away and there is a dotted line in front of the cue, but
always what they are to say starts at the margin when parts are
properly typewritten. Parts are made up of what we call speeches. It
may be four lines or four words or two words or even one word. "Yes"
is a speech. What they should know is what their speeches are. What
they have to say is called a "speech," and in parenthesis must always
be the "stage business" or what they are to do. Stage directions
should always be in parenthesis. They are sometimes typed in red ink
on the first copies of the parts.

When they study the dialogue, they should try to fathom the speech;
that is, they should form a mind's eye picture of what the line
conveys to the audience. That is how I teach them to study. They read
a sentence. A sentence is supposed to express a complete thought. They
must get the proper inflection by reading it out loud. No method of
expression is brought into play yet. By that I mean no pantomimic
by-play or facial expression. They are only reading at first. In most
of the amateur shows, the players never do anything else but read the
parts. They read, crossing back and forth whenever the coach thinks
they ought to cross, and it doesn't mean a thing. I watched that very
thing in an amateur show not so long ago, and it was inane. Nobody
should move from one place on the stage to another without a reason
for moving. There is a reason for every inflection of the voice. A
person with common sense will read a part intelligently, but only a
person with a dramatic spark inside of the body will be able to act a
part naturally. If the dramatic spark is not there, no human being
will put it there. If it is there, a real director will discover it
and awaken it and make much of it.

After this first reading rehearsal, where the parts should be cast,
more than one person can be tried out for the different parts. I make
a call for the dialogue rehearsal where I walk them through the
action, holding the parts in their hands as they walk through the
physical action of the play. You will find that each one has his or
her own idea as to how it should be done. I have them speak their
lines distinctly and slowly at first. While this is going on I do not
allow any visitors. Not one word is spoken except by the person who is
reading the lines, or myself. I make notes as to who reads the parts
best. Many times you will find that the local folks will have ideas
about who is to play this part or that part. I pay no attention to
them at all. I always use my own judgment about such things; in fact,
about everything concerning the production. I don't allow anybody else
to dominate the show or arrange anything for me. But you must know
your business before you can assume such an attitude.

After the dialogue rehearsal is over, all the participants are
carefully marked, noting the ones who are most natural and apt at the
dialogue; those who have resonant voices that will dominate the
auditorium as well as those who have positive personalities. You know
there are a great many negative people on the stage; they never get
anything over. I always have tried to pick personalities that will go
over. I can take a crowd of professionals or amateurs and place them
before me in a semi-circle, seated; get them to read a play for me and
immediately pick those who will score a success. This, of course, is
the result of years of experience, yet if you try this you will have
some with strong personalities dominating your little semi-circles.
They will usually dominate your show. There is always one personality
that dominates everybody. It might be a comedian, it might be a
singer, it might be a dancer, but there is always some personality
that sticks out, and after all, such a personality must be reckoned
with and properly cast, otherwise it may even dominate the play. It
usually does. If properly cast it may carry the play to success.

A rehearsal usually lasts about three hours. Accomplish something
every minute of the time. Get on with the business of rehearsal--no
discussions or arguments. When rehearsal is over make your next call
for these people, at a definite time and do not change it. After
dividing all of your people into groups as I have said, make separate
calls for principals and the ensemble. For instance, take your
dialogue and principals' songs Monday, Wednesday and Friday evenings,
from 7:30 until 10:30, or thereabouts; and the chorus or ensemble sets
Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday at about the same time. I think you
will find that you can accomplish a great deal on Sundays. I usually
call the principals and members of the chorus the first Sunday at 2
o'clock, and keep them until six, unless there are religious scruples
against rehearsing on Sunday, which is really not considered
sacrilegious. (I was brought up in the Episcopal Church and sang in
the choir as a boy.) Then I run right through the play as fast as I
can, to teach them the sequence of it. Then I usually call the
principal singers back Sunday evening and give them a good rehearsal
on the "business" of the numbers.

At the first rehearsal for the chorus I have the musical coach teach
them the music and lyrics by ear, one phrase at a time. Provide a
complete copy of the lyrics for every member of the chorus; we usually
collect them at the end of each rehearsal. Do not allow any talking,
laughing or playing at any of your rehearsals; make everybody
concerned take everything seriously from the very beginning. They will
welcome it, since it saves time for everybody. Put them under the
strictest discipline; get rid of those who do not want to take you
seriously; do not be annoyed by them, as they jeopardize your chances
of success.

Sometimes I carry my own musical coach, and I have found out that when
I don't carry my own pianist I always have trouble with my work. I
have never found anybody who can play the piano for my rehearsals to
suit me unless they have played professional rehearsals before. They
must have a certain touch to inspire me, so a good pianist means a
lot. Insist upon one who reads easily and who can play by ear as well.
If you have a rotten piano player the numbers will usually turn out to
be terrible. There must be something in the way the number is played
to make the members of the chorus want to dance.

After we get the numbers taught--that is, the songs--then I start to
teach the ensembles to dance the different routines. I pick out what I
would say would be the "hit" number of the show, the best popular
tune, something that appeals to me, that has a production idea in
the lyric. It is usually in 4-4 tempo, what I call the song-hit tempo.
I pick out this one song and we try a simple soft-shoe movement to the
chorus of it. Our routines fit any 32-bar chorus. I work with the song
for a while, then give them a 5-minute rest. Then I may pick out a
waltz number and try a few steps to that 3/4 tempo. But first of all
they are in a ring in a circle around me, and they first are required
to walk in time to each tune in the show.

[Illustration: DOROTHY DICKSON AND CARL HYSON]

I show them how to walk in time to the music. You begin with your left
foot and walk 8 steps in strict time with the music, then you take
four steps in half-time, counting one-and on each side, taking a step
on the flat of your left foot for the count of 1, then bringing the
ball of the right foot up behind the left heel and touching the floor
with the ball of that foot for the count of "and"; the same with the
right foot, and so on. The complete movement being in strict time and
"4-and" for half-time.

There may be eight, twelve, sixteen or sometimes twenty-four numbers,
and the people are made to walk around in circular formation in time
with the music, until they walk gracefully without any awkward
mannerisms. Now, there will always be somebody who will start with the
wrong foot. Someone will always be out of time. Some of them are born
without a sense of rhythm. They don't belong in the show and they must
be eliminated if you are going to make a success of the ensemble work;
only people who do modern dancing well should attempt the dancing.

We go along and teach our regular routines, whatever I lay out for the
show, but working on every number at the same time, doing maybe four
steps for one number, four for another, and so on, until I have laid
out the whole show in my mind. I never lay a show out in advance. I
do my best work on the spur of the moment. I have tried the other way,
but whatever is cut and dried is never any good. I must be inspired at
rehearsals.

When those who are going to be the principals have learned the songs,
I talk to them and try them out on a few little test steps to see what
they can do. Some of them are usually able to do some little dance
movements. Then I make them stand behind the ensemble and do the work
I have taught them, not in front of the chorus where they would be
embarrassed if they missed a step, but behind the lines where they can
be picking up the work. Then I eventually get them out in front, and
they usually do about the same dance as the ensemble, because if they
don't the ensemble shows them up. And you don't get your precision
effect. You must always get in an effective finish to every number,
either a final picture or an exit. If you want the chorus to get a
hand, bring them on for the encore, and let the chorus exit big on the
encore, but first get your effective finish. Then you have them all
back for the encore, then exit the chorus if you like, and let the
soloist stay on and let her or him do a solo dance if it is going to
be strong enough. There are different ways to finish a number and you
have to use your own judgment.

Be patient when you handle the principals and chorus, but persistent.
Shape up the dialogue right away, and take the entire show through as
soon as you can--the first Sunday as I suggested, if possible. Make
them run through the show no matter how it looks. They must stand up
for the ensembles and go through what they have learned, no matter how
rough it is, and the principals must do whatever they are supposed to
do to the best of their abilities. Don't take "no" or "I'm not
prepared" or anything like that for an answer. Accept no excuses; go
through with it. The more you go through the sequence the better they
will be at the performance.

Along about that time I am thinking about the pictorial effects. I
will have worked out a costume plot for the principals and chorus by
this time. By a costume plot I mean an assignment of dresses,
costumes, for both the chorus and principals. I make out two separate
plots, one for the members of the chorus and one for the principals,
in sequence from the opening number of the show down to the end of the
show. If I have thirty-six or forty-eight members in the chorus, I put
their names in and the costumes that they wear for each number, in the
order that they are worn. These plots are then typewritten according
to the sequence of the show. This is most important. They show every
change in costume that every one of the ensemble makes during the
performance. The same thing with the principals. Always figure the
time you have allowed each person to change costume, otherwise you
will strike a snag which may ruin the performance.

The show is taking a definite form by this time. I then start to give
them formations or groupings on the scene. When the curtain goes up
sometimes they are discovered on the scene. Some scenes I arrange for
the purpose of obtaining a good, effective picture, according to the
architecture and atmosphere of the scene, or I may give them some very
effective entrance movement coming down a staircase, through an arch
or gateway, or over a fence. This is influenced by the set. I
sometimes arrange surprise entrances, or little surprise exits which
are inspired by the lyrics or music. Sometimes I may use a personality
in the ensemble and give her an entrance or exit last. I resort to any
sort of producer's magic, as I call it, to get an effect or to provoke
applause, always keeping the costumes and the color schemes in mind.
Of course, I have my own "bag of tricks" with which I can insure the
success of any musical play that has any sort of entertainment appeal,
and you, no doubt, will have yours in time, with experience.

During the dialogue rehearsals, I make the principals speak the
dialogue in time, the same as the dances are done in time. They are
not allowed to use their own conception of how the lines should be
spoken unless I think their conception is better than mine. Every
syllable they utter will have to dominate the entire auditorium. That
is something that the coach must understand. When the house is full,
the audience makes a difference in the acoustics. Your people in the
show don't know anything about that, and so you must govern the volume
of the dialogue and set every inflection, attitude of the body, and
gesture definitely. But never let them use gestures that are obvious.

We will next assume that up to this time we have been working in a
hall. Now to perfect the dialogue it is sometimes necessary to go over
one speech fifty times or a hundred times, to get a certain inflection
and to set the accompanying "stage business." Stage business--all of
it--creates some dramatic value for the performance. That has to be
worked out, if you want to get effective pieces of "business," much
depending upon the brain power and the experience of the coach,
whether he is able to devise effective business or not. Sometimes you
will find it indicated in the script. For a man to make a success at
this business he must have inventive ability. He must thoroughly
understand dialogue, how to time it and set it. They must pick up
their cues, and at the proper moment, and not make "stage waits"
between lines. Sometimes the line is one that calls for a laugh.
Sometimes there is a line preceding it, preparing the audience for
what is to follow. We call that a feed line. Where the period comes
there should be a slight pause. We time that. The actor counts to
himself, "1, 2" before proceeding with the next line, that gives a
laugh a chance to get under way. If you don't give a line like that a
chance, it doesn't get over and the point is lost. It doesn't get the
laugh that you expect, and it would if the coaching is done properly.
Rehearsing dialogue is very tricky work. You must be very strict when
you rehearse it. If anybody on the stage should move, if a chair is
moved or if a door is opened at the wrong time while the dialogue is
going on, it would detract from the line and kill the play. No one can
move while a line is spoken unless it is some kind of a line that
doesn't call for a point. But if it is a comedy point that you want to
put over, or any other kind of an effective point, the characters must
be still and the line must be delivered, and after the period, after
the end of the line, you can break the picture and move.

Many a play is killed because people don't understand how to rehearse
dialogue, don't understand how to get scenes over; amateur coaches
teaching wrong business. I saw wrong business ruin a whole show once
in Baltimore. The chorus was walking up and down stage trying to get a
lyric over, with no sense of direction. They didn't know where they
were going or why. The coach just told them to walk up and down. The
soloist's back was toward the audience at times; she was facing right;
she was facing left; in every conceivable direction except the right
one to get a song over. Of course the number failed. The soloist
should have been in the center of the stage so the lyric could have
been heard and followed by everyone in the audience. Get the verse and
the first chorus over so that the audience gets the idea of the song.
It creates atmosphere for the number. If you walk sideways and your
face is sideways, the audience doesn't get the lyric. When I rehearse
a show the faces are at least three-quarters to the audience, when a
person sings or speaks. Nobody must ever have their back to the
audience when a line is spoken. If they sing a song or speak a line,
everything must be done for the benefit of the audience. That must be
kept in mind from the time you first begin to rehearse the company.
Whether it is a professional or an amateur company makes no
difference. They are trained in the same way.

Now, let us say we have finally perfected the play. They know the
lyrics, they know the numbers, they know the "business" that occurs
during the dialogue, and they know the "business" of the ensembles. By
this time the play has actually taken form, and it is time to rehearse
it with the scenery. When the scenery is added, both the ensemble and
the principals who do the numbers all report in their practice
clothes. Insist upon that. This insures their getting right down to
business without "stalling," as nearly all people on the professional
or amateur stage are disposed to do.

Go through the sets, get effective groupings so that you get the most
natural and effective pictures and it all conforms to the architecture
of the sets.

After you have finished rehearsing with the scenery, commence to give
them the hand-props. Sometimes I use important hand-props in dialogue
before I take on the scenery. That has to be carefully worked out and
considered. Otherwise I work the scene rehearsals in with hand-props.
You will find that most every one who has to handle a prop will fumble
it, will be terribly awkward with it. If they have to pick a chair up
and set it some place else, they will drag it across the floor and
make a noise with it. They can't pick it up and set it down without
any noise. This must be rehearsed. If they have to handle some
hand-prop, they will drop it at the wrong time. Most people are very
clumsy in the presence of an audience. Rehearse them with hats.
Gentlemen have very often come on the stage in amateur performances
and worn their hats in drawing rooms in the presence of ladies. I have
seen them take them off and place them in the most ridiculous places,
even in professional shows. Figure all of this out and rehearse it
carefully. I have had awful times just trying to teach them to sit
down and stand up properly.

[Illustration: A CORNER IN ONE OF THE LADIES' DRESSING ROOMS]

After the scenery and props come the costumes. We never have any
trouble unless somebody is trying to rehearse everything at the same
time. Not even in an amateur show do I do that. I won't allow it. The
sequence of final rehearsals is in this order; the scenery, the props,
the costumes, the lights, the orchestra.

You often have trouble with your costumes unless you get them from a
good concern. There are two or three first-class establishments in New
York where you can rent most anything. I have given the names of some
in a preceding chapter. There is one big firm in New York that has
recently bought over a million dollars' worth of costumes from the
Charles Frohman Estate, including some wonderful period costumes.

I always seem to be able to get about what I have wanted for amateur
productions from certain big New York establishments in this line of
business; those who make costumes for the Famous Players, Griffith,
and the very best moving picture and theatrical companies. They have
made many things for Marion Davies and her Cosmopolitan pictures. I
had a telegram from a girl in Minneapolis the other day. She had to
have a certain costume, because her engagement depended upon it. She
was to work three weeks at $150 a week, and she couldn't do it
without the proper costumes. I had one of my men pick out the costumes
for her. They cost her $45 for the entire three weeks. They were sent
to her by parcel post C.O.D. by one of these firms.

We have an art department in our studios where we make our own designs
for settings and costumes. When amateurs or professionals write to me
or wire me, I am usually able to put them in touch with the right
people and help to get just what they need. Any of these can be gotten
at reasonable prices. The prices range from $5, $6, $7.50, $10, $12
and $15 a week for each costume, depending, of course, upon the
quality of costume. I used a marvelous costume once worn by Ethel
Barrymore in one production, and I think I paid $15 for the rent of
it. A costume like that would cost $1500 to have it made.

After I am through with the costumes, I begin to do the lighting. I
will use certain lights that will affect the sets, the scenery. Other
lights will be used for the characters. I use the side lights,
overhead lights, border lights, and front lights. The spot-lights are
used to pick up the characters; sometimes I use X-ray border lights
down stage overhead to pick up the costumes. These lights are not
focused on the scenery at all. The other lights are worked to tone the
scenery to the desired effect, either to obscure it or to bring it out
vividly.

Be very careful of the kind of light you use on the costumes. If you
have trouble with the scenery or the costumes, you can usually
disguise them and make them look entirely different by some sort of
trick lighting effect. I remember one time staging a production at the
Winter Garden. The management set a limit of $23 for each costume;
that's all they would allow. I had about sixty-four girls in that
ballet, and it was staged by Theodore Kosloff, who is now in Los
Angeles. He was formerly at the Empire Theatre in London, when I lived
in London. He couldn't speak a word of English at that time. He had to
sail for Europe before he finished staging this ballet, and he turned
the ballet over to me, with a friendly request that I personally
finish it for him, which I gladly did. He had explained what he wanted
in costumes, and the management finally ordered some costumes made at
the above price. I just wish you could have seen what came in. When
you are used to spending $150, $175, and as much as $1,500 on chorus
costumes alone you can imagine what we got for $23. When the girls put
them on I was obliged to put colored lights on them, red, blue, dark
amber, and I did finally manage to get a very beautiful effect, which
you can do if you find that your costumes are not up to the mark.
Experiment with your colors until you get the desired effect.

After we get through with our costumes and lights, we are ready to add
the orchestra. That is the last thing of all. I bring the orchestra in
for a reading rehearsal, with the composer and musical director, and
we correct whatever orchestra parts there may be wrong and smooth out
the music. We always have a special orchestra rehearsal without
scenery, without costumes, without the principals, without the lights,
without any stage hands being around, and we perfect the musical end
of the show with the orchestra and company prior to the dress
rehearsal.

Then we have the final full dress rehearsal, orchestra, stage hands,
costumes, lights, props, scenery, facial makeups, everything complete.
We make them up for the dress rehearsal thinking that they will
remember how to make up for the opening performance, but we always
find that they can't do it, and about half past four or five in the
afternoon of the opening performance we begin to make them up again.
Then we are all ready for the opening performance, and we drive them
through this at a terrific pace, not allowing anyone or anything to
_slow_ the performance up, which would be fatal.

* * * * *

When you sit in front and see a show going along prettily and
smoothly, you little think of the amount of brain work, foot work and
executive power and force that has been necessary behind the curtain
to make the performance what it is!

Does it pay?

Here is a recent newspaper clipping:

"The Kansas City Junior League Follies, recently produced for a week's
run at the Shubert Theatre, Kansas City, under the personal direction
of Mr. Ned Wayburn, resulted in a net profit to them of $13,844.00."

[Illustration: NW]

[Illustration: A PRIVATE LESSON WITH MUSIC, BEING SUPERVISED BY MR.
WAYBURN (AT WINDOW)]




PRIVATE INSTRUCTION

[Illustration]


Usually our beginner pupils at the studios enter themselves in a
class, of either one or another of the types of stage dancing that are
so popular, and proceed regularly along the lines of class
instruction.

Then, in nearly every class, there will be those who "eat up" the
work, who advance rapidly and get ahead of the others, because of
special capability or unusual capacity along the line they are
studying.

Others go along at a natural pace, developing at the average rate, and
in the end come out as well schooled as their speedier companions. For
them the regular routine of class instruction is sufficient and
effective. Their progress is safe and sane.

Still others lag. This condition is present in every walk of life, in
every school, profession, trade. Some always get behind, fail to grasp
the meaning of their teacher's talk, are deficient in initiative
ability and so may not interpret his steps in their own actions. I do
not like to think or say that any of our pupils are lazy or
indifferent; ours is no place for either laziness or indifference. But
whatever the reason, the fact persists, a certain small proportion of
nearly every class in our studios fails to advance as rapidly as their
sister mates are doing.

If this element will recognize its own shortcomings and is
sufficiently ambitious to desire to succeed, the remedy lies in the
direction of private instruction.

So, too, in the case of the fast learners, those who are really
getting ahead of the majority of their mates; they will profit
measurably by taking our private instruction.

We have special studios and special instructors for just this purpose.
Professionals come to us without solicitation, for new steps, new
tricks, or new touches to old dances, and a few private lessons here
sends them out with new stuff to please their public. The student who
has come to an impasse, who finds she is not progressing in class as
she wishes to, and the student who is very facile at her work and her
learning, and knows herself capable of going ahead more rapidly than
class routine permits--these are the two who will do well to consider
the taking of private lessons. The average pupil may well be content
with her class work if she is going along in good fashion, and for
her, private instruction is not so essential. She may wish it later on
as conditions change, but at present the ensemble instruction, with
its unison work and the gentle competitions of fellow-students doing
the same stunts, may be all that she requires.

Ask your instructor if he thinks you will best remain in class, or
take private lessons, or do both. And ask me. Both the teacher and I
will be perfectly frank with you and advise you for your own best
interest.

At the desk in the main office you will learn what hours are available
for private lessons, and you will be assigned an hour, an instructor
and a private studio, if you and I decide that you will benefit by
this course.




EXPERIENCE

[Illustration]


If I hadn't had many years of stage experience myself, I'd not be
competent to instruct any one on the subject. I am not only a teacher
of dancing, I am also a dancer, and can do all the steps as well as
tell you how to do them. My experience as a stage dancer began in a
store basement in Chicago, where I tried to imitate the best dancers I
had seen at a Variety show. I put on wooden shoes and whistled my own
clogs and jigs for hours at a time, till I brought myself by main
strength, and no personal instruction, to a point where I could
exhibit my home-made steps to a professional dancer. That is a hard
way to get experience. You are more fortunate than you may realize in
having everything that you have to do to become a dancer all worked
out systematically for you, and told you and shown you by a simple
method which anyone can learn, with perfect music and everything else
that modern science can devise to aid you.

In the old days the beginner in dancing went direct to the stage door
and stated his or her desire to become a dancer. The applicant was
sometimes accorded a tryout. If he or she appeared awkward or was slow
to catch the tempo, or not physically developed to please the eye,
that was the end of it. There was no time to waste in helping to
overcome minor defects, no personal interest shown whatever. He or she
was dismissed summarily without any advice of a helpful nature.

If the candidate exhibited qualities that recommended her or him to
the producer, he or she was given a stage training in chorus work
following a tryout. The training was obtained in rehearsals, conducted
for weeks, without compensation. The instructor might become impatient
at any evidence of slowness of comprehension or execution; he might
resent tardiness, absence, or slight infringement of stringent rules,
and in such cases dismissal was the usual penalty.

The young lady or gentleman aspiring to become a stage dancer in that
day and age paid a considerable price for the experience, as you may
readily imagine.

Contrast then with now. You are acquiring this needed preliminary
experience to fit you for a stage career in our courses under
conditions that recommend them to ladies and gentlemen. There are no
subordinates in our courses. All are equal. There is discipline, of
course. You will find discipline on the stage when you advance that
far. But discipline won't hurt you, not our kind. We ask for silence,
attention, practice, and the conduct that ladies and gentlemen
naturally observe. If you are a lady of social prominence, studying
for the grace and beauty and health that our lessons impart, and not
intending to favor the stage with your presence, you are accorded the
same treatment that all others receive. This is a pure democracy if
ever there was one.

By the old way of obtaining training and stage experience a young lady
was kept for years in a subordinate place, and if she at last worked
her way up out of the chorus into solo dancing, it was by "main
strength," a vivid personality, aggressiveness and untiring effort.

Our first and primary instruction in the courses takes the place of
the years of disappointing hard work that formerly prevailed. You are
not held down. Your personality is encouraged and developed. You have
to do your part, of course; we are not going to make stars of you if
you don't help us do it. But the experience you must have is ready and
waiting, and is based on a knowledge of things theatrical, gleaned and
gathered through a series of years of personal experience exclusively
in that field.

So much for the easier preliminary experience.

Now you have passed the portals of our studio, fitted and trained, a
solo dancer, worthy of entertaining a public who waits to pay for the
pleasure of seeing you do your turn. On the way through the courses
you have had some small samples of what an audience is like. There
have been the visitors' days when your work was on exhibition, and a
Frolic before your fellow students in our own Demi-Tasse Theatre, or
perhaps some neighborhood or church entertainments near your home.
Those have all been good experience for you.

Now, as you enter upon a professional career, you must be content with
a moderate start. I know how far you have advanced and what you may
reasonably expect to do in your first, your starting engagement. Come
to me before you commit yourself to any manager's care, if you
possibly can arrange to do so.

In a small vaudeville act you may be able to command $40 to $50 a week
as a beginner doing a specialty. You may have a year of doing three or
four shows a day on "small-time," as it is called, which is splendid
experience for you. Then you may advance to bigger time, playing two
shows a day with bigger pay, and then, having improved yourself and
your act as you go along, you are in line for the still higher grade
theatres, where your work will get the eye of some production manager
who will offer you a really worthwhile engagement in a production, as
a Broadway show is called.

You cannot become a star in three or four months. It is only the
foolish ones who dream of such a possibility. It takes time and
experience to get on at a big time house like the Palace Theatre in
New York City, which is recognized as Broadway's best showroom for the
vaudeville artist. Look at the history of the stars you know. Evelyn
Law worked four years before she reached her present Broadway fame.
Ann Pennington has been working fifteen years, Fred and Adele Astaire
nearly fourteen years--and I can name all the stars on Broadway and
tell you exactly how long it took them to reach the pinnacle of their
present success. So expect for yourself a moderate position on the
start until experience has developed you and the public learned to
like you, and then your advancement should be rapid and easy.

Do you know that as the result of my years of experience I originated
all the solo and ensemble dances taught in my courses? Because of the
same experience I conceive and create all of the novelties, settings,
costumes, ideas and theatrical effects that are used in all the
productions, professional and amateur, that I stage. There is no other
school that can duplicate our service, since there is no other
producing director of any standing in the theatrical world connected
with such an organization as mine.

You are invited to benefit by my experience in every way. It is a part
of your education here that you are not asked to pay for. I tender it
freely to all who become members of my family of pupils. Not only are
you dancing routines of my own constructing, and listening or reading
at times to my class room talks on subjects bearing oh stage-craft and
showmanship, but also you are earnestly invited to consult with me
about your personal ambitions and desires.

[Illustration: MARION DAVIES]

I have literally helped thousands of good girls and boys to make
millions of dollars for themselves, in the aggregate, and have brought
a lot of happy hours to many million people who have willingly paid
their good money to see my pupils in their perfect work on the stage.
Profit by my experience; let me help you with my knowledge. This will
make your experience easier for you, and the more quickly fit you for
the lofty position that a perfectly worthy ambition prompts you to
seek.

[Illustration: NW]




INSPIRATION

[Illustration]


When you present yourself as a pupil it is to be inferred that you are
already inspired with a desire to become a dancer of the first
quality. That is good and as it should be. Without inspiration no one
has ever accomplished anything worth while in any line of endeavor.
Stage dancing is never a matter of luck or breeding; it is the direct
result of hard work under competent instruction, with your being
inspired to bring forth the very best that is in you.

All of us here at the Ned Wayburn Studios are inspired with a desire
to create a career for you, if you desire one. Whether we succeed in
our endeavor or not depends upon you. We will do our part faithfully,
earnestly and joyfully, and furnish you such an opportunity as no
other generation of aspirants for stage honors and success ever
possessed. Our courses themselves, as well as our scientific method of
developing you, are really inspiring to the new student with the
primary inspiration of desiring a successful, honorable and profitable
career.

As you approach the studio building from Broadway you note that its
appearance is attractive. It is new, clean, impressive; and on the
large second and third floor main windows, and on the Broadway and
60th Street corner windows, you note the signs, the lettering that
stands out, to tell you that you have arrived at the haven of your
dreams and hopes.

You step off Broadway and enter the corridor of the studio building
through the main entrance on 60th Street, where elevators await you,
to convey you the single flight up to the second floor, and you step
directly into our main business office. Here is found further
inspiration, for stage dancing is here treated as a business and in a
business-like way, and our business office indicates that fact to the
newcomer at the very first glance.

The prospective pupil approaches the long counter. She is greeted by
Mrs. Wayburn, who acts as hostess, or chaperon, or it may be by some
other principal or employee, whose business it is to welcome and greet
the new arrivals who come to us daily. Your introduction of yourself
is followed naturally by your questions as to this or that which you
wish to know about our terms and methods, to confirm your own
understanding of the matter. These are answered fully and courteously.
Our greeters welcome your inquiries. Ask us just what you want to
know, and their response will be politely given. Anyone behind the
counter thoroughly understands dancing.

Are you from out of the city, and do you wish to be directed to a
suitable hotel, boarding house, studio apartment or private residence
for your domicile while here? We have a list of desirable and
investigated places to suit all purses and all needs, and are glad to
pass the information on to our students.

Your questions being answered to your satisfaction, you decide to
enroll. The booking secretary invites you behind the counter, where an
enrollment card and contract is made out and signed. This contract
stipulates the number of lessons you are to receive and the kind of
stage dancing you are to take. You take the work just as I have
personally laid it out in the courses. The matter of tuition is
arranged, and you, as one of us, are invited to accompany a guide to
the various classrooms, studios, offices and other departments of the
two large floors--and absorb inspiration for your future work from
what you observe in the way of modern facilities and actual
instruction being given to live classes.

There is nothing more inspiring to the new pupil than to see our
various dancing classes in action. In fact, a view of our classes in
progress of work is inspiring to anyone, professional or
non-professional. The girls do their class work with a vim and snap
that betokens their interest and their intention to make good. They
are a smiling happy lot of young ladies that it does one good to look
at. Especially is this true of the advanced classes; the beginners'
classes are busy learning the A, B, C's of dancing, and these
rudiments are absorbing. But to watch the beginners today, and then
see the same pupils a few weeks later as they advance in ease of
movement and in a completer understanding of their work, is most
inspiring of all--inspiring to you who see them and to the progressing
pupils themselves. If it were possible or practical to let the public
in to look at our classes at work, our present large quarters would
soon prove inadequate to give foot room to the great number of
inspired ladies who would wish to enroll here and join in the
gayeties. There is contagion in watching our best students at their
"play."

Our new pupil is escorted also into my private office, there to be
welcomed by me personally. A large and richly furnished room is this,
its walls decorated with photographs of stage stars of universal fame
who have been developed by me, and incidentally helped up the ladder
of fame. Here is inspiration on every hand.

In her progress through the two floors of the studios our newcomer is
absorbing inspiration continually. To enumerate some of the features
that make an impression on her receptive mind as she proceeds from
room to room:

There is the Call Board in the main office. Now in the theatre the
Call Board is an established institution, placed handily to the stage
door and inspected daily by all members of the company for such
information as the management wishes to impart. Our Call Board serves
a similar purpose, and we encourage its daily perusal by all the
students. We post thereon press notices that our graduates send us of
their own success as reported in the newspapers; also notices of my
own producing activities in many cities; the date of the next makeup
classes; information of every nature that concerns the studio or its
clientele.

There is the Grand Ball Room, the most complete room for its purpose
that was ever constructed; its floors clear-maple, its walls
full-length mammoth mirrors; its windows large, its ventilation
perfect and easily regulated; its double rows of practice bars; its
clocks regulated and wound electrically by the Western Union Telegraph
Co. every hour, striking to announce the opening and closing of the
class instruction.

In this Grand Ball Room, the large Ballet studio, the various
classroom and private instruction and rehearsal studios, the
gymnasium, and especially in the Demi-Tasse Theatre, which is a
corporate part of our studios,--in all these there is accumulated a
fund of inspiration that suffices to start the new student with a
hopeful and expectant spirit of future accomplishment that is a prime
essential to her success.

On the day in which instruction is to start, the pupil returns to the
studio and is assigned to a dressing room. Here she finds expert maid
service, the maids being on continuous duty during all instruction
periods. She is accommodated with a locker, if one is required, with
her individual key. She is introduced to the row of modern shower
baths, and finds accompanying them every form of up-to-date sanitary
appliances and fixtures. She is now "at home," a full-fledged member
of the "happy family," and her education in her chosen art is about to
commence.

She takes her seat in her first classroom. She finds herself
surrounded by a number of other young ladies who, like her, have come
here imbued with the laudable ambition to advance their interests in
health, beauty, accomplishment of grace, and to fit themselves for an
independent and lucrative career, not one of whom is any more advanced
than she is. Her inspiration is furthered by this contact with those
who are to become her fellow classmates. She takes note of the heavy
felt floor-pads beneath her feet, the practice bars along the wall,
etc., and is thus assured that every care is being taken here for her
security from harm as well as for her comfort and advancement.

Her instructor, she finds, is a professional dancer of wide stage
experience, who knows every one of the actual steps he is teaching,
for he executes them before her, aiding her eyes by a living example,
while he at the same time informs her understanding by telling her
what each step and motion is and why it is done. His every word and
action is inspirational. She feels now that she is on the highroad to
success.

Presently, I enter the room and proceed to organize the class for
service, following which I address them on matters concerned with
their courses, seeking to instill into each prospective star an
ambition to reach out for perfection. And from this hour the
inspiration is enhanced with each new day's progress.

As I often say, in one of my class talks, "Inspiration plus
perspiration equals one good dancer."

[Illustration: CHARLOTTE GREENWOOD]




ATMOSPHERE


Atmosphere is something that one feels but cannot see. Atmosphere on
the stage is created by means of stage settings, costumes, electrical
lighting effects, music, orchestration, and certain stage decorations
as properties, all combined into one complete whole.

[Illustration]

Every attitude of the body that one assumes in front of an audience on
the stage creates a certain dramatic atmosphere. Every gesture, every
expression of the face, every move of the body aids to create
atmosphere. Characteristic attitudes of the body, characteristic
walks, characteristic dancing also creates atmosphere. In order that a
solo and an ensemble dance may get over with an audience it must have
atmosphere. This atmosphere must be figured out in a scientific way.
It requires unusual creative faculties to produce anything original or
atmospheric in the way of a solo or ensemble dance for the stage
today. No novice without experience can properly create perfect
atmosphere, for it requires a thorough knowledge of stage-craft and
showmanship, as well as of stage dancing and the technique of the
stage, to create an atmosphere in which a solo or ensemble dance, or a
song number will live. Without atmosphere the dance becomes all
perspiration and no sense. There must be a definite idea behind a
dance or underneath it. Everything must be done to embellish the theme
or general idea. No idea must be overproduced; just enough must be
done in the way of creating atmosphere for a dance to allow it to get
over properly. In other words, it must be fully realized and produced
properly, in a skillful, artistic way.

The first step in creating atmosphere is the selection of proper
music, which will give real inspiration. Without inspiration nothing
worthwhile is ever accomplished in the way of stage dancing.
Machine-like dancers never get over. One must learn to inject one's
own personality into each dance, in order to radiate an atmosphere
that will bring success. This important subject of atmosphere is taken
up in all our courses, and practically and thoroughly demonstrated and
taught. Great care must be exercised that a dance is not overproduced,
because if the scenery, costumes, in other words, the background, is
allowed to dominate the dance itself, the dance will fail. The pupil
must always dominate the costume and the entire stage setting or
surroundings in order to get the dance over. Lavish production and
accessories of any kind sometimes will interfere with the success of
the pupil, or dancer. In other words, a too lavish production will
detract from the dance itself and from the one who is performing the
dance. So it really takes a person of artistic perception, who has
become practical through actual experience, to set a dance properly
and surround it as it should be surrounded. Many a novice will have
good ideas, perhaps, for atmosphere, but through lack of experience
will not be able to get those ideas over on the stage. It takes,
therefore, practical stage direction to realize all the possibilities
of stage atmosphere in a practical way.

The subject of atmosphere as it relates to the future success of our
students, is given proper attention in our courses. I personally
present it before the classes in talks from time to time, and
demonstrate its meaning and purpose practically, by use of settings,
lights and properties on the stage of my own Demi-Tasse theatre,
connected with the studios.

The recognition of atmosphere and its need in connection with stage
performances is a mental process, an idealization that not every
material mind is capable of grasping readily. Probably no pupil would
think of enrolling in a course that had atmosphere for its sole
subject; yet it is an important matter to all students of the stage,
and my plan of introducing it incidentally in my classroom talks, and
at the same time showing them by a practical stage demonstration just
what it means to them personally, has put it before our pupils in such
an interesting and material way that they cannot fail to absorb some
knowledge of its benefits.

Every producing stage director must possess an innate or an acquired
sense of what we designate as atmosphere, in order to put on a
production in a perfect, pleasing and profitable way. My many
unqualified stage successes demonstrate my possession of this
essential element, which I try to unite with originality and artistic
perception, as well as a sure conception of what a fickle public will
welcome and approve by its patronage. Hence, my talks on atmosphere
are of more than usual value.

[Illustration: NW]




DANCING CHILDREN


When you are teaching a child something that suggests play, and that
at the same time is beneficial to health and beauty, and is also the
real foundation for a future career, you are accomplishing much in an
easy and pleasing way.

[Illustration]

The activities in our Saturday classes for little tots do all of this.
They are called dancing classes, and they become that, but the
gradation from romping play into systematic dancing instruction is
accomplished practically without consciousness on their part, and thus
they learn the rudiments of stage routine almost without knowing it.

[Illustration: CHILDREN'S SATURDAY HOUR]

I don't know of any bunch of children anywhere that have a happier
time than do our littlest pupils in their dainty lessons in the
studios. They love every bit of the "work." In the first place, it is
adapted to their years, and their instructors are both competent and
kindly; and while it is quite a problem to handle a roomful of
little folks bent on mischief, and direct their playing along
systematized lines, we do it, and before they know it the little feet
are stepping in unison to bright music, and gradually there is
awakened a pride in perfect performance, and the little playmates
become little dancers, each trying his best to equal or excel his or
her fellows.

I go on record as saying that the age of eight years is the most
favorable for the beginning of a dancing career, for then the young
pupil has a mind sufficiently developed to easily comprehend
instruction, and a body readily responsive to training. Yet we take
children from four to seven years of age for specialized training
which prepares them properly in the fundamentals and technique that is
so necessary. Occasionally some five-year-old dancing marvel is
discovered. Young years are learning years the world over, and right
training in foundation work for the future great dancer, as taught in
our studios, is so attractive in itself and so suggestive of real
"fun" to the little learner, that both child and parents give it their
hearty approval.

Dancing teachers in other cities send promising children to New York
to study for professional careers; mothers bring the little dancers to
New York, anxious to put them on the stage at once. But that is not
possible, as a state law prohibits any child under sixteen from
appearing before a paid audience to sing or dance, while permitting
them to go on for dialogue parts only, if they are past ten years.
Producers demand birth certificates and live up to the law. There is
in New York City a Gerry Society, which controls the situation and is
sharply on the alert.

Here in New York City there is a professional school for stage
children, which many attend.

The great majority of the children who come to our studios for dancing
instruction are from families who do not want the children to take up
stage careers, but wish them to be properly and thoroughly trained in
every type of dancing, which incidentally brings out all the natural
grace in the body, develops health, poise, charm of manner,
personality and symmetrical bodies. Parents naturally desire to see
their little ones graceful, accomplished, pleasing in deportment, and
able to exhibit a few clever steps in home or amateur entertainments--a
parent's proper pride. Others, especially professional stage people,
active or retired, enter their young folks in my courses with a view
to their ultimately becoming professional stage dancers. They know the
emoluments. They know that one daughter on the dancing stage is worth
ten in the parlor--financially. They know, too, that old adage "as the
twig is bent," and the rest of it, so they start their twigs straight
and in fertile soil with faith that in this way their child's future
is well and happily provided for. A knowledge of stage dancing is a
life insurance policy that pays big dividends during one's lifetime.
The dancer is her own--and perhaps her parents'--beneficiary.

We have tots here in the studio at our Saturday classes as young as
four. Usually, however, they are five, six, or over. In their primary
work we give them all sorts of jolly exercises--walking, running,
galloping, and for the tiniest we have "skipping special," "baby
work," body building and dancing games.

Our Junior class for children (ages four, five, six and seven) devotes
half an hour to very mild physical training and limbering and
stretching work on the heavy felt pads, and then there is half an hour
of dancing games. The hour thus passes all too quickly with our
interested little pupils. As they show proficiency in this work we
give them the actual dancing steps which are arranged in effective
routines. All of the technique is necessary and beautiful and they
love to go through it before the big wall mirrors and see themselves
in graceful poses.

[Illustration: NED WAYBURN AND TWO TINY PUPILS: HERBERT COLTON, 6;
PATTY COAKLEY, 5]

Those whose little bodies are especially adapted to it are allowed to
take up so-called acrobatic dancing, and it is not surprising that the
heels-over-head idea appeals as it does to the juvenile mind. It is
action such as they crave, doing "cartwheels," "splits," "back-bends"
and many showy "tricks," and they just love it. They are never forced
in this work, but really accomplish it themselves under painstaking
instructions. Children eight, nine, ten and eleven years of age are
assigned to the intermediate classes, beginners or advanced, according
to the proficiency or talent that they show me. Those twelve,
thirteen, fourteen and fifteen years of age are placed in the
Children's Senior Classes, either beginners or advanced. I,
personally, grade them and supervise all of their instruction. When
they reach the age of sixteen, the girls are put in the adult girls'
classes and the boys at sixteen are given private lessons from then
on. There are no mixed adult classes.

One thing we are very careful and considerate about is, putting a
child on her toes in the ballet work. We find cases where teachers
elsewhere have forced this too soon, before the child's feet and
ankles were prepared for it. Mothers are sometimes to blame for that,
for they are eager to see their little daughters do this pretty work;
but we insist upon proper foundation work first, developing the child
gradually, and then, when the strength is there, we know we should be
able to do the rest not only without danger of permanent injury but
with assurance of pleasing and perfect success.

Children thus gradually get instruction in five basic types of
dancing, i.e., musical comedy, tap and step, acrobatic, ballet,
including classical, character, toe, interpretive, and exhibition
dancing. They may develop best along one of these types, and choose to
follow that one out to a real professional quality, or they may
acquire a good working knowledge of all and thus have a diversity of
accomplishments. Then when they reach the age limit of sixteen that
permits them legally to enter upon the profit-taking period, they are
ready to respond.

I watch the little folks with their instructors every Saturday. They
are graduated according to their ages at first, and then graded
according to ability, usually at the end of each term (every twelfth
or thirteenth week). The youngest group gets one hour's work, all
their little bodies can stand, while those between eight and fifteen
inclusive get two hours instruction each Saturday. Their mothers,
guardians or governesses are in a spacious waiting room.

We are making a lot of children happy, and at the same time laying a
foundation for their health and beauty, and perhaps for their
financial prosperity. The future great dancers of the next two decades
are somewhere in this lot of little ones; which ones it will be is
unknown to them or to us, but all are given an equal opportunity, and
many will make good.

[Illustration: NW]




DANCING HANDS

[Illustration]


It is not only the rhythmic movements of the feet and legs that
constitute a dancer. Every stage dancer employs as well her face,
hands and arms in giving expression to grace, beauty, and the many
interpretations of her pantomimic art. Watch the next dancer or group
of dancers you see at a show, and it may surprise you to discover how
much the hands and arms have to do in adding to the effectiveness of
the presentation. It is a compliment to the dancer's artistry that you
have been absorbedly pleased by the complete effect, with no thought
on your part of analyzing the structure in detail.

But let her put her hands and arms out of the picture and note the
disastrous result. You then realize emphatically how much the motions
of the entire person, of the limbs and the torso and head, are
interdependent to create the grace and rhythm that complete the
perfect dance.

The various functions of the hand as detailed are:

1, to define or indicate; 2, to affirm or deny; 3, to mold or detect;
4, to conceal or reveal; 5, to surrender or hold; 6, to accept or
reject; 7, to inquire or acquire; 8, to support or protect; 9, to
caress or assail.

How these several functions are naturally evolved from the various
movements of the hand will be readily understood when one reads the
definitions:

1. (a) To define: first finger prominent; hand moves up and down, side
to earth; (b) to indicate: first finger prominent; hand points to
object to be indicated.

2. (a) To affirm: hand, palm down, makes movement of affirmation up
and down; (b) to deny: hand, palm down, makes movement of negation
from side to side.

3. (a) To mold: hand makes a movement as if molding a soft substance,
as clay; (b) to detect: rub the thumb across the fingers as if feeling
a texture held between them. (A movement often made when following a
train of thought.)

4. (a) To conceal: bring the palm of the hand toward you, the fingers
at the same time gently closing on palm; (b) to reveal: reverse the
above movement, exposing palm.

5. (a) To surrender: closed hand opens, palm down, action as if
dropping something on the ground; (b) to hold: the hand closes as if
to retain something.

6. (a) To accept: fingers close on upturned palm as if receiving
something; (b) to reject: fingers unclose from down-turned palm as if
throwing something away.

7. (a) To inquire: a tremulous movement of the outstretched fingers as
in the blind; palm down; (b) to acquire; hand drawn toward you,
fingers curved toward down-turned palm.

8. (a) To support: palm up, making a flat surface as if supporting a
weight; (b) to protect: palm down; a movement of fingers as if
covering what you protect.

9. (a) To caress: a movement of stroking up and down, or sideways. If
sideways, one caresses the animal nature; (b) to assail: palm down;
the fingers make a convulsive movement of clutching.

[Illustration: GERTRUDE LAWRENCE]

In other words, the hands give expression or emphasis to the thought
that it is desired to convey, both in speaking and in the pantomime of
the dance and the screen.

Learn, therefore, to use your hands correctly in every dance. There is
an idea to be put across in every step from your entrance--your first
greeting to your audience--through the measured cadence of your dance
steps, to the final exit--your appeal for approval. While you acquire
the necessary dance steps to make you a perfect dancer, also learn the
hand and arm movements that complement your steps and perfect the
picture into its most pleasing possibilities, movements that shall
develop the idea of the dance you are portraying and carry it across
the footlights.

As soon as you get command of your foot work and master the technical
steps of your routine, put your hands and arms into action and develop
their connection with your dancing steps so that both shall coördinate
as one, and thus your dance will grow into a complete and perfect
expression in the easiest way.

Do not neglect your hand-action. It is a positive necessity to
successful dancing, and the time to give it attention is while you are
learning the rudiments of your art. This work is taught in the Ned
Wayburn Modern Americanized Ballet Technique.

[Illustration: NW]




DANCING FEET

[Illustration]


Good dancers will take good care of their feet--the tools of their
trade. They are essential factors in your salary--drawing power. Treat
them kindly, and they will thank you and remain your meal ticket for
many years.

A hot foot bath followed by a careful pedicuring it seems unnecessary
to recommend, for that is a daily habit with all dancers and other
ladies.

If your feet are tired and cry aloud for care, prepare a bath for them
of common baking soda and warm water, using two tablespoonfuls of soda
to a bowl of warm water. This will reduce the swelling of the feet and
ease them greatly. Now rub them with a cut lemon. This freshens them
and also makes them white and pretty. Allow the lemon juice to dry on
them, then apply cold cream and massage them thoroughly. Now wipe off
all surplus cream and dust them with talcum powder. Put on soft house
shoes and you will feel like a new person.

Massage with olive oil is splendid for tired swollen feet; soaking
them in salt water is also good.

Here is a favorite foot balm you can have put up at the drug store:
Calomel, ten grains; carbonate of zinc, one dram; oil of eucalyptus,
five drops; ointment of rose water, one ounce.

First bathe your feet in cold salt water, then rub in the balm,
massaging it well into the feet at night, and powder freely with
talcum in the morning.

When the feet swell from long standing or tedious rehearsals, relief
can be had by dissolving the following powder in the foot bath: Borax,
two ounces; rock salt, two ounces; alum, one ounce.

If your feet are tender, soak them in this bath for ten minutes, and
then dry thoroughly: Hot water, five quarts; boric acid, 200 grams;
tannin, five grams.

For removing callous spots, soak the feet in hot water for ten or
fifteen minutes, then take a piece of pumice stone and rub the callous
spot. Do this every night. During the day keep a piece of cotton which
has been covered with cold cream on the spot to keep it soft. This
will remove any callous in a short time.

Can you think of a dancer with corns? What torture the idea suggests!
A limping, crippled dancer would be distressing to gaze upon, and even
a minute corn could create this condition. It simply isn't done. For a
dancer to tolerate a corn is a confession of carelessness, of personal
neglect, and indifference to everything concerning her art.

To prevent corns and most other foot troubles, wear shoes that fit
your feet. A too loose shoe makes corns just as quickly as does a
tight shoe, for when shoes are too large there is a constant friction,
which develops a corn. And see to it also that your stockings fit your
feet. A short stocking cramps the foot, and a loose stocking wrinkles
and rubs in spots.

The first thing to do for a corn is to relieve it from all pressure.
The druggist has an abundance of corn cures, most of which are
effective, but if you choose to have one made up to order, here is a
sure cure: Salicylic acid, twenty grains; alcohol, one-eighth ounce;
flexible collodion, one ounce. Mix and apply to hard surface of corn
with a small brush. Do this once or twice daily for three days, then
soak the feet in hot water, and a layer of skin will come off. Repeat
till corn is gone.

Tight shoes two sizes too small for you do not make your feet look
small; in fact, they make the feet look larger, and you haven't
freedom to walk or dance. Tight shoes and high-heeled shoes are
injurious to the health. The circulation of your whole body is
interfered with by wearing them, and cold feet, corns, bunions and
many other painful troubles result.

Wear comfortable shoes if you would have freedom in dancing and all
other exercises. Whatever shoes you wear, have them comfortable, so
you can forget your feet as you step joyously forth to trip a measure
in your chosen profession.

[Illustration: NW]




DANCING SHOES

[Illustration]


Each type of dancing demands its own fashion in footwear, and the
novice while learning and rehearsing requires a foot covering
differing materially from that to be worn later in the perfected dance
on the professional stage.

It is very desirable for the newcomer into the dancing world to
acquire knowledge of the correct shoes to be worn to facilitate
action, make the learning as easy as possible and keep the feet in
perfect condition.

In taking up this subject I shall tell in simple language what is the
best and most practical way to dress the feet for the various
occasions that arise in dancing. One general rule can be laid down for
everyone and all occasions: _Have your shoes fit your feet._ Do not
simply "buy a pair of shoes." Ascertain the size and width of shoes
that correctly fit you, and ask for your shoes by these
specifications. Go to a first-class shoe dealer. Don't buy a shoe
merely because it is pretty. Cheap shoes are often the most expensive,
and if poorly made may injure the feet.

The above advice applies to every shoe you buy, for house, sports,
street or evening wear, as well as for dancing.

For the courses, consider the type of dancing you are taking and dress
your feet with shoes suitable for that kind of work.

If your foot is short and fat, buy a short vamp shoe; if your foot is
long and narrow, get shoes with a long vamp. Stiff soles being bad for
the arches and hard to work in, be sure to get flexible soles.

[Illustration: TYPES OF DANCING SHOES

TOE SHOE WITH PADDED BOX TOE, USED FOR TOE DANCING.

SOFT BALLET SHOE, FOR BALLET, LIMBERING AND STRETCHING AND ACROBATIC
LESSONS.

STAGE SHOE WITH EXTRA FLEXIBLE SHANK, USED FOR HIGH KICK, ETC.

CUT-OUT SANDAL, FOR ORIENTAL CHARACTER AND BALLET WORK.

"MARY JANE" TYPE OF SHOE FOR TAP AND STEP DANCING.

LACED TYPE OF SHOE FOR TAP AND STEP DANCING.

A SPLIT CLOG SHOE WITH FIBER HALF SOLE ATTACHED, FOR ADVANCED "TAP"
WORK.

TYPE OF SHOE SUGGESTED FOR GIRLS DOING ACROBATIC DANCING.

"GREEK CHARACTER" LOW BALLET SHOE.

RUSSIAN BOOT.

"GREEK CHARACTER" HIGH BALLET SHOE.

TYPE OF MAN'S SHOE SOMETIMES USED FOR ACROBATIC DANCING.]

For the toe dancer there are toe shoes which have a padded box toe.
These come in black and white kid and in pink satin. This toe shoe and
the regular soft ballet shoe, which is used for ballet technique,
should both be a perfectly snug fit, the toes of the foot coming to
the very end of the shoe. To do this requires a shoe about two sizes
smaller than one's regular street shoes.

Nothing is better for the limbering and stretching foundation
technique, as given in the Ned Wayburn courses, than the soft ballet
shoe with a quarter-inch lift at the heel.

For acrobatic dancing this type of shoe is also recommended, though
many prefer an elk sole cut out sandal, which is also the choice for
Oriental ballet dancing. These sandals if too large will bulge at the
sides, hence care in their fitting is desirable. The most commonly
used shoe for girls doing acrobatic and soft shoe work and one that is
excellent for this purpose, is a black kid flat, as it is known, which
has a low heel and flexible sole; a sensible, comfortable shoe, such
as your feet thank you for.

For tap and step dancing there are several types of shoes, the most
common being that known as the "Mary Jane" or juvenile shoe with ankle
strap and button or buckle. Another favorite is the laced low shoe,
known as the oxford, made for both men and women. The solid clog shoe
has a full wood heel, arch and sole, and is used for very advanced
clog dancing; not to be worn by beginners, but only the most
accomplished professional solo dancers. There is also a low show for
"Tap" dancing called the "Split-clog" shoe, used by very advanced
pupils only, never by beginners, the half-sole being wood and the heel
wood, as well, but most professional dancers prefer what is known as
the "Haney" metal plate on the end of the shoe to bring out the
"taps," or else a wood-fibre half-sole, but no beginner should be
worrying about this. Just remember, that you must never try to learn
to dance in a French, Cuban or military heel, as they act as a
handicap or "brake." No one can learn with them because they pitch one
forward at the wrong angle and impair the health.

[Illustration: Fibre Toe]

[Illustration: Coin Jingle]

[Illustration: Heel Jingle]

There are several attachments, called "jingles," "taps," fiber half
soles, and the like, that the expert dancer in this type of work will
wish to have on his dancing shoes, and I shall tell you about them
here, but it is best to avoid their use while you are learning the
dances. After you have mastered your stuff and qualified yourself
without them, then have them put on, but not until after you have
become a real dancer.

There is a "coin jingle," as it is called, a brass disc about the size
of a quarter of a dollar set loosely on the shoe shank, that sounds
like two coins striking together at every shake.

The heel jingle is a brass plate set into the shoe near the heel with
a loose disc inside it from which extends a plug that as you step
falls and hits the floor.

The regulation stage shoe has a very flexible shank and a French heel.
It is not a desirable shoe for the student of dancing because of the
heel. But for high kicking and similar types of stage dancing after
one has acquired a knowledge of the art, it is very satisfactory. Be
sure it is comfortable and fits well.

There are other shoes that come naturally into use on the stage for
certain types of dancing. There is the low ballet shoe of the Greek
type, and a similar one in the high ballet type.

What is known as the Russian boot finds its place in some dances. It
is often red, green, or white, to match the costume. Variations of
this boot are the Spanish, Gypsy or Hungarian, Cowboy, and others.

There is also a high-laced close fitting boot with a very low heel and
soft sole used by men, as a rule, in certain kinds of acrobatic
dancing.

When you get into theatrical footwear, there is practically no limit
to the possibilities and the variations. Period shoes of all times and
nations--Grecian, Roman, Egyptian, etc.,--make the list almost
endless.

But really the only dancing shoes you will first concern yourself with
are those I have designated as belonging to the learners' work for
foundation technique, acrobatic, musical comedy, tap and step, ballet
and toe dancing.

In the exhibition dancing the usual ball room shoes are preferred. If
the dance is done in character, that will determine the style of the
shoes.

I want to sound a warning about French-heeled shoes and high-heeled
shoes in general, such as ladies find so fashionable.

A pretty female foot is charming, and one's feet should be dressed in
the most becoming manner. But high-heeled shoes do not make a pretty
foot. It is impossible to walk gracefully or safely in them, and as
for dancing, no one can ever hope to become a dancer who wears such
clumsy foot-gear while attempting to learn the art.

The persistent wearing of high-heeled shoes does much to bring about
female troubles. It is conducive to ill health, crooked figures, weak
ankles, and many internal ills. There are crippled ladies of mature
years whom I know, who frankly admit that their condition is due
solely to the wearing of high-heeled shoes in their younger years, "to
make their feet look pretty."

I want to make my abhorrence of high French heels as strong as I can.
You cannot wear them in my studios. I will not permit them, for to
wear them indicates that you will never learn to dance, and there is
no use in wasting your time in trying. After you have learned, in
suitable and proper shoes, how to do your dances, then a shoe with a
baby French heel will be permitted for musical comedy dancing, and a
shoe with a low common-sense (not necessarily ugly) heel for tap and
step dancing.

Fortunately, it is not necessary to wear French-heeled shoes in order
to have pretty feet. There are an abundance of attractive shoes on the
market that one can choose with assurance of enhancing the beauty of
their feet, without this deforming heel. If one uses the words
"sensible" or "solid comfort" when speaking of shoes--women's shoes
especially--it suggests something sloppy and unattractive, and some
young women will have none of it.

There is no intention to advocate the wearing of such shoes, nor any
others that are not attractive and good looking. Get becoming shoes
for every occasion, by all means, but see to it that they do not have
the fatal, high French heels. Before you take a single lesson in the
dancing art, dress your feet with proper shoes properly fitted, and
thank me for starting you right.

Most large cities have shoe stores with dancing shoe departments, but
if you are not able to supply your needs locally, write to the Ned
Wayburn Studios for information and it will be forthcoming. But please
bear in mind that no shoes are dealt in at the studios and no direct
orders for shoes will be considered.




THE QUEST OF BEAUTY

[Illustration]


Every person desires health, vigor, grace, poise--and I know of no
woman who would object to personal beauty of form and face.

Beauty of face may or may not consist of bewitching features and
perfect complexion; many a woman is admired for her good looks while
her features may not be considered classically correct. The quality of
one's complexion can be improved by exercise and correct diet, and,
for stage or social purposes, by the proper makeup.

Beauty of form is a matter of training. The "female form divine" can
be improved and kept at the "divine" standard if the possessor wills
it, goes at it right and persists in the effort. Bodily health is a
factor in all beauty. Get your body healthy, and the rest of the way
to beauty is easy.

When I state that stage dancing, as taught in the Ned Wayburn courses,
is a developer of health and vigor, a sure road to grace, poise and
personal beauty of form and face--in a word, a maker of beautiful and
attractive women--I am making a statement of fact that is irrefutable,
based on actual and frequent occurrence. You never saw a properly
trained dancer who was not in perfect physical condition.

Many ladies learn my dances for the benefits to be derived from the
training; young ladies and others not so young; the stouts and the
thins, especially, and both profit alike by the health-producing
activities they find in our courses. These ladies neither need nor
desire a stage career; what they do want is freedom from awkwardness,
a bit of pleasant reducing or filling out of hollows, a lasting
development of the foundation of beauty. They come from professional,
industrial and social circles. An hour a day, except Saturdays and
Sundays, for a few weeks, and we have their blessing forevermore.

[Illustration: JANET STONE AND NICK LONG, JR.]

And while on the subject of beauty, here is another thing:

A girl has a pretty face. On the strength of her beauty she thinks she
would make a success as an actress. (Hollywood is overflowing with
this type of girl.) She is a good home dancer, and surely dancing on
the stage is no different! Perhaps she is right in her estimate of
herself, and then again she may be mistaken, for it requires more than
mere physical appearance to be a top notcher in anything outside of an
exclusively beauty show. Not that any lady's pulchritude is a handicap
to a stage career or in any way undesirable. On the contrary, the
stage has always welcomed beautiful women, and will continue to do so.

But, here is another girl in the same social set who makes no claim to
being a beauty, and does not think of herself as being of a type that
lends charm to the stage--and this Cinderella may possess the very
qualities that go to make the professional actress and dancer, and yet
let the opportunity pass because of her failure to recognize her own
value. Her face, with proper makeup under our skilled direction, with
the correct treatment of its features, consideration of the stage
lighting, and her hair becomingly and appropriately dressed, may far
outclass that of the pretty girl who has only aspiration without the
necessary qualities to back it.

In other words, beauty of the street and the home is a vastly
different thing from beauty on the stage behind the footlights. So do
not worry at what your mirror tells you. If you have the other
qualities that make for professional success, my courses will instruct
you fully as to the way to look your best, and you will be surprised
at the latent possibilities for personal beauty that we will discover
for you.

[Illustration: NW]




WHO'S AFRAID!

[Illustration]


I have never known a graduate of our courses to have a bad case of
stage fright. This doubtless is attributable to the fact that our
pupils are thoroughly grounded in all their stage work before going
before a critical audience. They know their steps and routines
perfectly, have mastered the physical side of dancing. Their first
dancing is done before their class, their instructor and myself. Once
a month we have Visitors' Day, for relatives and friends, here in the
studio. Our students appear in action before them, and at other times
before some neighborhood or church benefit audience. They are properly
dressed for their part, and their makeup is right when they go "behind
the footlights" for their first professional performance--all of which
gives the necessary self-confidence that carries the dancer through
the trying ordeal of a first appearance.


STAGE FRIGHT--WHAT IT IS AND HOW TO OVERCOME IT

When you step out upon the stage to do your turn for the first time,
you will be very grateful to me for having instilled into your mind
the necessity for doing your work over and over till it has become
second nature to you. You will thank me, too, for the long series of
foundation work, limbering and stretching exercises, that you have
gone through, that have kept you from being muscle-bound, given you
confidence as well as ability, and left you without fear of not being
able to go through with what you have undertaken. This and the
knowledge that your costume and makeup are perfect, are of the
greatest help in begetting that confidence that overcomes the danger
of stage fright, not only on a first but also on all subsequent
appearances. Knowing that you look right is half the battle; the other
half is the certainty that you know what you are about to do and know
it perfectly.

Stage fright is the uncontrollable fear of an audience. It is the
result of excessive nervousness. The orator, the actor and the singer
experience this dread more often than does the dancer or the
instrumental musician. The mouth becomes dry and the throat contracts
as the speaker or singer attempts to get his voice across the
footlights and out to the audience. One's voice becomes faint and
unnatural, weak and uncontrollable. Those who afterwards have become
the world's great actors and singers have many of them been overcome
with stage fright, and even left the stage on a first appearance.
Richard Mansfield was one of these. He fainted from stage fright at
his first appearance, yet he afterwards became one of the greatest
dramatic stars in the world.

The stage dancer does not have this difficulty with her voice, and if
trained right while acquiring her art should never be subjected to the
bugaboo of fear. But I am going to lay down some general rules here
for the prevention and control of stage fright that will give you
confidence and also serve to instruct you how to act if the worst does
happen and nervousness gets the best of you. In chorus work, of
course, there is little danger. Your mates will carry you along if you
miss a step or break your routine, and you'll soon get back all right.
In solo work, don't try to look at your audience nor single out any
individuals. Don't glue your gaze on the orchestra leader, though he
alone is the audience of which you have any right to be at all
conscious. He and his baton are your friends and are giving you your
tempo. Be aware of them incidentally but not conspicuously, and forget
the rest of the folks in front entirely. Forget yourself, forget
everything but the music that fills your ears, and let your dancing
absorb you completely. Radiate an air of conscious certainty in all
you do. Smile. Look happy. Your dance is a good one and you know how
to do it Well. You know you do. Pretty soon a ripple of applause
starts. It grows and fills that big half-dark place down there before
you. That is a tonic. Your stage fright or your fear of it is gone for
good. Your audience has accepted you. Now you glow with the happiness
that is yours by every right. Applause is to you and your art as the
shower and the sun are to the flowers. You live on it. Without it you
are a failure.

Suppose you had let your fear master you. Suppose you had quit cold,
got cold feet, let yourself be scared out of your wits, and not braved
the thing you feared. That would have been a calamity. Your promising
career would have ended before it began, after all your expenditure of
time and money for lessons. Don't let anything scare you. Go on when
your turn comes. Keep going. No matter what happens, don't give
up--keep right on till you get your nerve back.

I saw a young singer come out in front of a large audience once, get
her cue from the orchestra, and stop dead. She looked out over the
crowded auditorium. The leader held his baton suspended in air.
"Wait," she said. "I've forgotten it." The audience was dead silent,
understanding just what had happened, and very sympathetic. The
orchestra leader spoke a single word to her.

"Oh, yes!" she smiled, and her voice swelled out into the song she had
so nearly forgotten.

Did she get a hand? I'll say she did, and a couple of encores and a
press notice next morning that told all about it, and her career was
launched. She had presence of mind and control of herself. Cultivate
this by first gaining perfect control of every muscle in your body, by
persistent practice of all of your dancing exercises, technique and
dance routines; great confidence in your ability will come with this.

I am going to advise you to do as I have always done, and that is,
write your routines down and keep them. Each has a name. Ask your
instructor, he can tell you the name for every step. Write these
routines in sequence, and remember each one. Go through each one every
day, no matter how many you collect. The more of them you have the
richer you are, for they are valuable. You will be a solo dancer one
of these days and with this list you have you can make up your own
routines,--take a step from this one and that one and build a new
dance for yourself. After a year or two you'll find this easy to do,
and it gives you a chance to work in your own personality. In writing
down the routines in the first place, while still in the courses, as I
have advised, you are helping yourself become fit, so fit and so
familiar with your work that you couldn't get stage fright if you
wanted to. So in doing this you are really accomplishing two very
important things, enlarging your dance vocabulary and making yourself
stage-fright proof.

Always go on the stage with the firm conviction that you are going to
do well and make a hit. Say to yourself with deep feeling, "I shall do
well tonight. I shall have a big success. Everything will go just as I
want it to."

[Illustration: CLEO MAYFIELD]

This is called auto-suggestion, if you want to know, and it is a
self-starter, too, and makes the wheels of success go 'round. Step on
it! It is good for every performance.

Be satisfied with small beginnings at first. Exhibit your work in
public whenever you can, to gain confidence and experience. Keep your
eye on Broadway and work toward that great thoroughfare, of
course--all dancers do that--but don't think of making your first
appearance there. The farther away from Broadway you make your first
appearance the better it will be. Learn the art of costuming yourself
for your part, and learn the art of makeup. They come next in
importance to the actual dances themselves that you are patiently
practicing. When you start out, take with you a knowledge of dress and
makeup as well as of dancing, and when you are mistress or master of
these three arts and make use of them properly, you can go on the
professional stage without dread of being overcome by stage fright. No
real artist ever is, although any great artist will be a little bit
nervous perhaps before making the first entrance in a new play on an
important first night. But the sight of the audience cures that.

[Illustration: NW]




THE DANCE AND THE DRAMA

[Illustration]


The art of acting as it has been known for thousands of years, derives
from the dance, and is a direct evolution from the representation of
the emotions as portrayed by the primitive dancers. Joy, anger, love,
jealousy, hatred, revenge, triumph and defeat were all interpreted in
the Grecian dances of the period antedating the introduction of the
speaking actors, who told in words and gestures the stories that had
formerly been conveyed through the dance. The victorious warriors
returned from battle danced to show how they had fought and destroyed
the enemy. The hunter described in a dance how he had slain wild
animals. The traveller who had visited what to him were distant lands,
told of the strange people he had met by imitating them while he
danced. Gradually there was evolved the addition of spoken words
supplementing the action, accompanied by appropriate gestures and
facial expression. Man had discovered his ability to become for the
moment another person, and to interpret certain emotions more vividly
than through the medium of the dance. The stage became the
opportunity not only for the representation of elemental forces and
actions, but also for the principal creations of the imagination.

While the slowly developing drama departed widely from the limitations
of its origin, there has, nevertheless, remained an association with
the dance that will continue for all time. Especially is this true of
the lighter branch of the drama, comedy, and the modern combination
known as musical comedy or comic opera. In the popular stage
entertainments of the day dancing forms an important feature of a
large percentage of all productions that appear in the leading
theatres. In many of the classical plays, by great dramatists, that
are annually chosen for revivals, the dance appears, and the actor or
actress who cannot dance misses many opportunities for profitable
engagements. There has always been a kinship between the dance and the
legitimate drama, and many prominent stars began their apprenticeship
for the stage in the ranks of musical comedy or as vaudeville dancers.
With few exceptions it will be found that the men and women who have
achieved success on the stage are enthusiastic devotees of dancing,
and they will agree that to those intending to make acting their life
work a thorough training in the art of the dance is an essential part
of their education.

[Illustration: NW]




PERSONALITY IN THE DANCE

[Illustration]


Every individual possesses something that for lack of a better word is
termed "personality;" something elusive and evasive, that cannot
easily be defined or explained, but nevertheless remains the essential
quality that distinguishes its possessor from every other human being.
But while all may have the potentiality for some distinct and special
attribute, unfortunately for by far the greater number this is never
developed or expressed, and they pass through their uneventful,
monotonous existence, without even realizing their capacity for being
or doing something outside the routine of their daily occupations.

In this era of the newest of sciences, psychoanalysis, which is
attracting the study and investigation of millions, much attention is
being given to the explanation of the failure of so many persons to
find an outlet for hidden capacities by the well-worn "inferiority
complex." The flower of personality, we are told, is born to blush
unseen because of an individual's belief that he or she is in some way
inferior. Despite all the books that have been written, and the good
advice that has been given, urging the development of self-confidence
as the starting point for worthy accomplishment, there is still all
too prevalent an attitude of timidity and hesitation that says in
effect: "I can't be what I would like to be, so what's the use of
trying."

This inability or unwillingness to believe in one's self; the
disposition to doubt one's powers, to admit defeat before trying, is
nowhere more clearly apparent than in the attitude of many persons who
possess the physical and mental qualifications that with proper
training would bring distinction and profit as exponents of the dance.
They admire the successful dancers; they feel that they too are
capable of expressing themselves through this art. But,--and here
comes the cold water that quenches the spark of their ambition,--they
are timid; afraid of failure; they fear that they haven't the
persistence and capacity for application that is needed to assure
success. Perhaps they do make an attempt, but the work is hard, they
just know that they won't be able to stick it out, and after a few
futile efforts they give it up, and spend the rest of their lives
wondering what they might have accomplished if they had persevered.

To these too easily discouraged persons the message of the dance is:
"What others have done you can do. You have the physique, or at least
it can be developed. You have the intelligence to accept instruction.
You have the patience needed for the continued repetition of movement
that makes perfection. You have an individuality that can be expressed
in the subtle shadings and delicate touches that growing skill will
enable you to show in every graceful movement. You have in you the
capacity for artistic and harmonious expression of your personality.
Why not develop it?"

I cannot emphasize too strongly the importance of _personality_ in a
successful stage career. Along with the actual mastering of the
dancing steps and the acquisition of health and a beautiful body,
comes just as surely the development of one's personal qualities. And
because each person has an individuality which is distinctive from
that of everyone else, all must select the type of dancing which is
best suited to their own personalities. That is why the performance of
stars like Evelyn Law, Marilyn Miller, Ann Pennington, Gilda Gray and
Fred and Adele Astaire leaves a lasting impression. Every step, every
movement is designed to drive home the characteristics of their
individuality.

Even more important than the actual dancing steps they do is the
manner in which they execute them--the individuality that they
express. It is the almost indefinable factor called personality which
lifts one out of the ranks of the chorus and makes the solo dancer. In
this book I am trying to help you develop your personality, in the
same way that I have discovered and developed that quality in so many
of today's theatrical stars.

Most emphatically I want to impress upon you that it is not "chorus
work" you are learning in my courses. It is professional and
individual dancing, that when mastered gives one that certain
something that one lacked before, a feeling of having accomplished
assurance of success.

[Illustration: AL JOLSON]

Anyone who masters the dances takes on a certain confident feeling in
time, after exercising great patience in practice. With this
confidence, the happy pupil radiates a new magnetic personality which
the audience feels--but more about this later on, when you will learn
just how one's self is injected into the dances, until they are
vitalized and become the living embodiment of the emotions and spirit
of the dancer. This is putting one's own personality into the dance,
and is one secret of every great artist's success, which we seek to
instill into the minds of all our students.

[Illustration: NW]




DANCING AND EASE OF MANNER

[Illustration]


Man is a gregarious animal, and eagerly seeks the company of his
fellows. In civilized society men and women gathered to dine, to
converse, to dance, to play games, to watch others indulging in
various sports or pastimes. Out of this intermingling at social
gatherings there has gradually developed an accepted code of conduct
termed "good manners," which are as stringently binding as any law
enacted by a legislature. And there are penalties for violation of
this code, that are surely imposed upon the luckless offender, ranging
all the way from a snub, a sound or gesture of disapproval, to social
ostracism.

"Manners maketh man" is an ancient aphorism that has a very wide
application. While the forms and standards of what constitute good
manners change with the times, their essential basis is always the
same--a deference to, and consideration for, those with whom one is
thrown in contact. Courtesy, politeness, helpfulness, and other
evidences of good breeding and careful training, are the outgrowth of
a desire for eliminating selfish instincts. The rude man or woman is
an egotist, seeking to assert his or her individuality without regard
for the sensibilities of others.

Aside from the willful violation of those unwritten laws that have
come to govern social intercourse, there are many who err because of
excessive self-consciousness, which makes it difficult or impossible
to put themselves at ease among those with whom they would like to
associate. They are painfully aware of their own surplus ego; they are
constrained and awkward; they feel that in some way they are
outsiders, that, as the slang phrase puts it, they do not belong. It
is probable that more social failures are due to this trait than to
any other cause.

Against this self-conscious attitude a thorough training in the dance
is a most effective remedy. The shy, constrained, awkward boys and
girls mingle with their companions on terms of ordered freedom and
equality. They are taught grace of movement; the spontaneous
expression of their individuality is modified by contact with their
associates; they acquire a graceful walk and carriage. To follow the
various movements of the dance in harmony with the music takes their
thoughts away from themselves, and provides an escape from the dread
self-questioning: "Am I doing the right thing?" Success in mastering
the technique of the dance brings assurance and poise, and adds
immeasurably to the capacity for adjustment to environment that marks
the well-mannered members of what is in the true sense of the word
"good society."

[Illustration: NW]




DANCING AND CIVILIZATION

[Illustration]


Solemn professors are discussing the question "What is Civilization?"
the answers ranging all the way from an increase in man's power over
material things that add to his comfort and happiness, up to the
development of higher ethical standards of personal conduct. To one
the civilized man is he who has brought to his service the hidden
forces of nature, and by steam and electricity has girdled the earth,
vastly increased the production of wealth, and by superior methods of
transportation has brought all regions of the globe into close
contact. To another the mark of civilization is the diffusion of
valuable knowledge, the spread of popular education, and the sharing
by a whole people of the culture and scholarship of the great creative
minds. To yet another the real test of civilization is in the
cultivation of a greater capacity for enjoyment of all that life has
to offer. And a fourth affirms that only those are truly civilized who
have learned the laws of right living and conduct, so that in seeking
the fullest development and expression of their natures they are
careful to avoid infringing on the rights and welfare of their fellow
men.

Leaving the definition of civilization for future settlement, it may
be taken for granted that a civilized society is one in which order
and individual rights to life, personal liberty, and lawfully acquired
property are respected; in which the rule of brute strength is
supplanted by the higher law of reason and social justice and in which
the people are free to develop their artistic and aesthetic tastes
into a complete and harmonious whole. Applying this standard to the
world's history there are found great civilized communities that at
various periods have emerged from primitive barbarism, have flourished
for ages, have left their records of high achievement in architecture,
sculpture, painting and other arts, in imperishable literature, and in
religions that phrase the highest exaltation of human thought and
ideals. Such are the civilizations of ancient Egypt, India, Greece and
Rome, where the conditions attained were as greatly in advance of
those prevailing at the time in practically all the other regions of
the earth, as are those of modern Europe and America compared with the
black tribes of Africa.

To the student of social customs in various ages it is significant
that the peoples of the most civilized countries were eager in their
search for the higher enjoyments, and that among them the dance was
regarded as one of the most important forms of self expression. Along
with the greater accumulation of wealth; the erection of great
palaces, temples and other enduring movements; the mastery of form,
line, and color by the sculptor and painter; the progress in music and
literature toward higher levels, came the recognition of the dance as
one of the greater arts, worthy of encouragement by rulers and
statesmen. The fact that at the period of highest civilization in the
four countries referred to the dance was held to be an important and
honorable art, is testimony to its inherent value as a means of
satisfying the universal desire for human expression of the beauty of
form and harmonious movement. It is not a mere coincidence that the
most enlightened peoples of all ages have regarded the dance not only
as an amusement or diversion, but as exemplifying the eternal laws
that bind mankind to its earthly environment. Poets, philosophers,
scholars, leaders and teachers of men, have at the times that they
have been most highly regarded because of their special qualities or
abilities, joined in rendering homage to the dancer as an
interpretative artist.

Coming down to modern times and our own country, it is found that as
America has vastly increased in population, wealth, knowledge and
material comfort, along with the widest extension of popular education
of any great nation on the earth, there has arisen a greatly increased
and steadily-growing interest in the dance, both as means of
individual enjoyment, and as an artistic entertainment ranking high
among all forms of creative effort. With the growth of great cities
and industrial centers social activities have been greatly multiplied,
and of these the dance is easily the most popular. At all seasons; at
the winter resorts of the South, or the seashore, and in the mountains
in summer, the story is the same; dancing is the one diversion that
never palls, and is constantly engaged in everywhere. Golf, with its
hundreds of thousands of devotees, has brought with it the country
club, where the dance flourishes until the wee sma' hours. In the
home, in hotels, restaurants and supper clubs, the dance reigns
supreme. Learning to dance has become a part of the boy's or girl's
education, along with the ordinary school studies. Not to dance is
to be distinctly outside of practically all social circles in American
cities and towns, and each year finds the number of one's dancing
acquaintances increasing. From the select few who are assumed to be
"smart society," down to the multitudes who make no social
pretentions, everyone dances, and enjoys it. If a poll could be taken
of the population over twelve years of age in any American city,
asking for their favorite amusement, it would doubtless be found that
dancing comes first.

[Illustration: NED WAYBURN'S PRIVATE OFFICE]

In the field of public entertainment dancing holds an equally
prominent place. The musical comedies, vaudeville acts, and other
theatrical productions in which the dance is the chief or an important
feature, testify to the popular appreciation of the highly skilled and
highly paid artists who delight the public eye.

The motion picture is reputed to have seriously affected the
prosperity of the legitimate drama, but it does not appear to have
lessened the interest of amusement seekers in shows of which dancing
is an essential part. The percentage of theatrical productions in
which dancing figures has in recent years steadily increased, and the
financial success of so many of this class of entertainments proves
that the public knows what it wants, and is getting it. The
enthusiastic crowds attracted by the great dancing artists also
testify to the growing appreciation by the American people of what is
distinctively the product of advanced culture and the higher
civilization. As population grows, and as the percentage of urban
residents, as compared with the dwellers in rural districts,
increases, there will be an ever-increasing interest taken in the
dance and all that pertains to it.




DANCING AND CHEERFULNESS


"For the good are always the merry," says William Butler Yeats,
Ireland's foremost living poet, in "The Fiddler of Dorney." This is an
old truth, too often ignored or forgotten. There are, unhappily, many
persons who have conceived the strange notion that goodness means a
gloomy outlook toward the world and those who inhabit it. To them this
earth is a vale of tears; everything is evil and steadily growing
worse; if every prospect pleases it only emphasizes their conviction
that man is vile. Natural instincts that prompt mankind to rejoice and
be glad, to lift up their voices in cheerful songs, or to express
their abundant vitality by joyous dances, are to them evidence of sin
and depravity. If they could have their way they would abolish every
manifestation of happiness, and carry their conviction that man is
doomed to endless pain and woe into the life beyond.

[Illustration]

That this peculiar idea of the relation of goodness to happiness at
one time represented the prevailing sentiment of what are termed the
enlightened peoples, is undeniably true. Yet always there has been a
saving remnant that protested against the solemn, serious, and sad
railers against mirth and merriment, and at last these dissenters are
finding that they are rapidly becoming the majority. No longer are
normal men and women ashamed to show that they are glad to be alive;
that they believe that they were meant to be happy and should seek
happiness; that they do not agree that goodness means repression of
natural impulses. Perhaps they are less concerned with abstract
standards of conduct than were their ancestors. For them life is a
joyous adventure, and they wish so to live that they may experience to
the full all that it has to offer.

Not the least encouraging sign of the changed and changing attitude of
humanity toward the old repressions and fears, is the world-wide
extension of interest in all forms of popular amusement. People no
longer think that to be good--or moral--whatever those words may mean,
is to be a doleful machine, wearily going the rounds of earning a
livelihood. They question the authority of those who try to inflict
upon them their narrow standards of life. They ask questions. They
want to know many things. Why, they ask, should it be a virtue to wear
a gloomy face, to shun pleasure, to avoid their impulses to sing, play
or dance? They have capacity for enjoyment. Why should they starve
their natures, and go without pleasures that are rightfully theirs? It
has often been said that Americans have not as a rule known how to
play. They are changing all that, and as the level of education and
intelligence rises, as wealth accumulates and is more widely diffused,
as old inhibitions lose their force, this country is destined to
become the great playground of the world. The American people are
above all else cheerful and optimistic. They know what they can do
because they know what has been done, ever since their brave pioneer
forefathers cleared the forests, subdued the wilderness, spread out
across the wide prairies, and established the mightiest empire of the
earth. The present and all coming generations that enjoy the fruits of
pioneer labor and sacrifices have a right to be joyous. They are
free, prosperous and filled with vitality, vim, pep and go. They want
more from life than any other people. There are among them no country
peasants, or city proletariat, no class distinctions, no artificial
aristocracy. Strong, confident, fearless, they work not merely, as the
masses in other lands, for a bare existence, but as a means for
providing the comforts and pleasures to which they feel they are
entitled.

Whether people are cheerful because they dance, or dance because they
are cheerful, may not easily be decided. One thing is certain, that if
from an assemblage of men and women there should be selected those
with smiling, happy faces, by far the greater percentage would be
found to be dancers. "For the good are always the merry," the
lighthearted, free from care and worry, who sing, or dance, or play
because of their superabundance of vital energy, and because in so
doing they are in harmony with the primal laws of being.

[Illustration: NW]

[Illustration: "LITTLE OLD NEW YORK," FOLLIES OF 1923]




DANCING AND COUNTRY LIFE

[Illustration]


For more than a generation the problem of checking the steady drift of
the young people from American farms into the cities has occupied the
attention of statesmen, able editors, farm leaders and economists. It
is universally agreed that agriculture is the basic industry upon
which the prosperity of manufacturing and commerce depends. When the
farmers are prosperous their demands for all kinds of manufactured
goods sets in motion the wheels of industry, labor is fully employed
and merchants find increased sales to the rural communities and
factory workers. When, as happened five years ago, there is a
widespread depression among the farmers, it is felt by manufacturers,
railways, merchants and industrial workers in every field. Today, as
one hundred years ago, when Thomas Jefferson wrote that agriculture
was the most important of all industries, the welfare of the American
people as a whole is indissolubly bound up with the existence of a
large and prosperous agricultural interest.

President Roosevelt twenty years ago recognized the importance of
keeping on the farms the young and vigorous American men and women who
are needed to maintain the enormous food supplies required by the vast
populations of the great cities and industrial centers, and appointed
a Country Life Commission to investigate and report on the conditions
that were making life on the farms unattractive as compared with the
cities. One of the reasons found by the Commission for the increasing
flow of country youth cityward was the lack of social activities and
amusements in the rural districts, and the consequent desire to
migrate to localities where a denser population brought wide
opportunities for social diversions. Curiously enough, the dance as a
means of promoting sociability among the farm population was not
discussed, possibly because of an old-fashioned prejudice against
dancing that still prevails in many rural regions. Why certain good
people should object to the dance, innocent, joyous and beneficial as
it is in practically all its manifestations and associations, can only
be explained on the grounds given by Lord Macaulay from the British
Puritan's objection to the sport of bear-baiting. "The Puritan
condemned bear-baiting, not because it gave pain to the bear, but
because it gave pleasure to the spectators." There was a time when it
was considered frivolous and wicked to be happy, and dancing and many
other innocent amusements were put under the ban. This narrow view of
life is, fortunately, becoming outgrown, and no power is now invoked
to prevent pleasure-seekers finding diversion in sports, games, or the
dance.

With the gradual disappearance of the ancient view of pleasure as akin
to sinfulness, there is no good reason why dancing should not become
as popular in the rural districts as it is in the cities. The
automobile and good rural roads have combined to make possible social
gatherings in central localities that would have been impossible
twenty years ago. Improved farm machinery and implements have
shortened working hours on the farm, so that the evenings are no
longer devoted to finishing up the day's work. Then there are the
long winter evenings when the heart of youth calls to youth, and when
in every village or country hamlet there should be assembled joyous
groups, finding in the dance an escape from the routine of daily
cares. Picnics and outings would take on new attractions, and under
the spur of rivalry the simpler forms of dancing would evolve into its
more artistic branches. There would be something to look forward to
outside the family circle; new acquaintances and agreeable companions.
With the dance would come a wider knowledge and love of music that
would stimulate its study and practice. In many thousands of farm
homes the radio is now installed, and programs of dance music are
arranged that make it possible for millions to join in moving to the
strains of the best metropolitan bands and orchestras.

The contrast between the city residents and their "country cousins" is
in no respect more marked than in their walk and carriage. Watch the
city crowds, as with heads up, chins in, and shoulders back, they step
out briskly along the sidewalks. They know how to walk. They may be
going somewhere in a hurry, or sauntering to see and be seen, but in
either case they carry themselves as individual personages. They have
been taught grace of movement, and their self-confidence expresses
their individuality. Compare with them a group of rural walkers. Too
often the latter slouch carelessly and drag limbs that are awkward and
aimless. They are frequently bent and listless, as though walking were
hard labor imposed as a penalty. They do not know how to hold their
arms to keep them in accord with their bodily progress. It is not an
injustice to the country folk to say that by their walk they can
nearly always be distinguished from the city resident. Instruction in
even the simplest forms of the dance, and practice in their
movements, will bring about a far-reaching change. The country boys
and girls will learn to hold themselves erect, they will quickly see
the difference between the sort of progress by what has been described
as a process of falling over and recovering one's balance, and real
walking by a coördinated entity. They will take pride in well
developed bodies, and will show in every movement the results of the
training that has enabled them to become proficient in the dance.

Is it not possible that the answer to the old query: "How you goin' to
keep them down on the farm?" may be found in the advice: "Teach them
to dance"?

Perhaps you are asking yourself, "What has country dancing to do with
stage dancing?" And I will answer you:

Just this: The city has no monopoly of talent in any field. The
candidate for dancing honors and emoluments comes as often from rural
communities as from metropolitan. But first, whether in city or
hamlet, there must be present in the aspirant the true love of dancing
as an art, a sense of rhythm, an urge to step to music,--and these he
or she discovers only as the ballroom dancing in the home community
develops them.

This is no lure; it is a true word: There are young ladies and
gentlemen in all localities who, if they but knew it, could rise to
heights worth while, because possessed of genuine talent needing only
correct training to develop its possibilities to the full.

The country-bred girls and boys in our courses have equal opportunity
with their city cousins, and both are thriving alike.

[Illustration: RITA OWEN]




DANCING AS A SOCIAL ACCOMPLISHMENT

[Illustration]


Some years ago the editor of a great New York newspaper, who was
nationally known as one of the foremost personalities of his era,
invited a group of his friends to his home to enjoy a performance by
the then celebrated Spanish dancer Carmencita. After the plaudits of
the delighted guests had died away, a lady eminent in society inquired
of her appreciative husband: "Why didn't we ever think of arranging
for something of this kind?" And her worser half agreed that for the
future they would follow their host's example, and make dancing by
great artists a feature of their social entertainments.

Ever since that time there has been an increasing demand by those
whose wealth, culture and good taste have made them the dominant force
in American society, for the services of the leading exponents of the
creative art of the dance. To the ballrooms of the great mansions that
adorn every city of any considerable size there have come brilliant
assemblages of the men and women who by reason of their special
qualifications are recognized as social leaders, to see, enjoy and
appreciate the charm and beauty of "woven paces and of weaving arms."
The hosts whose invitation includes the announcement "special dances
by Miss ---- or Mr. ----" know that there will be few declinations
because of other engagements. The fortunate ones who are able to
command the presence of any of the well known stars in the dancing
firmament at a social gathering, are assured that their guests will
carry away with them only pleasant recollections of a delightful
occasion.

Even to those who may have often seen the artist in public
performances, there is an additional charm in the dances as given in
the more intimate conditions of a private gathering. The knowledge
that the audience appreciates every detail, down to the slightest
touch, stimulates the dancer to the highest mood of artistic endeavor.
"Art," wrote William Morris, "is the expression of man's joy in his
work." Emphatically is this true of the dancer's art, and the
exaltation of joyousness into perfect harmony of motion comes only
when the artist knows that the message conveyed is understood by the
onlookers.

To those who wish to make their impress upon society by distinctive
gatherings, the artist affords an ever new and always pleasing
entertainment.

As knowledge of the illimitable possibilities of the dance expands,
there is certain to be a growing demand for the types of dancers whose
gifts make them peculiarly adapted to the exercise of their art at
social functions.

[Illustration: NW]




UNIVERSAL APPRECIATION OF THE DANCE

[Illustration]


The chief reason why dancing as a public entertainment will always
maintain its present popularity, and will be in even greater demand in
the future than in the past, is to be found in the fact that to
appreciate and enjoy to the fullest degree the work of the creative
dancer requires no special knowledge of the art itself on the part of
the spectator. There are many who do not understand or appreciate
classical music. To many others the speaking drama makes no appeal.
Still others care nothing for the motion picture, and cannot be
induced to witness a performance on the screen. But everyone--men and
women, young or mature, can enjoy the beauty, harmony, and
exhilaration of a well conceived and well executed dance. There is
something in the nature of us all that responds immediately to the
message that the dancer conveys. Perfection of form, grace of
movement, harmony of action with appropriate music, all combine to
make up a spectacle that thrills and inspires. To slightly paraphrase
Robert Browning:

"Others may reason and welcome,
But seeing the dance, we know."

As was said of the Athenians of old, the American people are always
looking for something new. They are quick to take up this or that fad
in dress, games, sports or amusements, and after a brief time throw it
aside. There is nothing of the fancy of the hour in the popular
acceptance of the dance, either for personal practice, or as a stage
entertainment. What has been seen in all the American cities during
the past ten or twenty years--the steady growth in popularity of the
dance in all its forms--is no whim that will presently pass. On the
contrary, nothing can be more certain than that each year will find a
greater increase in dancing, both by the people themselves, and for
them by the artists of the profession. It was said for a long time by
visiting foreigners that Americans had not learned how to enjoy
themselves. This may have been true at one time, but it is not today.
The chief object of life, it has been discovered, is to live
abundantly and joyously. Everything that helps to make living more
cheerful, healthful and agreeable; that satisfies aesthetic needs;
that ministers to the sense of beauty and harmony, will be encouraged
and developed, and as one important means to these ends, the dance
must of necessity flourish and endure.

[Illustration: NW]




THE MELTING POT OF THE DANCE

[Illustration]


A great deal is being talked and written about changing the millions
who have come to this country from foreign lands, or are the children
of immigrants, into 100 per cent Americans. So far as the advocacy of
measures for this purpose is based on a sincere desire to bring home
to everyone living under the national flag a knowledge of the
essential principles of our government and institutions, this is
worthy of the encouragement and aid of all patriotic citizens. There
is, however, another aspect of the Americanization movement, that is
not so admirable. This is the attack on ideas, manners, customs and
amusements peculiar to certain foreign peoples, not because they are
necessarily wrong, or antagonistic to genuine Americanism, but merely
because they are different. According to some of these self-constituted
authorities the way to instill patriotism and love of country into the
benighted aliens is to persuade them to abandon all that links them
with the land of their ancestors, and become exactly like the
prevailing type of Bangor, Maine, Augusta, Georgia, or Portland,
Oregon.

Oliver Wendell Holmes tells how when he was a boy living in Cambridge,
Mass., there was a constant warfare between the boys of his district
and those who lived down by the water front, who were regarded as
foreigners, because they seemed to be in some way different. He
concluded that most of the racial antagonisms and hatreds that so
often lead to quarrels and war are due to the same notion; that the
foreign man is inferior because his ways are different from ours.

Against the narrow ideas that would reject many things of great value
because they are of foreign origin, there is need for a wise and
discriminating selection of the best that all regions of the earth
have to offer in the domain of science, literature, music, painting,
the dance, and other arts, and their combination with the results
attained by American creative effort.

In no respect is there a more urgent need for the development of a
truly American art spirit than in the wide field offered by artistic
dancing, yet it would surely be a mistake to ignore all that has been
learned and accomplished in the long experience of other peoples. A
foolish prejudice against foreign dances should not be allowed to
prevent the incorporation of their best features into what will
ultimately be the distinctive American school.

That there assuredly will be an essentially American type of dancing
in all its branches, that will reach heights far above that yet
achieved by any other country, cannot be doubtful. As the increase of
wealth, not only for a few, but for the great mass of the people,
gives more leisure, creates new desires, and brings increased capacity
for enjoyment, it is inevitable that more and more will the public
appreciation of the dance call for still greater advances. As the
various races from other lands have mingled their several qualities
and gifts, and have produced the highest civilization on a broad scale
that the world has ever seen, so will the creators of new and more
beautiful dance forms utilize the characteristic dances of all nations
in achieving what will be the 100 per cent American dance.




YOUR OPPORTUNITIES

[Illustration]


Those of you who are perfecting yourselves for a stage career are
naturally giving consideration to your future as you advance in the
courses, and are wondering just how you will go about it to get well
placed in your chosen line of work.

I am going to tell you how some have tried to do this, and then tell
you the best, surest and safest way. And do not for a moment think
that I am guessing about what I tell you. I know the theatrical world
and theatrical ways and methods, and I know the managers, the
producers, and all the principals connected with our profession, and
they know me. So I am not guessing when I say that your personal
interests in all matters connected with the stage will be best
conserved by entrusting them to me.

In our classes here in the studio there is apt to be one or more
dominating spirits who become anxious to go around the booking offices
and seek for a tryout and an engagement.

It is true that to go to any office and say that you are a recent or
prospective graduate of the Ned Wayburn Studios is a good
recommendation, and you may get a hearing and a tryout on the strength
of it. But please be advised by me and let me give you the tryout
first when I am sure you are ready for it. Your teacher should first
be given a chance to see what you can do individually. His advice is
invaluable and impartial. When he reports that you are advanced
sufficiently to deserve consideration for a solo role, then come and
dance for me. I am glad to have you do this, and shall always give you
my decision honestly and fairly, and let me add, freely--no charge
whatever. If I see that you are deficient in any way, I will be frank
and tell you so, and will also suggest what you should do to correct
your fault. In other words, you will get constructive criticism, and
kindly advice, in my office, whereas anything short of perfection
shown to a booking agent or possible employer would be apt to insure
abrupt dismissal. They would give you no helpful advice, and you would
prejudice yourself, for your effrontery, in their eyes for any future
engagement you might seek.

So be advised by me. I respect an ambition that prompts you to go out
and hunt an engagement, but, believe me, yours is not the best way.
There are agents and agents. Some would do right by you, and perhaps
some would be unscrupulous. I am not going on record in this book with
any details that would seem to reflect in the least on anyone, so I'll
not enlarge upon this subject here. But I will tell you more about
this if you come to my office and ask me to.

Now if any pupil in the school asks you to go around the theatrical
agencies, please don't do it, but come and tell me. Perhaps some day
you both will come to me and say "Thank you."

[Illustration: 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.

[Illustration]




STAGE-CRAFT

[Illustration]


When my pupils become professional dancers and "sign up" for their
first stage engagement they will wish not to be or appear ignorant of
the marvelous mechanism that is the modern theatrical stage. Not that
they will learn it all from any book, but my knowledge of things back
stage will be of help, and I have jotted down here some of them for
that purpose. The rest of it the new entrant upon the real stage will
absorb in time, but with the help of my condensed explanation herein
no one who reads need appear lost or totally bewildered in the new
environment back of the curtain line.

Let me tell you some of the important things that every pupil of mine
who contemplates a professional career should know about the theatre,
the building itself and the stage upon which you expect to present
your offerings to the public.

[Illustration: _Proscenium Arch, the Frame of the Stage Pictures_]

In the first place, the theatre building is divided into two parts,
the auditorium and the stage. The dividing line is known as the
curtain line. In stage parlance the auditorium side of the dividing
line is the "front of the house," or "out front," and the stage side
is always "back stage."

The proscenium arch of the stage makes the frame for the pictures on
the stage. "The opening" means to the professional the width across
stage at the proscenium arch, and varies according to the size of the
auditorium and the line of sight of the auditors. It may be thirty
feet, forty, or even more, as is the case in the New York Hippodrome
and other large city theatres. The height is sometimes the same as the
width, or slightly less, the complete frame of the arch being usually
of an oblong shape, possibly thirty-five feet wide and twenty-five
feet high.

[Illustration: _Diagram of a Modern Theatre_]

The fire laws require a fireproof curtain, which is on the outer or
audience side of the two or more curtains that hang on the stage side
of the proscenium arch. Next to this asbestos affair is the "act
curtain," that raises and lowers, and is usually painted on
fire-proofed or heavy duck canvas. There may be used instead or in
addition to the act curtain, what is known as a tableau curtain, that
works in a traveler above, which can be drawn straight off stage, both
ways, parting in the middle, or be pulled to a drape at each side.
This is always made of material and sometimes painted in aniline dye;
if painted in water color or oil it would crack.

There is never any curtain in front of "the arch" or proscenium. The
footlights and the apron are in front of the fireproof curtain. The
apron may be deep or shallow, and at its front edge is the footlight
trough and a masking piece, fireproof always, to shield the eyes of
the audience and reflect the footlights onto the stage. The footlights
follow the front curvature of the apron, when it is curved, as is
usually the case, although many of the modern stages have no apron at
all, the footlights running in a straight line across, sometimes
within a foot of the fire curtain.

The stage itself extends from the curtain line to the back wall of the
theatre, and from left wall to right wall. Under the roof of the
stage, anywhere from sixty-five to ninety feet above the floor, there
is a horizontal lattice work of steel or iron covering the entire
spread of the stage, and known as the gridiron. The space on top of
the gridiron is called the rigging loft. The roof of the stage over
the rigging loft is a huge skylight, opened or closed from the stage.
The skylight is made light-proof for matinee performances. On the
gridiron are rigged the blocks and pulleys through which pass the
lines attached to all the scenery that goes up in the air, or "up in
the flies," which is the name given the space between the top of the
proscenium arch and the gridiron. To take scenery up, is "flying it,"
in stage language, leaving the sight of the audience; whatever goes up
"flies," and whatever is carried off to one side or back is
"struck." The stage manager, when he wants the scene taken away, gives
the order "strike" to the stage hands, or "grips," as they are called,
who are on the stage level, and he pushes a button for the head-flyman
in the "fly-gallery" to fly whatever scenery goes up.

[Illustration: GRAND BALL ROOM IN NED WAYBURN STUDIOS]

There is a "fly-gallery," as it is called, usually ten to fifteen feet
wide, some twenty-five to thirty-five feet above the stage level and
extending from the front to the back walls of the stage on one side,
against the side wall, usually of steel and concrete. Then there is
the "paint-bridge," perhaps five feet wide, extending across the stage
at the back wall from side to side, on a line with the "fly-gallery."
Sometimes there is a "paint-frame" attached to the back wall on which
scenery is painted. It is movable up and down. Sometimes twenty to
twenty-five feet above the stage level is a light-gallery, on each
side of the stage running parallel to the fly-gallery, but under it.
These galleries are for the purpose of holding calcium lights and
operators. Running from the back wall of the stage to the proscenium
wall all the way of the fly-gallery on the front edge nearest the
stage is the pin-rail, very strong and imbedded in the wall front and
back of the stage; it holds all the scenery that goes aloft. When the
scenery is raised, the "lines," as the ropes or cables are called in
stage language, are pulled down and tied off to this "pin-rail." These
lines attached to the scenery are usually in sets of three, sometimes
four, and extend straight up through the blocks in the gridiron and
across the gridiron down to the pin-rail in the fly-gallery. As they
are usually fastened to three or four different points on each piece
of scenery they are necessarily of three or four different lengths,
but the lines are tied and handled as one at the pin-rail, and pulled
all together. In a set of three lines, the line nearest the pin-rail
is called the "short line," the next one the middle line, the far one
the long line. "Trim it," you hear the order given. This means to
"level" whatever piece of scenery it is. "Tie it off" is the way they
direct that the lines be made fast to the pin-rail. In rainy or damp
weather the ropes get longer; in dry they shrink; then it is necessary
to "trim the drops," letting out the lines and tying them over before
the performance. This is done under the direction of the master
mechanic or stage carpenter. Often there is a counterweight or bag
attached to the lines above the fly-gallery to help carry the weight
of the heavy scenery as it is sent aloft to its resting place in the
flies, out of sight of the audience and out of the way of everybody on
stage.

The various drops are known on the stage as "solid," "cut" or "leg"
drops. Borders about forty feet long by twelve feet deep, hung
horizontally, mask in the top of all scenery, and hide the "flies"
from the audience on the lower floor, and may be interior, exterior,
foliage, straight, arched, or sky borders (plain blue). In troughs
hung across the stage by steel cables from the gridiron, their height
regulated from the fly-gallery, are the various border lights, each
usually in three circuits, red, white and blue. These are hung at
intervals of about six feet, the first being about that distance back
of the act curtain and the others spaced about every six feet to the
back wall of the stage. On the average practical modern stage there
will be anywhere from four to seven border lights. On the stage,
between the curtain line and first border light, are the first
entrances, known as left first entrance and right first entrance. The
right and left of the stage are always the dancer's right and left as
she or he faces the audience. About six feet back of this is located
the second entrance, and about each six feet interval is a
successively numbered entrance, as "third entrance," etc. In a
"full-stage" setting the last entrance to the rear is called "upper
entrance." A scene in the space covering the entire first entrance is
spoken of as being "in one"; in the second entrance, "in two." When
one passes out of sight of the audience he is "off stage." The various
entrances and exits are designated in writing and print by characters
that carry their meaning plainly, as RUE (right upper entrance), L2E
(left second entrance). So, too, with spoken directions on the stage.
When you are told to "exit LUE," for instance, you are supposed to
know that you are to go off stage at the left upper entrance. No one
in the theatre ever speaks of standing "in the wings"; always it is
"in the entrance."

The prompt side in a theatre is usually the left first entrance,
though sometimes it is on the other side, where are located the
electric switchboard controlling every light in the building, under
the personal direction of the chief electrician, and a series of
buttons above a shelf or prompt desk attached to the wall about the
height of a bookkeeper's desk, where the stage manager makes his
headquarters during each performance, the stage manager being like the
captain or skipper of the ship. All signals are given by the stage
manager, the buttons usually placed immediately above or at one side
of the prompt desk, within easy reach controlling buzzers, lights or
bells that tell as plainly as shouted words could do what is to be
done and who is to do it. Sometimes lights flash to give directions
and warnings, instead of the buzzer sounding. Every action of the
stage hands below and aloft is directed in this manner from one
central point of control by one master mind, the stage manager of the
show.

The orchestra usually has a music room of its own somewhere under the
stage or in the cellar of the theatre, where the musicians congregate
before the performance and during their "waits." A buzzer or bell
warning to them is said to "ring the orchestra in," and they are
usually allowed about three minutes to get into their places in the
orchestra pit after it sounds. There is also a "drop" signal buzzer or
light to give the head flyman in the fly-gallery the signals that
indicate when to raise and lower certain "drops," or hanging pieces. A
bell would be heard by the audience and detract from the performance.
A curtain buzzer or light gives the "warning" and "go" signals to the
stage hands in the fly-gallery who are called "flymen," for raising
and lowering the curtains or other scenery, like "drops," "borders,"
and any other pieces of scenery that have been "hung" to fly. In some
modern theatres the switchboard and its operator are raised some ten
feet above the stage. In such a case a buzzer signal from the stage
manager's prompt desk directs the manipulation of the lights for the
guidance of the chief electrician in his elevated perch, these signals
being given at a certain "cue" in the performance, and he knows from
his cue sheet, always before him, just what lights are required on
each succeeding cue.

Stage dressing rooms are by law required to be separated from the
stage proper by a permanent wall. Access to them is usually found near
the front wall of the stage, seldom along the back wall. In modern
city theatres dressing rooms are in tiers, as in the New Amsterdam
Theatre, New York, where there are seven floors of dressing rooms
reached by a private elevator used for no other purpose. The modern
stage dressing rooms in city theatres have every known arrangement for
comfort, sanitation and convenience.

Stage artists have no business in the front of the house, nor,
conversely, have those whose employment is in the front of the house
any business on the stage. Both keep their separate places at all
times. Artists are always required to enter and leave the theatre
through the stage door. All first-class managers forbid the artists to
be seen in "the front of the house." Members of the company usually
are required to report for matinee performances about 1:30 P.M. and
for evening shows about 7:30 P.M., but always before the "half hour"
is called, which is thirty minutes before the overture is played. The
stage watchman, known as the stage door tender, is always at the stage
door before and during a performance and permits none to pass in who
are not directly connected with the stage end of the theatre, the day
stage door tender being on duty usually from 7 A.M. to 7 P.M., and the
night stage door tender from 7 P.M. to 7 A.M. The night watchman goes
his rounds regularly throughout the night at required intervals,
registering on a time-clock from different stations throughout the
theatre building; all outer doors and windows are locked about
one-half hour after the evening performance.

No messages, calls, telegrams or information of any character from
outside is permitted to enter the theatre for any actor or actress who
is inside and hence secluded from all outside contact and purely in
the realm of the playhouse. This and absolute exclusion of all
interlopers is one of the strictest rules of the theatre, and woe to
him who attempts its violations, or to the doorkeeper who permits it.
Any messages received are given to the artist after the performance.
No person who is not a member of the company should ever be permitted
to visit a dressing room during a performance, only afterwards; such a
contact takes the mind of the artist off her or his work.

Men who have obtained wrong ideas about members of the theatrical
profession and have boldly sought to force their presence onto the
stage have been summarily dealt with before now--and in some cases I
have helped in the good work myself. Sometimes, after the performance,
relatives, friends or escorts are permitted to enter the stage door
and there await the street-clad and departing performers. But
strangers and would-be "stage-door Johnnies" are always barred out.

There is no "green room" in the modern American theatre. We have all
read about a meeting place in the rear of the stage that went by this
title in the old English novels and biographies. They may exist still
in some foreign theatres, I am not sure--but I doubt it. What I am
sure of is that the American stage is sacred to its artists,
principals and subordinates alike, and to its stage manager and the
stage hands who keep things moving behind the curtain line.

It is a business and not a game. A theatrical life is taken seriously
by all who wish to succeed in it. No triflers need apply nowadays.

After every performance the stage is cleared of all obstacles, scenery
and everything else. The last member of the company out of each
dressing room is required to put the light out, lock the dressing-room
door and leave the key to the room with the stage door tender who is
held responsible for the contents of the rooms. The act curtain and
the asbestos curtain are raised. A single electric bulb or pilot light
on a portable iron stand about three feet high is placed centre of the
stage near the footlights, and casts its beam across the stage and
throughout the auditorium. The show is over and the fire-laws are
obeyed.

[Illustration: MARILYN MILLER]




MAKING A NAME

[Illustration: SALLY WITH MARILYN MILLER

MARILYN MILLER IN SALLY]


One may see big electric signs carrying bright-light messages similar
to the above placed conspicuously over theatre entrances in all cities
of any magnitude. Such signs convey to the passing populace the
interesting information that here is located a certain play, and also
that in this play a certain person appears as a main attraction.

Now to the passerby whose knowledge of things theatrical is merely
cursory, scant or non-existent, the two signs given above may have
exactly the same meaning, bear the same message in both cases. But to
all those "in the know" as to stage matters the two signs tell two
entirely different stories, and the location of the names of the play
and the actor convey important information in the theatre code that
the wise ones interpret at a glance.

Here are the two readings as the stage-wise render them, and when I
have told you about this you will catch the point at once and ever
after be able to "read the signs" with a clear conception of their
import:

The name at the top of each sign is "starred"; the other is
"featured." In one, the play is given the star position and Miss
Miller is featured; in the other, Marilyn Miller is starred and the
play featured.

"Well, what of that?" you ask.

Just this, and here is where the importance of it all comes in:

The one that is starred carries the burden of the success of the show.
If the play is starred, its failure does not reflect on the person
featured; but if the actor is starred and failure follows, the actor
and not the play is considered responsible, the actor not having
proven a _magnet_, not having drawn business on the strength of his or
her name. The personal difference to the actor is really very great,
yet "to star" is the actor's great ambition. No one should ever be
starred unless popular enough to attract plenty of patronage and
thereby insure "packed houses."

This applies not alone in the signs over the door, but also in all the
theatre's publicity. Pick up today's newspaper, and look at the stage
announcements. "Mary Pickford in--" you don't care what the play is
when you see the star's name. The star carries the play, in such a
case. "Rose-Marie, with Mary Ellis and William Kent." You are glad to
go and see the featured pair, but in this case the play is given the
star position, it having registered success, the profits from this
musical play having been as high as $18,000.00 per week during its run
in one New York theatre.

Now the point of all this, that has to do with the stage dancer, is,
"How did Marilyn Miller get a name that entitled her to this
conspicuous exploitation, and how can I go about it to become equally
well-known and famous, myself?"

You are wise to ask this question seriously early in your stage
career, and if you have or develop the quality that makes for stardom
you can read this chapter with confidence that it is an accurate and
correct account of how many a stage celebrity has progressed from an
unknown and unheralded place in the theatrical world, to one where
Broadway producing managers have solicited the privilege of elevating
her or his name over the doors of their playhouses.

Bear in mind that your name is to you what a trademark is to a
manufacturer. And, to continue the analogy, you cannot establish a
name in a day or two, any more than the manufacturer can make his
trademarked goods universally known in a short period.

You are starting out now with the laudable ambition to make a name for
yourself, and have still to seek your first engagement. You know your
dances, are continuing your practice, and have confidence in your
ability to make good.

Don't hurry to get yourself before any producing manager until you
have had a little experience in some hideaway place, like at a church
or charity benefit performance, some local entertainment, or club
affair, anything of this nature, that will enable you to try yourself
out before a small or friendly audience, test your ability to overcome
stage fright, and get hold of yourself before a crowd. Having done
this away from Broadway and gained assurance, then an appearance in
some regular theatre, preferably at some benefit performance, usually
given Sundays, should come next, where the dancer is sure to be seen
by someone who has the authority and position to offer an engagement.
Any sort of an engagement with a reputable management is a good
beginning and should be accepted without expectation of a fancy
salary, an opportunity being what one always needs in order to prove
one's ability.

If you do not succeed in creating a demand for your services at
appearances like this, do not become discouraged; make up your mind to
keep on trying until you do attract the attention of the right
manager. Always be willing to make any sacrifice as far as
remuneration is concerned for an opportunity to appear to advantage,
and be everlastingly grateful to whoever gives you your first
opportunity, or foothold which enables you to establish yourself.

Send a brief letter to the offices of various managers announcing your
forthcoming appearance. Enclose a good full-length photograph,
preferably in stage costume, the best you can afford, i.e., taken by
the best photographer you can get. Some of these managers or their
representatives will be there and see your performance. Be sure you
are "making good" before you try to interest any of the big managers.
It is better for you to be seen by the manager before an audience than
in an empty theatre.

Be satisfied to make a small beginning for the experience, provided
you get a chance to do your best dance. This will help you establish
yourself, but it is going to take a long time to prove your ability.
Travel, and make territory for yourself. Go in a vaudeville act, if
offered such an engagement. Keep on "small time" for a year, if
necessary, and get your name known in a certain territory for a
pleasing entertainer. Get on with some act, big or little, as a solo
dancer, at a reasonable salary, and expect the first two weeks to be
at half salary, as is usual. Do not demand a large salary until
managers are clamoring for your services--make it an inducement for
someone to employ you in the beginning.

When you start on a road tour your first inquiry of your company
manager will be for a "copy of the route." You want to know where
you are going, what towns your itinerary takes you to, so that friends
can be advised in advance of your location day by day, and letters and
communications reach you with certainty.

[Illustration: ONE SCENE FROM NED WAYBURN'S "DEMI-TASSE REVUE."]

To the trouper, a town is a "stand." A week's showing in a place is
spoken of as a "week stand"; the first and last half of the week is
each a "three-day stand," or "four-day stand," or the "first" or
"last-half." Then there is a "two-day stand" and a "one-night stand,"
which are self-explanatory. A "run" is a greater period than a "week
stand," and you hear of a "two-week run," an "eight-week run," "six
months run," and "one year run," etc.

There is a solid season, a theatrical year of forty weeks, of travel,
experience and development, beginning about Labor Day and ending about
Decoration Day, and a summer season beginning about the first Monday
in June and ending about the last Saturday in August. Your work and
progress is being watched unknown to you at every performance. The
manager back home finally knows all about your work through "reports"
which are kept in the main booking office and to which he and all
other managers on his particular circuit have access.

Now you are ready to try for something bigger and better, ready for
"big time" vaudeville, perhaps in your own act; if not that, then in
someone else's act. Your second year's advancement is based on the
weekly report that has been sent to headquarters regarding your
reception by the public and the way in which your act has got over.
Big time may mean Chicago, Boston, Philadelphia, and any or all the
larger cities on the various "circuits." It may include the
Keith-Albee Palace Theatre in New York, the Mecca of all vaudeville
artists. It is at the Palace that you know you and your act are seen
by every revue, musical comedy, or dramatic manager, casting director
whose business it is to pick and engage artists.

There is no school like vaudeville for the dancer, singer, actor or
actress in any line of musical work. Most of the brightest stars in
the theatrical firmament have graduated from vaudeville into greater
things, and many of them return to the vaudeville stage for a flier
now and then. It is there that you come in contact with different wise
audiences in different cities and learn how to handle them. You watch
your fellows in their various acts, note the bills as they change
every week, or usually twice weekly, and your audience with them. You
are in two, three or four shows a day in your short time, and learning
how to get over better at every show. The vaudeville audience knows
what's what. You can't fool them. You've got to do your best for them
all the time--and you will, or you will not remain in vaudeville,
where you have to "make good" every performance. It is an invaluable
experience, your first stage years, and you will gather lasting
benefit from your active vaudeville appearances. You must not complain
of the number of shows you are required to give daily--the more you
give the more practice you get before a paid audience, and remember
you are gaining experience while being paid for it.

You may follow a season of this with a road show over your former
territory another year, and you will find your old friends in the
audience ready to boost you. You are on the right road to the "making
of a name," which after all is what you are after. For although they
will not remember your name yet, if you really pleased them they will
remember your offering; about your third trip around they will learn
your name and never forget it--provided you "make good." If you fail,
the audience will forget you; but _not_ the manager. Once you fail in
his opinion, he will never forget or forgive it. He will never give
anyone who fails a second chance. That is "show business."

Your fourth year should find you in a New York production in some good
company. For New York is always the objective point, since the best
and most opportunities are always there. There follows naturally a
year on the road in the same company, as the show abandons New York
for a tour of the larger cities. Always make the road trip in order to
create territory for yourself, to establish a following, to make a
still bigger name and demand for you, which means a larger salary
eventually. You are sufficiently established now, after five
successful years, to be able to expect another New York engagement,
under the same management in all likelihood but with a new vehicle.
This New York engagement and another year on tour with the same play
puts you seven years along the way to a name in the big lights, and
your name has been growing day by day, until it is now known in good
territory, and consequently, through wise exploitation--publicity--it
has become a magnet and attracts patronage.

When the time comes that your name is to go up in front of the
theatre, choose to be featured at first rather than starred. If
anything must fail, let it be the show, and not you. Don't risk
failing to "draw business" to the box office.

There will come a time somewhere along in your progress to fame when
you will need a business manager or an agent versed in all matters of
a theatrical nature, favorably known to all the large producing
managers, and able to advance your fortunes materially by protecting
and looking after your interests. He is entitled to receive ten
percent of your earnings from whatever source, and the services he can
render you are well worth it.

Nearly every successful actor and actress has a manager. Stage
celebrities have not the time, let alone the experience and ability,
to promote their own business interests, watch for opportunities to
secure the choice engagements, and attend to the very necessary
publicity and negotiations for contracts for the future. The reputable
agent or artist's manager is always on the ground and in touch with
the best managements and things theatrical daily. But no such
representative worth while will bother with you until you have made
good.

The best artist managers or agents know in advance what is being
planned for the coming theatrical season. They are in close contact
with the very high-ups in the theatrical world, men whose contracts
you hope to sign on the dotted line soon. A good agent may save you
several years' time in advancing to a stellar position. He knows the
value of publicity, which often is half the battle in getting yourself
before the public. You must have publicity, whether or not you secure
a representative to attend to it for you. Interesting newsy stories
about you, with effective art studies of yourself in costume
accompanying them, are gladly accepted by many newspapers and
magazines. The rotogravure sections of Sunday papers contain many
pictures of theatrical folks. A beautiful picture will usually carry a
story, and you are wise to get a few good ones rather than many cheap
prints. Every first-class theatre has its own press agent, and every
production of any size its own press representative. Both are glad to
coöperate with you if you have real ability, and help you with the
preparation of your stories and photographs and getting them into the
daily newspaper. There are also many publicity concerns who make it a
business to keep your name and picture in the public eye at a moderate
charge. But you must be able to _make good_ first. Neither publicity
nor anything else will avail to establish a permanent name for you
unless you are prepared to deliver the goods. Duds and dumb ones never
make a big noise in the world. There is no star name awaiting the
inferior person in this profession. All the front-page publicity in
christendom won't do the trick if you haven't back of you real talent
and something the public is clamoring for. And you cannot hope to fool
the wary producer by any false representation or exaggerated claims.

You are not wasting your time while on the way to the bigger things.
Seven years may seem a long time to wait, but you are not starving on
the way, and you are really not "waiting" at all. You start with a
reasonable salary that advances from year to year and engagement to
engagement, as you deserve it. You must build all the way on solid
rock, then the structure that you finally rear, because of its firm
foundation will endure forever.

Build up a public interest in yourself if you expect any producing
manager to pay you what you are worth. Perhaps he will never pay you
what you think you are worth, but if you bring money into the house he
knows he must pay you well in his own interest. And believe me, he
knows whether you are an asset or a liability to his show. You have
simply got to prove to the box office that you are producing--not
stage money--but the real stuff.

There is such a thing in stage lingo as an "overnight hit." Someone
suddenly "stops the show" in a town; that is, gets an unusual number
of recalls. But wait a while before you decide that you are ready to
star on the strength of that. Your next audience or the audience in
the next town may not be so enthusiastic over your act. An "overnight
hit" is seldom continued beyond the single performance. It is
pleasant while it lasts, but it doesn't last long. You must perform
consistently and "make a hit" at every performance, with every
audience.

Be patient, you who would star and see your name go up in the bright
lights on the Great White Way. Do not get discouraged. You will meet
with obstacles on the route to fame undoubtedly, as others have done,
and, like the others who have finally arrived, you must overcome them
one at a time as they appear, by sheer force of willpower,
determination, pluck or whatever you desire to call it. If you are a
weakling and lack strength of character do not ever take up a stage
career, for you will get many a bump; so be prepared to stand it. For
only those who are determined to succeed will ever reach the top,
where there is plenty of room always.

[Illustration: NW]

[Illustration: MARILYN]

[Illustration: RITA HOWARD]




FORMS OF STAGE CONTRACTS

[Illustration]


I offer no apology for posting the inexperienced ones about to enter
upon a stage career as to how best to make the start.

The signing of a mutual contract, entering into a legal engagement on
the part of manager and dancer to perform certain duties and pay
certain salaries for a stated period of time, is of sufficient
importance to have serious consideration.

I want my pupils to know in advance just what a proper stage contract
looks like, how it reads, and what they will be called upon to sign as
"party of the second part" when the hoped for time comes that their
dances are to have public presentation on the professional stage.

To this end, I reproduce here the wording of various forms of approved
contracts now in general use by American Theatrical managers, and
commend their reading to all who are interested in the intimate side
of stage affairs.

The theatrical law requires that a chorus girl or boy be paid not less
than $30.00 per week in New York City and $35.00 outside of New York,
besides their transportation. This is the lowest salary. All first
class managers pay choristers not less than $40.00 per week in New
York and $50.00 on the road. The salary always includes
transportation, but _not_ living expenses, which you are required to
pay.

Some chorus girls receive as much as $75.00 or $100.00 weekly,
depending upon what they can do, their appearance, personality, etc.
About the smallest salary ever offered a solo dancer with a vaudeville
act would be $50.00 in New York and $60.00 on tour, while the majority
of solo dancers without name or reputation would receive $75.00,
$85.00 or $100.00 per week, to start, provided they really can do a
real dance in a professional manner and "put it over" with some
personality. One who receives $100.00 per week in New York should
receive $125.00 on tour. After one's salary reaches $125.00 per week
it can be increased on a sliding scale to $150.00 and $175.00 on tour,
then $200.00 in New York and $250.00 on tour. From $250.00 to $300.00.
After reaching $300.00 it generally jumps to $400.00, from $400.00 to
$500.00, after that to $750.00, then $1000.00 to $1250.00, thence to
$1500.00 a week, and then to ten percent of the gross receipts,
usually a star's contract, though contracts and terms vary. A salary
is fixed for one theatrical year and usually increased each year as
indicated, but is never increased at all unless there is a demand for
your services by reason of the fact that you have made a "hit" and
registered genuine success.

[Illustration: CINDERELLA

Your Name]

* * * * *

[Transcriber's Note: In the following contract forms, the original has
rows of dots representing the blanks to be filled in. In this e-book,
each set of dots has been replaced with a long dash (----).]


FORM--IND: E.M. NO. 3

THIS CONTRACT MUST NOT BE ISSUED TO THE CHORUS

EQUITY MINIMUM CONTRACT

Standard Form issued by the

_Actors' Equity Association_

(Affiliated with the American Federation of Labor)

45 West 47th Street, New York City

LOS ANGELES OFFICE 6412 Hollywood Blvd.
SAN FRANCISCO OFFICE Theodore Hale, 369 Pine St.
CHICAGO OFFICE 1032 Capitol Bldg.
KANSAS CITY OFFICE Gayety Theatre Bldg.

_To be used by "Independent" New York Managers and others playing same
class of attractions._


AGREEMENT made this ---- day of ----, 19--, between ---- ("MANAGER")
and ---- (hereinafter called "ACTOR").

_Regulations and Rules Over Leaf_

Regulations covering rehearsals, notice of termination before and
during rehearsals, lost rehearsals, individual termination, closing of
play and season, clothes, number of performances, lost performances,
transportation, lay-off, method of giving notice and other matters are
set forth in the "Regulations" on the reverse side of this page and in
"Rules Governing Minimum Standard Contract," on the pages following,
and except as hereinafter provided, are a part hereof.

_Agreement of Employment_

1. The Manager engages the Actor to render service in part of
---- (Here insert name of part; also if Actor is required to
understudy.) in the play now called ---- (Here insert present title of
play) and the Actor hereby accepts such employment upon the terms
herein set forth.

_Opening Date_

2. The date of the first public performance shall be the ---- day of
----, 19--, or not later than fourteen days thereafter.

Employment hereunder shall begin on the date of the beginning of
rehearsals, and shall continue until terminated by notice given as
herein provided and not otherwise.

_Compensation_

3. The Manager agrees to pay the Actor the sum of ---- Dollars ($----)
each week on Saturday thereof, from and after the date named in
Paragraph 2, and until this agreement is duly terminated.

_Duties of the Actor_

4. The Actor agrees to be prompt at rehearsals, to pay strict regard
to makeup and dress, to perform his services in a competent and
painstaking manner, to abide by all reasonable rules and regulations
of the Manager, and, except as otherwise herein provided, to render
services exclusively to the Manager from the date of beginning of
rehearsals, and shall not render services to any other person, firm or
corporation without the consent of the Manager.

5. The Manager agrees that he has notice that the Actor herein is a
member of the Actors' Equity Association and as such member is bound
to conform to its lawful rules and regulations, and that it is a
lawful rule and regulation of said Association that, as far as the
Manager herein is concerned, the Actor is to work only in companies
operated by the Manager herein when all members of said company or
companies are members of the Actors' Equity Association in good
standing and continue to be such during the entire term of employment
hereunder. And the Manager agrees that the Actor shall not be required
to work hereunder in violation of said rule or other lawful rule of
said Association, and further agrees to the full extent to which said
agreement is lawful that all actors in the company in which the Actor
herein is employed, shall be and shall continue throughout the term
hereof to be members in good standing of the Actors' Equity
Association, except as provided in paragraph 37 of the Rules.

Should the Manager employ any non-member of the Actors' Equity
Association, or any member not fully paid up or not in good standing,
or one who fails to continue himself in good standing, or should the
Manager breach any covenant herein made, the Actor may (the Actors'
Equity Association consenting) not only terminate this agreement
forthwith, but the Manager also agrees to pay the Actor all sums due
to the date of termination, plus his return fare and plus, as
liquidated damages, no present basis for calculation existing, a sum
equal to two weeks' salary.

_Arbitration_

6. In event that any dispute shall arise between the parties as to any
matter or thing covered by this agreement, or as to the meaning of any
part thereof, then said dispute or claim shall be arbitrated. The
Manager shall choose one arbitrator and the Actors' Equity Association
the second. ---- shall be the third. These three shall constitute the
Board and the decision of a majority of the arbitrators shall be the
decision of all and shall be binding upon both parties and shall be
final. The Board shall hear the parties and within seven (7) days
shall decide the dispute or claim. The Board shall determine by whom
and in what proportion the cost of arbitration shall be paid, and the
parties hereby constitute said Board their agents and agree that its
decision shall constitute an agreement between them, having the same
binding force as if agreed to by the parties themselves. Further, that
they and each of them will, if required, sign such individual
arbitration agreement as to make said arbitration comply with a legal
arbitration under the laws of the State of New York, and the rules of
the Supreme Court thereof, and that judgment upon the award may be
entered in the Supreme Court of the State of New York. The oath of the
members of the Board of Arbitration shall not be necessary unless
specifically requested by one of the parties.

IN WITNESS WHEREOF we have signed this agreement on the day and year
first above written.

---- MANAGER
---- ACTOR


REGULATIONS

(To be printed on Independent Standard Minimum Contract)

_Rehearsals_

A. (1) The Actor, if required, shall give four weeks' rehearsal
without pay (in case of musical comedy, revue or spectacular
production, five weeks), and obligates himself to be ready to rehearse
four (or five) weeks before the date mentioned in Paragraph 2 on face
of contract hereof; if further rehearsals are required then for each
additional week or part thereof the Manager shall pay the Actor full
compensation, as provided in Paragraph 3 on face of contract hereof on
Saturday night of each week.

(2) It is agreed that rehearsals shall be continuous from the date of
the first rehearsal to the date of the first public performance of the
play, as stated in Paragraph 2 on the face hereof.

_Notice of Termination Before Rehearsal_

B. This contract may before the beginning of rehearsals be terminated
as follows:

(1) If the contract be signed and entered into prior to two months
before the specific date mentioned in Paragraph 2 on face hereof;

By the Manager giving to the Actor written notice and paying him two
weeks' salary.

If, however, previously to giving such written notice and making such
payment, the Manager shall have given to the Actor written notice that
the play will not be produced or that the Actor will not be called for
rehearsals, and the Actor thereafter secures a new engagement under
which payments to him are to begin not later than the date specified
in Paragraph 2 on the face hereof, then and in that event, instead of
said two weeks' salary, the only sum, if any, which the Manager need
pay the Actor, shall be the amount, if any, by which said two weeks'
salary exceeds two weeks' salary of the Actor under said new
engagement.

(2) If the contract be signed and entered into within two months of
the specific date mentioned in Paragraph 2 on the face hereof and the
play is not placed in rehearsal or is abandoned, the Manager shall pay
the Actor a sum equal to one week's salary.

_Notice of Termination During Rehearsal_

C. This contract may during rehearsals be terminated as follows:

(1) At any time during the first seven days' rehearsals of the Actor
by either party by giving written notice, if this contract be signed
and entered into within two months of the specific date mentioned in
Paragraph 2 on the face hereof, except in case the Actor be re-engaged
by the Manager for a part which he has previously played, in which
event he shall be paid two weeks' compensation; or

(2) Any time after the first seven days' rehearsals of the Actor by
the Manager giving written notice to the Actor and by paying him
forthwith a sum equal to two weeks' compensation.

(Note: In the above two subdivisions (C-1 and C-2), wherever the word
"seven" appears in reference to the probationary period of rehearsals
the word "ten" shall be substituted if the Actor be employed in a
musical comedy, revue or spectacular production.)

(3) The Actor may cancel the contract by giving written notice and
with the same paying to the Manager a sum equal to two weeks'
compensation.

_Individual Termination After Opening_

D. Either party may terminate this contract at any time on or after
the date of the first public performance of the play by giving the
other party two weeks' written notice.

E. (1) If the play runs four weeks or less, the Manager may close the
play and company without notice, and terminate the right of the Actor
to further compensation, provided he has paid the Actor for all
services rendered to date, and in no event less than two weeks'
compensation.

(2) If the play shall run more than four weeks, the Manager shall give
one week's notice of the closing of the season of the play and
company, or pay one week's compensation in lieu thereof.

_Clothes_

F. (1) If the Actor be a man, he shall furnish and pay for such
conventional morning, afternoon and evening clothes as are customarily
worn by civilians of the present day in this country, together with
wigs and footwear necessarily appurtenant thereto. All other wigs,
footwear, costumes, clothes, appurtenances and "properties," including
those peculiar to any trade, occupation or sport, to be furnished by
the Manager.

(2) If the Actor be a woman, all wigs, gowns, hats, footwear and all
"properties" shall be furnished by the Manager.

(3) It is understood that in every case where the Manager furnishes
costumes, if the notice of cancellation of this Contract be given by
the Actor, he or she shall reimburse the Manager for the necessary and
reasonable expense to which he may actually be put in having costumes
altered or rearranged for the successor, and repay for current shoes.

_Notices_

(G) All communications which refer to the company in general shall be
posted upon the call-board. Notice to the Manager must be given to him
personally or to his company or Stage Manager.

_Number of Performances Work_

(H) (1) Eight performances shall constitute a week's work.

(2) A week's compensation shall be paid even if a less number than
eight performances are given, except as herein otherwise provided in
Paragraph J.

(3) A sum equal to one-eighth of the weekly compensation shall be paid
for each performance over eight in each week. (This also applies to
understudies.)

(4) It is assumed that Sunday rehearsals and performances will take
place only where it is lawful, and the Actor shall not be required to
perform in the play and part above named on Sunday in any theatre
except those where Sunday performances were customarily given on May
1, 1924.

_Lost Performances_

(I) The Actor shall travel with the company by such routes as the
Manager may direct, and the Actor shall not demand compensation for
any performance lost through unavoidable delay in travel which
prevents the giving of performances by the company.

(J) (1) It is further agreed if the company cannot perform because of
fire, accident, strikes, riot, act of God, the public enemy, or for
any other cause of the same general class which could not be
reasonably anticipated or prevented, or if the Actor cannot perform on
account of illness or any other valid reason, then the Actor shall
not be entitled to any salary (except as otherwise herein specified)
for the time during which said services shall not for such reason or
reasons be rendered. Should any of the foregoing conditions continue
for a period of ten days or more, either party may terminate the
contract and the Manager will pay for all services to date and
transportation back to New York City.

(2) Strikes, within the meaning of this Paragraph, is construed to
mean any strike of any name or nature which shall prevent the Manager
from giving performances in the usual course of his business in any of
his theatre or theatres.

_Lost Rehearsals_

(K) If the Manager is prevented from giving rehearsals because of
fire, accident, riot, strikes, illness of star or prominent member of
the cast, act of God, public enemy or any other cause of the same
general class which could not reasonably be anticipated or prevented,
then the time so lost shall not be counted as part of the four (or
five, as the case may be) weeks' rehearsal period herein provided.
After the fourth (or fifth, as the case may be) week of rehearsal,
including any lay-off period on the above account, the Manager will
pay half salaries for two weeks, at the end of which time the Actor
shall be free, unless the Manager wishes to continue the services of
the Actor and pays him full salary therefor.

_Transportation_

(L) The Manager agrees to transport the Actor when required to travel,
including transportation from New York City to the point of opening
and back to New York City from the point of closing; also the Actor's
personal baggage up to two hundred pounds weight.

(M) The Manager shall reimburse the Actor for all loss or damage to
his property used and/or to be used in connection with the play while
it is wholly or partly in the possession or control or under the
supervision of the Manager or of any of his representatives and also
when such baggage and property has been in any way shipped, forwarded
or stored by the Manager or any of his representatives, but the Actor
shall have no claim if the loss or damage occurs while the baggage or
property is under his control. Upon payment of said loss or damage the
Manager shall be subrogated to all rights of the Actor therefor.

(N) (1) If individual notice of termination is given by the Manager he
agrees to pay the Actor in cash the amount of the cost of
transportation of the Actor and his baggage back to New York City
whether the Actor returns immediately or not.

(2) If this contract is cancelled by the Actor, he agrees to pay his
own railroad fare back to New York City and to reimburse the Manager
for any railroad fare the Manager may have to pay for the Actor's
successor up to an amount not exceeding railroad fare from New York
City to the point where said successor joins the company, whether for
rehearsal or for playing.

(3) If the company is organized outside of New York City, the name of
such place is herein agreed to be substituted for New York City in
Paragraph L, N-1 and N-2 and elsewhere.

(O) The Manager shall not be responsible for any loss occurring to the
personal baggage of the Actor whose duty it is, if he desires to
protect himself against loss, to insure the same.

(P) The Actor herein may play in any benefit performance given by or
under the auspices of the Actors' Equity Association. Deputies of said
Association will be permitted in each company and a duly authorized
representative shall have the right to be on the stage before and
after rehearsals and before and after performances, and said
Association may represent its members in any dispute which may arise
with the managers. Actors will be tentatively engaged on their paid up
cards only, which card will be prima facie evidence of membership in
said Association until the Manager is otherwise notified.


RULES GOVERNING MINIMUM STANDARD CONTRACTS

(To be printed on Independent Standard Minimum Contracts)

1. Should the Manager of any production consider the same
"Spectacular" and therefore entitled to five weeks of free rehearsals,
he shall notify the Actors' Equity Association before the beginning of
rehearsals and advise fully as to the nature of the production and
secure its allowance of his claim.

2. Rehearsals begin with the date when the Actor is first called. If
the Manager chooses to start with a reading to the company, or
substantial part thereof, said reading is a part of and begins the
rehearsal period.

3. In case of company rehearsals being held _before opening_ at a
place different from that of organization, the Manager shall pay the
Actor his reasonable living expenses during said rehearsals, except
that the Manager shall be allowed two days of free rehearsal in cities
within one thousand miles of New York City and one additional day free
for each additional one thousand miles or fraction thereof.

4. If the Actor shall absent himself from rehearsals for seven days or
more by reason of illness, the Manager may cancel this contract
without payment for service to date. The Association may, in its
discretion, upon appeal by the Manager, reduce this period.

5. Contracts between Manager and Actor shall be deemed to be entered
into between the said parties on the date when the terms of the
contract are agreed upon between the parties, and contracts must be
issued and signed as of that date.

6. If after joining a company, which has opened and is on tour, an
Actor is dismissed at rehearsals within the seven day probationary
period (provided the seven day probationary period has not already
been deleted from his contract) the Manager shall pay to the Actor his
transportation both ways and for each day of rehearsal a sum equal to
one-fourteenth of the weekly salary agreed upon, said rehearsals to be
deemed continuous and to begin not later than the day after the
Actor's arrival. In case the Actor is dismissed after the seven day
probationary period, the Manager shall pay the Actor two weeks' salary
and his transportation both ways.

7. If the full rehearsal period to which the Manager is entitled be
not used by him before the date of opening, he may employ the balance
thereof immediately before the New York opening, provided that said
New York opening takes place within six weeks of the original opening
of the play.

8. All performances for which admission is charged (except bona fide
benefits) are to be counted and considered as performances under the
Minimum Standard Contract.

9. If the employment under any contract relates to the second or
subsequent season of any play then the period of free rehearsals is
three weeks instead of four, but this provision shall not obtain if 50
per cent or more of the cast were not members of the production the
preceding year.

[Illustration: A THIRD FLOOR CORRIDOR]

10. If the play for which the Actor is engaged is rehearsed seven days
or less and then rehearsals are discontinued or postponed, or if the
production is abandoned during rehearsals on or before the seven day
probationary period would have expired, the Manager shall pay the
Actor as follows: If the contract has been signed or entered into
within two months of the date mentioned in Paragraph 2 of the Standard
Minimum Contract, a sum equal to one week's salary, otherwise a sum
equal to two weeks' salary.

11. In case the play is abandoned before rehearsals or the Actor is
entitled to compensation under the preceding paragraph, payment shall
be made by the Manager to the Actor not later than three weeks prior
to date of opening specified in Paragraph 2 of the main contract.

12. Seven days' rehearsals means seven consecutive calendar days,
counting Sunday (when Sunday is used for rehearsals), and said seven
days terminate with the dismissal of rehearsal on the seventh day as
herein reckoned.

13. If the part of an Actor who shall have been dismissed before the
end of the rehearsal on the seventh day shall be cut out, the Manager
shall pay to the Actor a sum equal to one week's salary.

14. The Manager shall use reasonable care that his press department
shall not announce the engagement of the Actor until after the seven
day probationary period, and shall drop the name of the Actor from
advertising and publicity matter as soon as is possible after the
Actor leaves the company.

15. If the Actor is not allowed to work out any notice properly given
under his contract the amount to which he is entitled to shall be paid
forthwith upon the giving of the notice.

16. The right of the Manager to close a play and company without a
week's notice within four weeks after the opening date does not apply
to the second or subsequent season thereof.

17. Notices of termination or closing given at or before the end of
the performance on Monday night, effective at the end of the Saturday
night following, shall be deemed one week's notice and such notice
effective at the end of Saturday week following shall be deemed two
weeks' notice.

18. The essence of this contract is continuous employment and a play
once closed shall not be re-opened during the same season within eight
weeks of the date of previous closing, without the consent of the
Actors' Equity Association. Such consent, if given, shall be upon such
terms and conditions as may be considered just and equitable by such
Association.

19. Except in a case of notice given on Monday, as otherwise provided
in these rules, a week's notice shall be seven calendar days and two
weeks' notice fourteen calendar days.

20. Should the Manager require the Actor to purchase his clothes from
a special tailor or shall require exclusive or unique designs or
unusually expensive clothes, then the Manager shall pay for such
clothes, anything to the contrary in Clause G of the Standard Minimum
Contract notwithstanding.

21. The Actor shall be responsible for transporting his own baggage to
and from the station or theatre in New York City. The Manager will pay
the cost of or reimburse the Actor for such transportation anywhere on
Manhattan Island.

22. Should the Citizens' Jury provided for in New York decide
adversely to the continuance of a production because salacious or
against public morals, the Actor shall forthwith terminate his
employment without notice, payment or penalty.

23. Should the production in which the Actor is engaged be complained
of as being in violation of any statute, ordinance or law of the
United States, any state or any municipality in any state and should a
claim or charge be made against the Actor on account of his being
engaged in such production, either civil or criminal, the Manager
shall defend the Actor at his own expense, or shall pay any and all
reasonable charges laid out or incurred by the Actor in his defense,
and the Manager agrees to indemnify the Actor against any loss or
damage which he may suffer on account of being engaged in any such
production.

This rule shall not apply to any case or any set of conditions where
its enforcement would be illegal or against public policy.

24. The Manager shall have the right to lay off his company the week
before Christmas and Holy Week. Should such lay off take place the
Manager shall not during said lay off period be entitled to the
services of the company except for a run-through rehearsal on the day
of re-opening, and except further that additional rehearsals may be
allowed by the Actors' Equity Association in case of illness of the
star or prominent member of the company or change of cast.

25. If in any production the star or featured member of the cast shall
be ill and a lay off shall take place on that account, Actors
receiving less than $100.00 weekly (but no others) shall be paid by
the Manager an amount equal to their board and lodging for the first
week. If said lay off continues beyond one week, half salaries shall
be paid to the entire company for each day the Actors are retained up
to and including two further weeks. From and after the beginning of
the fourth week the Manager shall either pay full salaries to all
members of the company or may abandon the production.

26. When understudies are employed or there is a change in the cast,
announcement shall be made to this effect, either by a slip in the
program, or by announcement from the stage at the rise of the curtain,
or by conspicuously posting a notice to that effect a reasonable time
before the rise of the curtain, at the box office.

27. In case after the opening of the play and after at least two
weeks' employment, the Manager shall desire a lay off for the purpose
of re-writing or making changes in the cast or any other reason deemed
sufficient by him, he may apply to the Actors' Equity Association for
the right to do so. If the Association agrees to such lay-off it may
do so upon such terms and conditions as may seem equitable to it under
the circumstances. But in any event if a change or changes in the cast
is made the Actor or Actors dismissed and not employed upon the
renewed run of the play shall be paid at least one week's additional
salary.

28. Musical comedies, revues or spectacular plays shall immediately
after a New York run be allowed one day's lay off before the opening
in either Boston or Chicago. This does not apply to premieres, i.e.,
original openings in those cities.

29. Should the Actor deem that he has any claim against the Manager
under his contract he shall present the same to the Actors' Equity
Association or to the Manager or both within two months after the time
when such claim has arisen, unless he shall give to the Board of
Arbitration good and sufficient reason for any delay after such period
of two months.

30. Should either party give the other any notice under his contract
which terminates the same at any future date and should the Actor have
or secure a new engagement he shall be permitted to attend the
rehearsals under the new engagement as may be necessary and as do not
conflict with his performances under his then existing contract.

31. The actual salary of the Actor agreed upon shall be stated in the
contract and a lesser or fictitious salary shall not be stated in the
contract.

32. Unless special consent otherwise is given by the Manager,
understudies shall be present at each performance.

33. "Tryouts" during May, June and July are permissible where the
Manager agrees to pay and pays one week's salary for two weeks'
rehearsals and an additional half week's salary for each additional
week of rehearsal, one week's salary to be guaranteed. Payment for
part of a week's rehearsal shall be pro rata.

34. Sunday performances referred to in "Regulations," under
Subdivision 4 of Paragraph H, are regular dramatic and musical
productions and do not include vaudeville, recitals, concerts and the
like.

35. Equity will raise no objection to the trying out of vaudeville
acts in revues or similar type of productions for one performance,
provided the act understands and is agreeable to this arrangement and
provided further that this entails on the company no rehearsals.

36. The actor shall be required to work only with a manager who
employs members (who are and continue to be members in good standing)
of the Actors' Equity Association, exclusively, in his company or
companies.

37. The parties have notice that, pursuant to special resolution of
the Actors' Equity Association, there is on file at its office an
exempt list containing the names of non-members of said Association
with whom the actor herein will work, thus creating an exception under
paragraph 5 on the face of this agreement. The parties know they may
examine this list at any time and therefore know the names of
non-members with whom the actor herein will work while the resolution
of the Association creating said exempt list continues in force; and
the actor is not required to work with any other non-member in any
company.

[Illustration: NW]

* * * * *

EQUITY MINIMUM CONTRACT

Standard Form as Agreed Upon by the

_Managers Protective Association, Inc._

and the

_Actors' Equity Association_

(Affiliated with the American Federation of Labor)

115 West 47th Street, New York City

LOS ANGELES OFFICE 6412 Hollywood Blvd.
SAN FRANCISCO OFFICE Theodore Hale, 369 Pine St.
CHICAGO OFFICE 1032 Capitol Bldg.
KANSAS CITY OFFICE Gayety Theatre Bldg.

_To be used with members of the Managers Protective Association, Inc.
only._


AGREEMENT made this ---- day of ----, 19--, between ---- ("MANAGER")
and ---- (hereinafter called "ACTOR").

The regulations on the other side hereto are a part hereof, as though
printed herein at length. To insure in this contract a sufficient
degree of flexibility to meet the contingencies and necessities of
theatre production as the same may arise, separately printed "Rules
Governing Minimum Standard Contract" are also made a part hereof as
though printed herein at length.

_Agreement of Employment_

1. The Manager engages the Actor to render services in part of
---- (Here insert name of part; also if Actor is required to
understudy) in the play now called ---- (Here insert present title of
play) and the Actor hereby accepts such employment upon the terms
herein set forth.

_Opening Date_

2. The date of the first public performance shall be the ---- day of
----, 19--, or not later than fourteen days thereafter.

Employment hereunder shall begin on the date of the beginning of
rehearsals, and shall continue until terminated by notice given as
herein provided and not otherwise.

_Compensation_

3. The Manager agrees to pay the Actor the sum of ---- Dollars ($----)
each week on Saturday thereof, from and after the date named in
Paragraph 2, and until this agreement is duly terminated.

_Regulations on Reverse Side_

Regulations covering rehearsals, notice of termination before and
during rehearsals, lost rehearsals, individual termination, closing of
play and season, clothes, number of performances, lost performances,
transportation, lay-off, method of giving notice and other matters
are set forth in the "Regulations" on the reverse side of this page
and in "Rules Governing Minimum Standard Contract," and except as
hereinafter provided are a part hereof.

_Duties of the Actor_

4. The Actor agrees to be prompt at rehearsals, to pay strict regard
to makeup and dress, to perform his services in a competent and
painstaking manner, to abide by all reasonable rules and regulations
of the Manager, and, except as otherwise herein provided, to render
services exclusively to the Manager from the date of beginning of
rehearsals, and shall not render services to any other person, firm or
corporation without the consent of the Manager.

5. (a) The Actor's employment hereunder is conditional upon the
membership of the companies of the Manager being in accordance with
the Equity Association rules, set forth in the agreement between the
Actors' Equity Association and the Managers' Protective Association,
Inc., dated May 12, 1924, and the Actor shall not be required to work
hereunder in violation of any such rules. Should at any time the
membership of any such company fail to be in accordance with any such
rules, or should the Manager fail to comply with any of the provisions
of paragraphs "SEVENTH" or "EIGHTH" of said agreement, the Actor shall
at his option, provided the Actors' Equity Association consents, be
released from this agreement and the Manager agrees to pay to him and
he may recover from the Manager, all sums due to date of said release
plus his return fare, as provided in the transportation clause, plus,
as liquidated damages, a sum equal to two weeks' salary. Any claim
under this paragraph must be made by the Actor through and with the
consent of the Actors' Equity Association and any dispute regarding
the same shall be arbitrated under the provisions of this agreement.

(b) This agreement is dependent upon and subject to all the terms and
conditions of said agreement with the Managers' Protective
Association, Inc., dated May 12, 1924.

_Arbitration_

6. In event that any dispute shall arise between the parties as to any
matter or thing covered by this agreement, or as to the meaning of any
part thereof, then said dispute or claim shall be arbitrated. The
Manager shall choose one arbitrator and the Actors' Equity Association
the second. ---- shall be the third. These three shall constitute the
Board and the decision of a majority of the arbitrators shall be the
decision of all and shall be binding upon both parties and shall be
final. The Board shall hear the parties and within seven (7) days
shall decide the dispute or claim. The Board shall determine by whom
and in what proportion the cost of arbitration shall be paid, and the
parties hereby constitute said Board their agents and agree that its
decision shall constitute an agreement between them, having the same
binding force as if agreed to by the parties themselves. Further, that
they and each of them will, if required, sign such individual
arbitration agreement as to make said arbitration comply with a legal
arbitration under the laws of the State of New York, and the rules of
the Supreme Court thereof, and that judgment upon the award may be
entered in the Supreme Court of the State of New York. The oath of the
members of the Board of Arbitration shall not be necessary unless
specifically requested by one of the parties.

IN WITNESS WHEREOF we have signed this agreement on the day and year
first above written.

---- MANAGER
---- ACTOR


REGULATIONS

(To be printed on Standard Minimum Contract)

_Rehearsals_

A. (1) The Actor, if required, shall give four weeks' rehearsal
without pay (in case of musical comedy, revue or spectacular
production, five weeks), and obligates himself to be ready to rehearse
four (or five) weeks before the date mentioned in Paragraph 2 on the
face of contract hereof; if further rehearsals are required then for
each additional week or part thereof the Manager shall pay the Actor
full compensation, as provided in Paragraph 3 on face of contract
hereof on Saturday night of each week.

(2) It is agreed that rehearsals shall be continuous from the date of
the first rehearsal to the date of the first public performance of the
play, as stated in Paragraph 2 on the face hereof.

_Notice of Termination Before Rehearsal_

B. This contract may before the beginning of rehearsals be terminated
as follows:

(1) If the contract be signed and entered into prior to two months
before the specific date mentioned in Paragraph 2 on face hereof;

(a) By the Manager giving to the Actor written notice and paying him
two weeks' salary.

If, however, previously to giving such written notice and making such
payment, the Manager shall have given to the Actor written notice that
the play will not be produced or that the Actor will not be called for
rehearsals, and the Actor thereafter secures a new engagement under
which payments to him are to begin not later than the date specified
in Paragraph 2 on the face hereof, then and in that event, instead of
said two weeks' salary, the only sum, if any, which the Manager need
pay the Actor, shall be the amount, if any, by which said two weeks'
salary exceeds two weeks' salary of the Actor under said new
engagement.

(2) If the contract be signed and entered into within two months of
the specific date mentioned in Paragraph 2 on the face hereof and the
play is not placed in rehearsal or is abandoned, the Manager shall pay
the Actor a sum equal to one week's salary.

_Notice of Termination During Rehearsal_

C. This contract may during rehearsals be terminated as follows:

(1) At any time during the first seven days' rehearsals of the Actor
by either party by giving written notice, if this contract be signed
and entered into within two months of the specific date mentioned in
Paragraph 2 on the face hereof, except in case the Actor be re-engaged
by the Manager for a part which he has previously played, in which
event he shall be paid two weeks' compensation; or

(2) Any time after the first seven days' rehearsals of the Actor by
the Manager giving written notice to the Actor and by paying him
forthwith a sum equal to two weeks' compensation.

(Note: In the above two subdivisions (C-1 and C-2), wherever the word
"seven" appears in reference to the probationary period of rehearsals
the word "ten" shall be substituted if the Actor be employed in a
musical comedy, revue or spectacular production.)

(3) The Actor may cancel the contract by giving written notice and
with the same paying to the manager a sum equal to two weeks'
compensation.

D. Either party may terminate this contract at any time on or after
the date of the first public performance of the play by giving the
other party two weeks' written notice.

_Individual Termination After Opening_

E. (1) If the play runs four weeks or less, the Manager may close the
play and company without notice, and terminate the right of the Actor
to further compensation, provided he has paid the Actor for all
services rendered to date, and in no event less than two weeks'
compensation.

(2) If the play shall run more than four weeks, the Manager shall give
one week's notice of the closing of the season of the play and
company, or pay one week's compensation in lieu thereof.

_Clothes_

F. (1) If the Actor be a man, he shall furnish and pay for such
conventional morning, afternoon and evening clothes as are customarily
worn by civilians of the present day in this country, together with
wigs and footwear necessarily appurtenant thereto. All other wigs,
footwear, costumes, clothes, appurtenances and "properties," including
those peculiar to any trade, occupation or sport, to be furnished by
the Manager.

(2) If the Actor be a woman, all wigs, gowns, hats, footwear and all
"properties" shall be furnished by the Manager.

(3) It is understood that in every case where the Manager furnishes
costumes, if the notice of cancellation of this Contract be given by
the Actor, he or she shall reimburse the Manager for the necessary and
reasonable expense to which he may actually be put in having costumes
altered or rearranged for the successor, and repay for current shoes.

_Notices_

(G) All communications which refer to the company in general shall be
posted upon the call-board. Notice to the Manager must be given to him
personally or to his company or Stage Manager.

_Number of Performances Work_

(H) (1) Eight performances shall constitute a week's work.

(2) A week's compensation shall be paid even if a less number than
eight performances are given, except as herein otherwise provided in
Paragraph J.

(3) A sum equal to one-eighth of the weekly compensation shall be paid
for each performance over eight in each week. (This also applies to
understudies.)

(4) It is assumed that Sunday rehearsals and performances will take
place only where it is lawful, and the Actor shall not be required to
perform in the play and part above named on Sunday in any theatre
except those where Sunday performances were customarily given on May
1, 1924.

_Lost Performances_

(I) The Actor shall travel with the company by such routes as the
Manager may direct, and the Actor shall not demand compensation for
any performance lost through unavoidable delay in travel which
prevents the giving of performances by the company.

(J) It is further agreed if the company cannot perform because of
fire, accident, strikes, riot, act of God, the public enemy, or for
any other cause of the same general class which could not be
reasonably anticipated or prevented, or if the Actor cannot perform on
account of illness or any other valid reason, then the Actor shall not
be entitled to any salary (except as otherwise herein specified) for
the time during which said services shall not for such reason or
reasons be rendered. Should any of the foregoing conditions continue
for a period of ten days or more, either party may terminate the
contract and the Manager will pay for all services to date and
transportation back to New York City.

_Lost Rehearsals_

(K) If the Manager is prevented from giving rehearsals because of
fire, accident, riot, strikes, illness of star or prominent member of
the cast, act of God, public enemy or any other cause of the same
general class which could not reasonably be anticipated or prevented,
then the time so lost shall not be counted as part of the four (or
five, as the case may be) weeks' rehearsal period herein provided.
After the fourth week of rehearsal, including any lay-off period on
the above account, the Manager will pay half salaries for two weeks,
at the end of which time the Actor shall be free, unless the Manager
wishes to continue the services of the Actor and pays him full salary
therefor.

_Transportation_

(L) The Manager agrees to transport the Actor when required to travel,
including transportation from New York City to the point of opening
and back to New York City from the point of closing; also the Actor's
personal baggage up to two hundred pounds weight.

(M) The Manager shall reimburse the Actor for all loss or damage to
his property used and/or to be used in connection with the play while
they are wholly or partly in the possession or control or under the
supervision of the Manager or of any of his representatives and also
when such baggage and property has been in any way shipped, forwarded
or stored by the Manager or any of his representatives, but the Actor
shall have no claim if the loss or damage occurs while the baggage or
property is under his own control. Upon payment of said loss or damage
the Manager shall be subrogated to all rights of the Actor therefor.

(N) (1) If individual notice of termination is given by the Manager he
agrees to pay the Actor in cash the amount of the cost of
transportation of the Actor and his baggage back to New York City
whether the Actor returns immediately or not.

(2) If this contract is cancelled by the Actor, he agrees to pay his
own railroad fare back to New York City and to reimburse the Manager
for any railroad fare the Manager may have to pay for the Actor's
successor up to an amount not exceeding the railroad fare from New
York City to the point where said successor joins the company, whether
for rehearsal or for playing.

(3) If the company is organized outside of New York City, the name of
such place is herein agreed to be substituted for New York City in
Paragraphs L, N-1 and N-2 and elsewhere.

(O) The Manager shall not be responsible for any loss occurring to the
personal baggage of the Actor whose duty it is, if he desires to
protect himself against loss, to insure the same.

(P) Strikes, within the meaning of Paragraph J hereof, is construed to
mean any strike of any name or nature which shall prevent the Manager
from giving performances in the usual course of his business in any of
his theatre or theatres.

[Illustration: "BY THE SOUTH SEA MOON," FOLLIES OF 1922]


RULES GOVERNING MINIMUM STANDARD CONTRACTS

(To be printed on Standard Minimum Contracts)

1. Should the Manager of any production consider the same
"Spectacular" and therefore entitled to five weeks of free rehearsals,
he shall notify the Actors' Equity Association before the beginning of
rehearsals and advise fully as to the nature of the production and
secure its allowance of his claim.

2. Rehearsals begin with the date when the Actor is first called. If
the Manager chooses to start with a reading to the company, or
substantial part thereof, said reading is a part of and begins the
rehearsal period.

3. In case of company rehearsals being held before opening at a place
different from that of organization, the Manager shall pay the Actor
his reasonable living expenses during said rehearsals, except that the
Manager shall be allowed two days of free rehearsals in cities within
one thousand miles of New York City and one additional day free for
each additional one thousand miles or fraction thereof.

4. If the Actor shall absent himself from rehearsals for seven days or
more by reason of illness, the Manager may cancel this contract
without payment for service to date. The Association may, in its
discretion, upon appeal by the Manager, reduce this period.

5. Contracts between Manager and Actor shall be deemed to be entered
into between the said parties on the date when the terms of the
contract are agreed upon between the parties, and contracts must be
issued and signed as of that date.

6. If after joining a company, which has opened and is on tour, an
Actor is dismissed at rehearsals within the seven day probationary
period (provided the seven day probationary period has not already
been deleted from his contract) the Manager shall pay to the Actor his
transportation both ways and for each day of rehearsal a sum equal to
one-fourteenth of the weekly salary agreed upon, said rehearsals to be
deemed continuous and to begin not later than the day after the
Actor's arrival. In case the Actor is dismissed after the seven day
probationary period, the Manager shall pay the Actor two weeks' salary
and his transportation both ways.

7. If the full rehearsal period to which the Manager is entitled be
not used by him before the date of opening, he may employ the balance
thereof immediately before the New York opening, provided that said
New York opening takes place within six weeks of the original opening
of the play.

8. All performances for which admission is charged (except bona fide
benefits) are to be counted and considered as performances under the
Minimum Standard Contract.

9. If the employment under any contract relates to the second or
subsequent season of any play then the period of free rehearsals is
three weeks instead of four, but this provision shall not obtain if 50
per cent or more of the cast were not members of the production the
preceding year.

10. If the play for which the Actor is engaged is rehearsed seven days
or less and then rehearsals are discontinued or postponed, or if the
production is abandoned during rehearsals on or before the seven day
probationary period would have expired, the Manager shall pay the
Actor as follows: If the contract has been signed or entered into
within two months of the date mentioned in Paragraph 2 of the Standard
Minimum Contract, a sum equal to one week's salary, otherwise a sum
equal to two weeks' salary.

11. In case the play is abandoned before rehearsals or the Actor is
entitled to compensation under the preceding paragraph, payment shall
be made by the Manager to the Actor not later than three weeks prior
to date of opening specified in Paragraph 2 of the main contract.

12. Seven days' rehearsals means seven consecutive calendar days,
counting Sunday (when Sunday is used for rehearsals), and said seven
days terminate with the dismissal of rehearsal on the seventh day as
herein reckoned.

13. If the part of an Actor who shall have been dismissed before the
end of the rehearsal on the seventh day shall be cut out, the Manager
shall pay to the Actor a sum equal to one week's salary.

14. The Manager shall use reasonable care that his press department
shall not announce the engagement of the Actor until after the seven
day probationary period, and shall drop the name of the Actor from
advertising and publicity matter as soon as is possible after the
Actor leaves the company.

15. If the Actor is not allowed to work out any notice properly given
under his contract the amount to which he is entitled to shall be paid
forthwith upon the giving of the notice.

16. The right of the Manager to close a play and company without a
week's notice within four weeks after the opening date does not apply
to the second or subsequent season thereof.

17. Notices of termination or closing given at or before the end of
the performance on Monday night, effective at the end of the Saturday
night following, shall be deemed one week's notice and such notice
effective at the end of the Saturday week following shall be deemed
two weeks' notice.

18. The essence of this contract is continuous employment and a play
once closed shall not be re-opened during the same season within eight
weeks of the date of previous closing, without the consent of the
Actors' Equity Association. Such consent, if given, shall be upon such
terms and conditions as may be considered just and equitable by such
Association.

19. Except in a case of notice given on Monday, as otherwise provided
in these rules, a week's notice shall be seven calendar days and two
weeks' notice fourteen calendar days.

20. Should the Manager require the Actor purchasing his clothes from a
special tailor or shall require exclusive or unique designs or
unusually expensive clothes, then the Manager shall pay for such
clothes, anything to the contrary in Clause G of the Standard Minimum
Contract notwithstanding.

21. The Actor shall be responsible for transporting his own baggage to
and from the station or theatre in New York City. The Manager will pay
the cost of or reimburse the Actor for such transportation anywhere on
Manhattan Island.

22. Should the Citizens' Jury provided for in New York decide
adversely to the continuance of a production because salacious or
against public morals, the Actor shall forthwith terminate his
employment without notice, payment or penalty.

23. Should the production in which the Actor is engaged be complained
of as being in violation of any statute, ordinance or law of the
United States, any state or any municipality in any state and should a
claim or charge be made against the Actor on account of his being
engaged in such production, either civil or criminal, the Manager
shall defend the Actor at his own expense, or shall pay any and all
reasonable charges laid out or incurred by the Actor in his defense,
and the Manager agrees to indemnify the Actor against any loss or
damage which he may suffer on account of being engaged in any such
production.

This rule shall not apply to any case or set of conditions where its
enforcement would be illegal or against public policy.

24. The Manager shall have the right to lay off his company the week
before Christmas and Holy Week. Should such lay off take place the
Manager shall not during said lay off period be entitled to the
services of the company except for a run-through rehearsal on the day
of re-opening, and except further that additional rehearsals may be
allowed by the Actors' Equity Association in case of illness of the
star or prominent member of the company or change of cast.

25. If in any production the star or featured member of the cast shall
be ill and a lay off shall take place on that account, Actors
receiving less than $100.00 weekly (but no others) shall be paid by
the Manager an amount equal to their board and lodging for the first
week. If said lay off continues beyond one week, half salaries shall
be paid to the entire company for each day the Actors are retained up
to and including two further weeks. From and after the beginning of
the fourth week the Manager shall either pay full salaries to all
members of the company or may abandon the production.

26. When understudies are employed or there is a change in the cast,
announcement shall be made to this effect, either by a slip in the
program, or by announcement from the stage at the rise of the curtain,
or by conspicuously posting a notice to that effect a reasonable time
before the rise of the curtain, at the box office.

27. In case after the opening of the play and after at least two
weeks' employment, the Manager shall desire a lay off for the purpose
of re-writing or making changes in the cast or any other reason deemed
sufficient by him, he may apply to the Actors' Equity Association for
the right to do so. If the Association agrees to such lay-off it may
do so upon such terms and conditions as may seem equitable to it under
the circumstances. But in any event if a change or changes in the cast
is made the Actor or Actors dismissed and not employed upon the
renewed run of the play shall be paid at least one week's additional
salary.

28. Musical comedies, revues or spectacular plays shall immediately
after a New York run be allowed one day's lay off before the opening
in either Boston or Chicago. This does not apply to premieres, i.e.,
original openings in those cities.

29. Should the Actor deem that he has any claim against the Manager
under his contract he shall present the same to the Actors' Equity
Association or to the Manager or both within two months after the time
when such claim has arisen, unless he shall give to the Board of
Arbitration good and sufficient reason for any delay after such period
of two months.

30. Should either party give the other any notice under his contract
which terminates the same at any future date and should the Actor have
or secure a new engagement he shall be permitted to attend the
rehearsals under the new engagement as may be necessary and as do not
conflict with his performances under his then existing contract.

31. The actual salary of the Actor agreed upon shall be stated in the
contract and a lesser or fictitious salary shall not be stated in the
contract.

32. Unless special consent otherwise is given by the Manager,
understudies shall be present at each performance.

33. "Tryouts" during May, June and July are permissible; the actor to
receive employment commencing with the opening date for at least
one-half the time spent in rehearsals; minimum employment one week.

34. Sunday performances referred to in "Regulations," under
Subdivision 4 of Paragraph H, are regular dramatic and musical
productions and do not include vaudeville, recitals, concerts and the
like.

35. Equity will raise no objection to the trying out of vaudeville
acts in revues or similar type of productions for one performance,
provided the act understands and is agreeable to this arrangement and
provided further that this entails on the company no rehearsals.

* * * * *

FORM I.R. NO. 1

THIS CONTRACT MUST NOT BE ISSUED TO THE CHORUS

_Actors' Equity Association_

(Affiliated with the American Federation of Labor)

45 West 47th Street, New York City

LOS ANGELES OFFICE 6412 Hollywood Blvd.
SAN FRANCISCO OFFICE Theodore Hale, 369 Pine St.
CHICAGO OFFICE 1032 Capitol Bldg.
KANSAS CITY OFFICE Gayety Theatre Bldg.

RUN-OF-THE-PLAY

STANDARD CONTRACT

_For Independent New York Managers and others playing the same class
of attractions_


AGREEMENT made this ---- day of ----, 19--, between ---- (hereinafter
called "Manager") and ---- (hereinafter called "Actor").

The REGULATIONS and RULES contained on the reverse side are a part
hereof as though set forth on this page in full.

_Agreement of Employment_

1. The Manager hereby hires the Actor to render services, as such in
the part of ----, in the play hereinafter mentioned, and the Actor
hereby accepts the said engagement; such hiring to be subject to the
terms hereinafter set forth.

_Period of Employment_

2. The term of employment shall be the Run of the Play now called
---- during the season of 19-- 19-- which said season is agreed to BE
THE PERIOD BETWEEN THE FIRST DAY OF SEPTEMBER AND THE FOLLOWING FIRST
DAY OF JUNE.

_Opening Date_

3. The date of first public performance shall be the ---- day of ----,
19--, or not later than fourteen days thereafter.

Employment hereunder shall begin upon the date of beginning of
rehearsals, which date shall be not earlier than four weeks prior to
the date of first public performance.

_Compensation_

4. The Manager agrees, as compensation for services hereunder, to pay
the Actor from and after the date named in Paragraph 3 and continuing
for and during the run of the production for which the Actor is
engaged, the sum of ---- Dollars ($----) each and every week (on
Saturday).

_Guaranteed Period_

5. The Manager agrees and guarantees that under this contract he will
give the Actor not less than ---- consecutive weeks' work, commencing
with the date of the first public performance, and pay him therefor.

_Rehearsals_

6. The Actor, if required, shall give four weeks' rehearsal without
pay; if further rehearsals are required, then, for each additional
week or part thereof, the Manager shall pay the Actor, on Saturday of
that week, at the rate of the full salary mentioned in paragraph four.

Rehearsals shall be considered to be continuous from the date of the
first rehearsal to the date of the first public performance of the
play as provided in paragraph three.

If the above play is a musical play, or a spectacular production,
then, wherever the word "Four" appears in this paragraph and in
paragraph three the word "Five" shall be substituted.

_Notice of Closing_

7. The Manager shall give one week's notice of the closing of the
production and company for which the Actor is engaged.

_Duties of the Actor_

8. The Actor agrees to be prompt at rehearsals, to pay strict regard
to makeup and dress, to perform the services herein required in a
competent and painstaking manner, to abide by all reasonable rules and
regulations, and to render services exclusively to the Manager from
the date of beginning of rehearsals, and not to render services to any
other person, firm or corporation without the consent of the Manager.

_Miscellaneous_

9. Lay-offs, unless caused through the fault of the Actor, shall not
be counted as part of the guaranteed period.

10. If the blank in paragraph five is not filled in, and no guaranteed
period is agreed upon, the Manager agrees that this contract shall
call for a minimum guaranty of two weeks' employment from the date
named in Paragraph three hereof.

11. The Manager agrees that he has notice that the Actor herein is a
member of the Actors' Equity Association and as such member is bound
to conform to its lawful rules and regulations, and that it is a
lawful rule and regulation of said Association that, as far as the
Manager herein is concerned, the Actor is to work only in companies
operated by the Manager herein when all members of said company or
companies are members of the Actors' Equity Association in good
standing and continue to be such during the entire term of employment
hereunder. And the Manager agrees that the Actor shall not be required
to work hereunder in violation of said rule or other lawful rule of
said Association, and further agrees to the full extent to which said
agreement is lawful that all actors in the company in which the Actor
herein is employed, shall be and shall continue throughout the term
hereof to be members in good standing of the Actors' Equity
Association, except as provided in paragraph 24 of the Rules.

Should the Manager employ any non-member of the Actors' Equity
Association, or any member not fully paid up or not in good standing,
or one who fails to continue himself in good standing, or should the
Manager breach any covenant herein made, the Actor may (the Actors'
Equity Association consenting) not only terminate this agreement
forthwith, but the Manager also agrees to pay the Actor all sums due
to the date of termination, plus his return fare and plus, as
liquidated damages, no present basis for calculation existing, a sum
equal to two weeks' salary.

_Arbitration_

12. In event that any dispute shall arise between the parties as to
any matter or thing covered by this agreement, or as to the meaning of
any part thereof, then said dispute or claim shall be arbitrated. The
Manager shall choose one arbitrator and the Actors' Equity Association
the second; ---- shall be the third. These three shall constitute the
Board and the decision of a majority of the arbitrators shall be the
decision of all and shall be binding upon both parties and shall be
final. The Board shall hear the parties and within seven (7) days
shall decide the dispute or claim. The Board shall determine by whom
and in what proportion the cost of arbitration shall be paid, and the
parties hereby constitute said Board their agents and agree that its
decision shall constitute an agreement between them, having the same
binding force as if agreed to by the parties themselves. Further, that
they and each of them will, if required, sign such individual
arbitration agreement as to make said arbitration comply with a legal
arbitration under the laws of the State of New York, and the rules of
the Supreme Court thereof, and that judgment upon the award may be
entered in the Supreme Court of the State of New York. The oath of the
members of the Board of Arbitration shall not be necessary unless
specifically requested by one of the parties.

IN WITNESS WHEREOF we have signed this agreement on the day and year
first above written.

---- MANAGER
---- ACTOR


REGULATIONS

_Rehearsals_

A. (1) The Actor, if required, shall give four weeks' rehearsal
without pay (in case of musical comedy, revue or spectacular
production, five weeks), and obligates himself to be ready to rehearse
four (or five) weeks before the date mentioned in Paragraph three on
face of contract hereof; if further rehearsals are required then for
each additional week or part thereof the Manager shall pay the Actor
full compensation, as provided in Paragraph four on face of contract
hereof on Saturday night of each week.

(2) It is agreed that rehearsals shall be continuous from the date of
the first rehearsal to the date of the first public performance of the
play, as stated in Paragraph three on the face hereof.

_Clothes_

B. (1) If the Actor be a man, he shall furnish and pay for such
conventional morning, afternoon and evening clothes as are customarily
worn by civilians of the present day in this country, together with
wigs and footwear necessarily appurtenant thereto. All other wigs,
footwear, costumes, clothes, appurtenances and "properties," including
those peculiar to any trade, occupation or sport, to be furnished by
the Manager.

(2) If the Actor be a woman, all wigs, gowns, hats, footwear and all
"properties" shall be furnished by the Manager.

[Illustration: BELLE BAKER]

_Notices_

C. All communications which refer to the company in general shall be
posted upon the call-board. Notice to the Manager must be given to him
personally or to his company or Stage Manager.

_Number of Performances_

D. (1) Eight performances shall constitute a week's work.

(2) A week's compensation shall be paid even if a less number than
eight performances are given, except as herein otherwise provided in
Paragraph F.

(3) A sum equal to one-eighth of the weekly compensation shall be paid
for each performance over eight in each week. (This also applies to
understudies.)

(4) It is assumed that Sunday rehearsals and performances will take
place only where it is lawful, and the Actor shall not be required to
perform in the play and part above named on Sunday in any theatre
except those where Sunday performances were customarily given on May
1, 1924.

E. The Actor shall travel with the company by such routes as the
Manager may direct, and the Actor shall not demand compensation for
any performance lost through unavoidable delay in travel which
prevents the giving of performances by the company.

_Lost Performances_

F. (1) It is further agreed if the company cannot perform because of
fire, accident, strikes, riot, act of God, the public enemy, or for
any other cause of the same general class which could not be
reasonably anticipated or prevented, or if the Actor cannot perform on
account of illness or any other valid reason, then the Actor shall not
be entitled to any salary (except as otherwise herein specified) for
the time during which said services shall not for such reason or
reasons be rendered. Should any of the foregoing conditions continue
for a period of ten days or more, the Actor may terminate the contract
and the Manager will pay for all services to date and transportation
back to New York City.

_Lost Rehearsals_

G. If the Manager is prevented from giving rehearsals because of fire,
accident, riot, strikes, illness of star or prominent member of the
cast, act of God, public enemy or any other cause of the same general
class which could not reasonably be anticipated or prevented, then the
time so lost shall not be counted as part of the four (or five, as the
case may be) weeks' rehearsal period herein provided. After the fourth
week of rehearsal, including any lay-off period on the above account,
the Manager will pay half salaries for two weeks, at the end of which
time the Actor shall be free, unless the Manager wishes to continue
the services of the Actor and pays him full salary therefor.

_Transportation_

H. The Manager agrees to transport the Actor when required to travel,
including transportation from New York City to the point of opening
and back to New York City from the point of closing; also the Actor's
personal baggage up to two hundred pounds weight.

I. The Manager shall reimburse the Actor for all loss or damage to his
property used and/or to be used in connection with the play while they
are wholly or partly in the possession or control or under the
supervision of the Manager or of any of his representatives and also
when such baggage and property has been in any way shipped, forwarded
or stored by the Manager or any of his representatives, but the Actor
shall have no claim if the loss or damage occurs while the baggage or
property is under his own control. Upon payment of said loss or damage
the Manager shall be subrogated to all rights of the Actor therefor.

J. If the company is organized outside of New York City, the name of
such place is herein agreed to be substituted for New York City in
Paragraph H, and elsewhere.

K. The Manager shall not be responsible for any loss occurring to the
personal baggage of the Actor, whose duty it is, if he desires to
protect himself against loss, to insure the same.

L. The Actor herein may play in any benefit performance given by or
under the auspices of the Actors' Equity Association. Deputies of said
Association will be permitted in each company and a duly authorized
representative shall have the right to be on the stage before and
after rehearsals and before and after performances, and said
Association may represent its members in any dispute which may arise
with the managers. Actors will be tentatively engaged on their paid up
cards only, which card will be prima facie evidence of membership in
said association until the manager is otherwise notified.


RULES

1. Should the Manager of any production consider the same
"Spectacular" and therefore entitled to five weeks of free rehearsals,
he shall notify the Actors' Equity Association before the beginning of
rehearsals and advise fully as to the nature of the production and
secure its allowance of his claim.

2. Rehearsals begin with the date when the Actor is first called. If
the Manager chooses to start with a reading to the Company, or
substantial part thereof, said reading is a part of and begins the
rehearsal period.

3. In case of company rehearsals being held _before the opening of the
play_ at a place different from that of organization, the Manager
shall pay the Actor his reasonable living expenses during said
rehearsals, except that the Manager shall be allowed two days of free
rehearsals in cities within one thousand miles of New York City and
one additional day free for each additional one thousand miles or
fraction thereof.

4. If the Actor shall absent himself from rehearsals for seven days or
more by reason of illness, the Manager may cancel this contract
without payment for service to date. The Association may, in its
discretion, upon appeal by the Manager, reduce this period.

5. Contracts between Manager and Actor shall be deemed to be entered
into between the said parties on the date the terms of the contract
are agreed upon between the parties, and contracts must be issued and
signed as of that date.

6. If the full rehearsal period to which the Manager is entitled be
not used by him before the date of opening, he may employ the balance
thereof immediately before the New York opening, provided that said
New York opening takes place within six weeks of the original opening
of the play.

7. If the employment under any contract relates to the second or
subsequent season of any play then the period of free rehearsals is
three weeks instead of four, but this provision shall not obtain if 50
per cent or more of the cast were not members of the production the
preceding year.

8. Notices of termination or closing given at or before the end of the
performance on Monday night effective at the end of the Saturday night
following, shall be deemed one week's notice.

9. The essence of this contract is continuous employment and a play
once closed shall not be re-opened during the same season within eight
weeks of the date of previous closing, without the consent of the
Actors' Equity Association. Such consent, if given, shall be upon such
terms and conditions as may be considered just and equitable by such
Association.

10. Should the Manager require the Actor purchasing his clothes from a
special tailor or shall require exclusive or unique designs or
unusually expensive clothes, then the Manager shall pay for such
clothes, anything to the contrary in Clause B of the Standard Run of
the Play Contract notwithstanding.

11. The Actor shall be responsible for transporting his own baggage to
and from the station or theatre in New York City. The Manager will pay
the cost of or reimburse the Actor for such transportation anywhere on
Manhattan Island.

12. Should the Citizens' Jury provided for in New York decide
adversely, to the continuance of a production because salacious or
against public morals the Actor shall forthwith terminate his
employment without notice, payment or penalty.

13. Should the production in which the Actor is engaged be complained
of as being in violation of any statute, ordinance or law of the
United States, any state or any municipality in any state and should a
claim or charge be made against the Actor on account of his being
engaged in such production, either civil or criminal, the Manager
shall defend the Actor at his own expense, or shall pay any and all
reasonable charges laid out or incurred by the Actor in his defense,
and the Manager agrees to indemnify the Actor against any loss or
damage which he may suffer on account of being engaged in any such
production.

This rule shall not apply to any case or any set of conditions where
its enforcement would be illegal or against public policy.

14. The Manager shall have the right to lay off his company the week
before Christmas and Holy Week. Should such lay off take place the
Manager shall not during said lay off period be entitled to the
services of the company except for a run-through rehearsal on the day
of re-opening, and except further that additional rehearsals may be
allowed by the Actors' Equity Association in case of illness of the
star or prominent member of the company or change of cast.

15. If in any production the star or featured member of the cast shall
be ill and a lay off takes place on that account, Actors receiving
less than $100.00 weekly (but no others) shall be paid by the Manager
an amount equal to their board and lodging for the first week. If said
lay off continues beyond one week, half salaries shall be paid to the
entire company for each day the Actors are retained up to and
including two further weeks. From and after the beginning of the
fourth week the Manager shall either pay full salaries to all members
of the company or may abandon the production.

16. When understudies are employed or there is a change in the cast,
announcement shall be made to this effect, either by a slip in the
program, or by announcement from the stage at the rise of the curtain,
or by conspicuously posting a notice to that effect a reasonable time
before the rise of the curtain, at the box office.

17. In case after the opening of the play and after at least two
weeks' employment, the Manager shall desire a lay off for the purpose
of re-writing or making changes in the cast or any other reason deemed
sufficient by him, he may apply to the Actors' Equity Association for
the right to do so. If the Association agrees to such lay off it may
do so upon such terms and conditions as may seem equitable to it under
the circumstances. But in any event if a change or changes in the cast
is made the Actor or Actors dismissed and not employed upon the
renewed run of the play shall be paid at least one week's additional
salary.

18. Musical comedies, revues or spectacular plays shall immediately
after a New York run be allowed one day's lay off before the opening
in either Boston or Chicago. This does not apply to premieres, i.e.,
original openings in those cities.

19. Should either party give the other any notice permitted under this
contract which terminates the same at any future date and should the
Actor have or secure a new engagement he shall be permitted to attend
the rehearsals under the new engagement as may be necessary and as do
not conflict with his performances under his then existing contract.

20. Should the Actor deem that he has any claim against the Manager
under his contract he shall present the same to the Actors' Equity
Association or to the Manager or both within two months after the time
when such claim has arisen, unless he shall give to the Board of
Arbitration good and sufficient reason for any delay after such period
of two months.

21. The actual salary of the Actor agreed upon shall be stated in the
contract and a lesser or fictitious salary shall not be stated in the
contract.

22. Sunday performances referred to in "Regulations" under Subdivision
4 of Paragraph D are regular dramatic and musical productions and do
not include vaudeville, recitals, concerts and the like.

23. The Actor shall be required to work only with a Manager who
employs exclusively in his company or companies actors who are, and
who continue to be, members in good standing of the Actors' Equity
Association.

24. The parties have notice that, pursuant to special resolution of
the Actors' Equity Association, there is on file at its office an
exempt list containing the names of non-members of said Association
with whom the actor herein will work, thus creating an exception under
paragraph 5 on the face of this agreement. The parties know they may
examine this list at any time and therefore know the names of
non-members with whom the actor herein will work while the resolution
of the Association creating said exempt list continues in force; and
the actor is not required to work with any other non-member in any
company.

[Illustration: NW]

[Illustration: BUSINESS OFFICE, NED WAYBURN STUDIOS]

* * * * *

FORM M.P.A.R. NO. 2

THIS CONTRACT MUST NOT BE ISSUED TO THE CHORUS.

_Actors' Equity Association_

(Affiliated with the American Federation of Labor)

115 West 47th Street, New York City

LOS ANGELES OFFICE 6412 Hollywood Blvd.
SAN FRANCISCO OFFICE Theodore Hale, 369 Pine St.
CHICAGO OFFICE 1032 Capitol Bldg.
KANSAS CITY OFFICE Gayety Theatre Bldg.

RUN-OF-THE-PLAY

STANDARD CONTRACT

_For Use by Members of the Managers' Protective Association_


AGREEMENT made this ---- day of ----, 19--, between ---- (hereinafter
Called "Manager") and ---- (hereinafter Called "Actor").

The REGULATIONS and RULES contained on the reverse side are a part
hereof as though set forth on this page in full.

_Agreement of Employment_

1. The Manager hereby hires the Actor to render services, as such, in
the part of ----, in the play hereinafter mentioned, and the Actor
hereby accepts the said engagement; such hiring to be subject to the
terms hereinafter set forth.

_Period of Employment_

2. The term of employment shall be the Run of the Play now called
---- during the season of 19-- 19-- which said season is agreed to BE
THE PERIOD BETWEEN THE FIRST DAY OF SEPTEMBER AND THE FOLLOWING FIRST
DAY OF JUNE.

_Opening Date_

3. The date of first public performance shall be the ---- day of ----,
19--, or not later than fourteen days thereafter.

Employment hereunder shall begin upon the date of beginning of
rehearsals, which date shall be not earlier than four weeks prior to
the date of first public performance.

_Compensation_

4. The Manager agrees, as compensation for services hereunder, to pay
the Actor from and after the date named in Paragraph 3 and continuing
for and during the run of the production for which the Actor is
engaged, the sum of ---- Dollars ($----) each and every week (on
Saturday).

_Guaranteed Period_

5. The Manager agrees and guarantees that under this contract he will
give the Actor not less than ---- consecutive weeks' work, commencing
with the date of the first public performance, and pay him therefor.

If the blank in this paragraph is not filled in, and no guaranteed
period is agreed upon, the Manager agrees that this contract shall
call for a minimum guaranty of two weeks' employment from the date
named in Paragraph three hereof.

_Rehearsals_

6. The Actor, if required, shall give four weeks' rehearsal without
pay; if further rehearsals are required, then, for each additional
week or part thereof, the Manager shall pay the Actor, on Saturday of
that week, at the rate of the full salary mentioned in paragraph four.

Rehearsals shall be considered to be continuous from the date of the
first rehearsal to the date of the first public performance of the
play as provided in paragraph three.

If the above play is a musical play, or a spectacular production,
then, wherever the word "Four" appears in this paragraph and in
paragraph three the word "Five" shall be substituted.

_Notice of Closing_

7. The Manager shall give one week's notice of the closing of the
production and company for which the Actor is engaged.

_Duties of the Actor_

8. The Actor agrees to be prompt at rehearsals, to pay strict regard
to makeup and dress, to perform the services herein required in a
competent and painstaking manner to abide by all reasonable rules and
regulations, and to render services exclusively to the Manager from
the date of beginning of rehearsals, and not to render services to any
other person, firm or corporation without the consent of the Manager.

_Miscellaneous_

9. Lay-offs, unless caused through the fault of the Actor, shall not
be counted as part of the guaranteed period.

10. (a) The Actor's employment hereunder is conditional upon the
membership of the companies of the Manager being in accordance with
the Equity Association rules, set forth in the agreement between the
Actors' Equity Association and the Managers' Protective Association,
Inc., dated May 12, 1924, and the Actor shall not be required to work
hereunder in violation of any such rules. Should at any time the
membership of any such company fail to be in accordance with any such
rules, or should the Manager fail to comply with any of the provisions
of paragraphs "SEVENTH" or "EIGHTH" of said agreement, the Actor
shall at his option, provided the Actors' Equity Association consents,
be released from this agreement and the Manager agrees to pay to him
and he may recover from the Manager, all sums due to date of said
release plus his return fare, as provided in the transportation
clause, plus, as liquidated damages, a sum equal to two weeks' salary.
Any claim under this paragraph must be made by the Actor through and
with the consent of the Actors' Equity Association and any dispute
regarding the same shall be arbitrated under the provisions of this
agreement.

(b) This agreement is dependent upon and subject to all the terms and
conditions of said agreement with the Managers' Protective
Association, Inc., dated May 12, 1924, omitting the "Equity Minimum
Contract" made a part of said agreement.

_Arbitration_

11. In event that any dispute shall arise between the parties as to
any matter or thing covered by this agreement, or as to the meaning of
any part thereof, then said dispute or claim shall be arbitrated. The
Manager shall choose one arbitrator and the Actors' Equity Association
the second: ---- shall be the third. These three shall constitute the
Board and the decision of a majority of the arbitrators shall be the
decision of all and shall be binding upon both parties and shall be
final. The Board shall hear the parties and within seven (7) days
shall decide the dispute or claim. The Board shall determine by whom
and in what proportion the cost of arbitration shall be paid, and the
parties hereby constitute said Board their agents and agree that its
decision shall constitute an agreement between them, having the same
binding force as if agreed to by the parties themselves. Further, that
they and each of them will, if required, sign such individual
arbitration agreement as to make said arbitration comply with a legal
arbitration under the laws of the State of New York, and the rules of
Supreme Court thereof, and that judgment upon the award may be entered
in the Supreme Court of the State of New York. The oath of the members
of the Board of Arbitration shall not be necessary unless specifically
requested by one of the parties.

IN WITNESS WHEREOF we have signed this agreement on the day and year
first above written.

---- MANAGER
---- ACTOR


REGULATIONS

_Rehearsals_

A. (1) The Actor, if required, shall give four weeks' rehearsal
without pay (in case of musical comedy, revue or spectacular
production, five weeks), and obligates himself to be ready to rehearse
four (or five) weeks before the date mentioned in Paragraph three on
face of contract hereof; if further rehearsals are required then for
each additional week or part thereof the Manager shall pay the Actor
full compensation, as provided in Paragraph four on face of contract
hereof on Saturday night of each week.

(2) It is agreed that rehearsals shall be continuous from the date of
the first rehearsal to the date of the first public performance of the
play, as stated in Paragraph three on the face hereof.

_Clothes_

B. (1) If the Actor be a man, he shall furnish and pay for such
conventional morning, afternoon and evening clothes as are customarily
worn by civilians of the present day in this country, together with
wigs and footwear necessarily appurtenant thereto. All other wigs,
footwear, costumes, clothes, appurtenances and "properties," including
those peculiar to any trade, occupation or sport, to be furnished by
the Manager.

(2) If the Actor be a woman, all wigs, gowns, hats, footwear and all
"properties" shall be furnished by the Manager.

_Notices_

C. All communications which refer to the company in general shall be
posted upon the call-board. Notice to the Manager must be given to him
personally or to his company or Stage Manager.

_Number of Performances_

D. (1) Eight performances shall constitute a week's work.

(2) A week's compensation shall be paid even if a less number than
eight performances are given, except as herein provided in Paragraph
F.

(3) A sum equal to one-eighth of the weekly compensation shall be paid
for each performance over eight in each week. (This also applies to
understudies.)

(4) It is assumed that Sunday rehearsals and performances will take
place only where it is lawful, and the Actor shall not be required to
perform in the play and part above named on Sunday in any theatre
except those where Sunday performances were customarily given on May
1, 1924.

E. The Actor shall travel with the company by such routes as the
Manager may direct, and the Actor shall not demand compensation for
any performance lost through unavoidable delay in travel which
prevents the giving of performances by the company.

_Rules of Travel and Lost Performances_

F. (1) It is further agreed if the company cannot perform because of
fire, accident, strikes, riot, act of God, the public enemy, or for
any other cause of the same general class which could not be
reasonably anticipated or prevented, or if the Actor cannot perform on
account of illness or any other valid reason, then the Actor shall not
be entitled to any salary (except as otherwise herein specified) for
the time during which said services shall not for such reason or
reasons be rendered. Should any of the foregoing conditions continue
for a period of ten days or more, the Actor may terminate the contract
and the Manager will pay for all services to date and transportation
back to New York City. Should the manager for any of the foregoing
reasons close the company and later on reopen, the Actor shall be
re-engaged upon the same terms herein specified, should the Actor
desire such engagement.

[Illustration: PEARL REGAY]

_Lost Rehearsals_

G. If the Manager is prevented from giving rehearsals because of fire,
accident, riot, strikes, illness of star or prominent member of the
cast, act of God, public enemy or any other cause of the same general
class which could not reasonably be anticipated or prevented, then the
time so lost shall not be counted as part of the four (or five, as the
case may be) weeks' rehearsal period herein provided. After the fourth
week of rehearsal, including any lay-off period on the above account,
the Manager will pay half salaries for two weeks, at the end of which
time the Actor shall be free, unless the Manager wishes to continue
the services of the Actor and pays him full salary therefor.

_Transportation_

H. The Manager agrees to transport the Actor when required to travel,
including transportation from New York City to the point of opening
and back to New York City from the point of closing; also the Actor's
personal baggage up to two hundred pounds weight.

I. The Manager shall reimburse the Actor for all loss or damage to his
property used and/or to be used in connection with the play while they
are wholly or partly in the possession or control or under the
supervision of the Manager or of any of his representatives and also
when such baggage and property has been in any way shipped, forwarded
or stored by the Manager or any of his representatives, but the Actor
shall have no claim if the loss or damage occurs while the baggage or
property is under his own control. Upon payment of said loss or damage
the Manager shall be subrogated to all rights of the Actor therefor.

J. If the company is organized outside of New York City, the name of
such place is herein agreed to be substituted for New York City in
Paragraph H, and elsewhere.

K. The Manager shall not be responsible for any loss occurring to the
personal baggage of the Actor whose duty it is, if he desires to
protect himself against loss, to insure the same.

L. The Actor herein may play in any benefit performance given by or
under the auspices of the Actors' Equity Association.

M. Strikes, within the meaning of Paragraph F hereof, are construed to
mean any strike of any name or nature which shall prevent the Manager
from giving performances in the usual course of his business in any of
his theatre or theatres.


RULES

1. Should the Manager of any production consider the same
"Spectacular" and therefore entitled to five weeks of free rehearsals,
he shall notify the Actors' Equity Association before the beginning of
rehearsals and advise fully as to the nature of the production and
secure its allowance of his claim.

2. Rehearsals begin with the date when the Actor is first called. If
the Manager chooses to start with a reading to the company, or
substantial part thereof, said reading is a part of and begins the
rehearsal period.

3. In case of company rehearsals being held _before the opening of the
play_ at a place different from that of organization, the Manager
shall pay the Actor his reasonable living expenses during said
rehearsals, except that the Manager shall be allowed two days of free
rehearsal in cities within one thousand miles of New York City and one
additional day free for each additional one thousand miles or fraction
thereof.

4. If the Actor shall absent himself from rehearsals for seven days or
more by reason of illness, the Manager may cancel this contract
without payment for service to date. The Association may, in its
discretion, upon appeal by the Manager, reduce this period.

5. Contracts between Manager and Actor shall be deemed to be entered
into between the said parties on the date when the terms of the
contract are agreed upon between the parties, and contracts must be
issued and signed as of that date.

6. If the full rehearsal period to which the Manager is entitled be
not used by him before the date of opening, he may employ the balance
thereof immediately before the New York opening, provided that said
New York opening takes place within six weeks of the original opening
of the play.

7. If the employment under any contract relates to the second or
subsequent season of any play then the period of free rehearsals is
three weeks instead of four, but this provision shall not obtain if 50
per cent or more of the cast were not members of the production the
preceding year.

8. Notices of termination or closing given at or before the end of the
performance on Monday night effective at the end of the Saturday night
following, shall be deemed one week's notice.

9. The essence of this contract is continuous employment and a play
once closed shall not be re-opened during the same season within eight
weeks of the date of previous closing, without the consent of the
Actors' Equity Association. Such consent, if given, shall be upon such
terms and conditions as may be considered just and equitable by such
Association.

10. Should the Manager require the Actor "to purchase" his clothes
from a special tailor or shall require exclusive or unique designs or
unusually expensive clothes, then the Manager shall pay for such
clothes, anything to the contrary in Clause B of the Standard Run of
the Play Contract notwithstanding.

11. The Actor shall be responsible for transporting his own baggage to
and from the station or theatre in New York City. The Manager will pay
the cost of or reimburse the Actor for such transportation anywhere on
Manhattan Island.

12. Should the Citizens' Jury provided for in New York decide
adversely to the continuance of a production because salacious or
against public morals the Actor shall forthwith terminate his
employment without notice, payment or penalty.

13. Should the production in which the Actor is engaged be complained
of as being in violation of any statute, ordinance or law of the
United States, any state or any municipality in any state and should a
claim or charge be made against the Actor on account of his being
engaged in such production, either civil or criminal, the Manager
shall defend the Actor at his own expense, or shall pay any and all
reasonable charges laid out or incurred by the Actor in his defense,
and the Manager agrees to indemnify the Actor against any loss or
damage which he may suffer on account of being engaged in any such
production.

This rule shall not apply to any case or any set of conditions where
its enforcement would be illegal or against public policy.

14. The Manager shall have the right to lay off his company the week
before Christmas and Holy Week. Should such lay off take place the
Manager shall not during said lay off period be entitled to the
services of the company except for a run-through rehearsal on the day
of re-opening, and except further that additional rehearsals may be
allowed by the Actors' Equity Association in case of illness of the
star or prominent member of the company or change of cast.

15. If in any production the star or featured member of the cast shall
be ill and a lay off shall take place on that account, Actors
receiving less than $100.00 weekly (but no others) shall be paid by
the Manager an amount equal to their board and lodging for the first
week. If said lay off continues beyond one week, half salaries shall
be paid to the entire company for each day the Actors are retained up
to and including two further weeks. From and after the beginning of
the fourth week the Manager shall either pay full salaries to all
members of the company or may abandon the production.

16. When understudies are employed or there is a change in the cast,
announcement shall be made to this effect, either by a slip in the
program, or by announcement from the stage at the rise of the curtain,
or by conspicuously posting a notice to that effect a reasonable time
before the rise of the curtain, at the box office.

17. In case after the opening of the play and after at least two
weeks' employment, the Manager shall desire a lay off for the purpose
of re-writing or making changes in the cast where the contracts of
such individual actors permits him to take such action as to them or
any other reason deemed sufficient by him, he may apply to the Actors'
Equity Association for the right to do so. If the Association agrees
to such lay off it may do so upon such terms and conditions as may
seem equitable to it under the circumstances.

18. Musical comedies, revues or spectacular plays shall immediately
after a New York run be allowed one day's lay off before the opening
in either Boston or Chicago. This does not apply to premieres, i.e.,
original openings in those cities.

19. Should either party give the other any notice permitted under this
contract which terminates the same at any future date and should the
Actor have or secure a new engagement he shall be permitted to attend
the rehearsals under the new engagement as may be necessary and as do
not conflict with his performances under his then existing contract.

20. Should the Actor deem that he has any claim against the Manager
under his contract he shall present the same to the Actors' Equity
Association or to the Manager or both within two months after the time
when such claim has arisen, unless he shall give to the Board of
Arbitration good and sufficient reason for any delay after such period
of two months.

21. The actual salary of the Actor agreed upon shall be stated in the
contract and a lesser or fictitious salary shall not be stated in the
contract.

22. Sunday performances referred to in "Regulations" under Subdivision
4 of Paragraph D are regular dramatic and musical productions and do
not include vaudeville, recitals, concerts and the like.

* * * * *

FORM 1B

B

CHORUS EQUITY MINIMUM CONTRACT

Standard Form as agreed upon by the

_Managers Protective Association, Inc._

_Chorus Equity Association_

(Affiliated with the American Federation of Labor)

110 West 47th Street, New York City

LOS ANGELES OFFICE 6412 Hollywood Blvd.
SAN FRANCISCO OFFICE Theodore Hale, 369 Pine St.
CHICAGO OFFICE 1032 Capitol Bldg.
KANSAS CITY OFFICE Gayety Theatre Bldg.


AGREEMENT made this ---- day of ----, 192-, between ---- (hereinafter
called "Manager") and ---- (hereinafter called "Chorus").

The regulations on the other side hereto are a part hereof, as though
printed herein at length. To insure in this contract a sufficient
degree of flexibility to meet the contingencies and necessities of
theatre production as the same may arise, separately printed "Rules
Governing Chorus Equity Minimum Contract, Standard Form," are also
made a part hereof as though printed herein at length.

_Agreement of Employment_

1. The Manager engages the Chorus to render services in ----, (Here
insert present title of play.) and the Chorus hereby accepts such
engagement upon the terms herein set forth.

_Opening Date_

2. The date of the first public performance shall be the ---- day of
----, 19--, or not later than fourteen days thereafter.

Employment hereunder shall begin on the date of the beginning of
rehearsals and shall continue until terminated by notice given as
herein provided and not otherwise.

_Compensation_

3. The Manager agrees to pay the Chorus the sum of ---- Dollars ($----)
each week, in New York City, and ---- Dollars ($----) each week
outside of New York City, on Saturday thereof, from and after the date
named in paragraph "2" and until this agreement is duly terminated.
The minimum salary of this contract shall be the sum of Thirty ($30)
Dollars weekly in New York City; outside of New York City the minimum
salary shall be the sum of Thirty-five ($35) Dollars, unless the
production shall be designated by the Chorus Equity Association of
America, as a Number 2 attraction, in which case the road salary shall
be Thirty ($30) Dollars.

_Regulations On Reverse Side_

Regulations covering rehearsals, notice of termination before and
during rehearsals, lost rehearsals, individual termination, closing of
play and season, clothes, number of performances, lost performances,
transportation, lay-off, method of giving notice and other matters are
set forth in the "Regulations" on the reverse side of this page and in
"Rules Governing Chorus Equity Minimum Contract Standard Form," and as
hereinbefore provided are a part hereof.

_Duties of the Chorus_

4. The Chorus agrees to be prompt at rehearsals, to pay strict regard
to makeup and dress, to perform his services in a competent and
painstaking manner, to abide by all reasonable rules and regulations
of the Manager, and, except as otherwise herein provided, to render
services exclusively to the Manager from the date of beginning of
rehearsals, and shall not render services to any other person, firm or
corporation without the consent of the Manager.

5. (a) The Chorus's employment hereunder is conditional upon the
membership of the companies of the Manager being in accordance with
the Chorus Equity Association rules, set forth in the agreement
between the Chorus Equity Association and the Managers' Protective
Association, dated May 12, 1924, and the Chorus shall not be required
to work hereunder in violation if any such company fail to be in
accordance with any such rules, or should the Manager fail to comply
with any of the provisions of Paragraph "Seventh" of said agreement,
or Paragraph "Eighth" of the Managers' Protective Association-Actors'
Equity Association basic agreement, dated May 12, 1924, as modified
and incorporated into said Chorus Equity Association M.P.A. basic
agreement, the Chorus shall at his option, provided the Chorus Equity
Association consents, be released from this agreement and the Manager
agrees to pay to him and he may recover from the Manager all sums due
to date of said release, plus his return fare, as provided in the
transportation clause, plus, as liquidated damages, a sum equal to two
weeks' salary. Any claim under this paragraph must be made by the
Chorus through and with the consent of the Chorus Equity Association
and any dispute regarding the same shall be arbitrated under the
provisions of this agreement.

(b) This agreement is dependent upon and subject to all the terms and
conditions of said agreement with Managers' Protective Association,
dated May 12, 1924.

_Arbitration_

6. In event that any dispute shall arise between the parties as to any
matter or thing covered by this agreement, or as to the meaning of any
part thereof, then said dispute or claim shall be arbitrated. The
Manager shall choose one arbitrator, and the Chorus Equity Association
the second. ---- shall be the third. These three shall constitute the
Board and the decision of a majority of the arbitrators shall be the
decision of all and shall be binding upon both parties and shall be
final. The Board shall hear the parties and within seven (7) days
shall decide the dispute or claim. The Board shall determine by whom
and in what proportion the cost of arbitration shall be paid, and the
parties hereby constitute said Board their agents and agree that its
decision shall constitute an agreement between them, having the same
binding force as if agreed to by the parties themselves. Further, that
they and each of them will, if required, sign such individual
arbitration agreement as to make said arbitration comply with a legal
arbitration under the laws of the State of New York and the rules of
the Supreme Court thereof, and that judgment upon the award may be
entered in the Supreme Court of the State of New York. The oath of the
members of the Board of Arbitration shall not be necessary unless
specifically requested by one of the parties.

IN WITNESS WHEREOF we have signed this agreement on the day and year
first above written.

---- Manager.
---- Chorus.


REGULATIONS

(To be printed on Chorus Equity Minimum Contracts, Standard Form)

_Rehearsals_

A. (1) The Chorus, if required, shall give four weeks' rehearsal
without pay; if further rehearsals are required then for each
additional week or part thereof the Manager shall pay the Chorus half
salary for the next two weeks and full salary thereafter. All payments
for rehearsals beyond the four weeks shall be made on or before the
Saturday of each week.

(2) It is agreed that rehearsals shall be continuous from the date of
the first rehearsal to the date of the first public performance of the
play, as stated in Paragraph 2 on the face hereof.

_Notice of Termination Before Rehearsal_

B. This contract may, before the beginning of rehearsals, be
terminated as follows:

(1) If the contract be signed and entered into prior to two months
before the specific date mentioned in Paragraph 2 on the face hereof,
by the Manager's giving the Chorus written notice and paying him two
weeks' salary.

If, however, previously to giving such written notice, the Manager
shall have given to the Chorus written notice that the play will not
be produced or that the Chorus will not be called for rehearsals, and
the Chorus thereafter secures a new engagement under which payments to
him are to begin not later than the date specified in paragraph 2 on
the face hereof, then and in that event, instead of said two weeks'
salary, the only sum, if any, which the Manager need pay the Chorus,
shall be the amount, if any, by which said two weeks' salary exceeds
two weeks' salary to the Chorus under said new engagement.

_Notice of Termination During Rehearsal_

C. This contract may, during rehearsals, be terminated as follows:

(1) At any time during the first ten days rehearsal of the Chorus, by
either party, by giving written notice, if this contract be signed and
entered into within two months of the specific date mentioned in
paragraph 2 on the face hereof, except in case the Chorus be
re-engaged by the Manager for a Chorus in which he has previously
worked, in which event he shall be paid two weeks' compensation; or

(2) Any time after the first ten days rehearsals of the Chorus by the
Manager paying the Chorus immediately a sum equal to two weeks'
compensation; or

(3) If this contract be signed and entered into prior to two months of
the date mentioned in paragraph 2, by the Manager giving written
notice to the Chorus and paying two weeks' compensation.

(4) If the contract be signed and entered into within two months of
the specific date mentioned in paragraph 2 on the face hereof and the
play is not placed in rehearsal or is abandoned, the Manager shall pay
the Chorus a sum equal to one week's salary.

_Individual Termination After Opening_

D. Either party may terminate this contract at any time on or after
the date of the first public performance of the play by giving the
other party two weeks' written notice.

_Termination By Closing of Play and Season_

E. (1) If the play runs four weeks or less, the Manager may close the
play and company without notice, and terminate the right of the Chorus
to further compensation, provided he has paid the Chorus for all
services rendered to date, and in no event less than two weeks'
compensation.

(2) If the play shall run more than four weeks, the Manager shall give
one week's notice of the closing of the season of the play and
company, or pay one week's compensation in lieu thereof.

_Clothes_

F. All hats, costumes, wigs, shoes, tights and stockings shall be
furnished the Chorus by the Manager.

_Notices_

G. All communications which refer to the company in general shall be
posted upon the call-board. Notice to the Manager must be given to him
personally or to his company or Stage Manager.

_Number of Performances_

H. (1) Eight performances shall constitute a week's work.

(2) A week's compensation shall be paid even if a less number than
eight performances are given, except as herein otherwise provided in
Paragraph J.

(3) A sum equal to one-eighth of the weekly compensation shall be paid
for each performance over eight in each week. (This also applies to
understudies.)

(4) It is assumed that Sunday rehearsals and performances will take
place only where it is lawful, and the Chorus shall not be required to
perform in the play and part above named on Sunday in any theatre
except those where Sunday performances were customarily given on May
1st, 1924.

_Lost Performances_

I. The Chorus shall travel with the company by such routes as the
Manager may direct, and the Chorus shall not demand compensation for
any performance lost through unavoidable delay in travel which
prevents the giving of performances by the company.

J. It is further agreed if the company cannot perform because of fire,
accident, strikes, riot, act of God, the public enemy, or for any
other cause of the same general class which could not be reasonably
anticipated or prevented, or if the Chorus cannot perform on account
of illness or any other valid reason, then the Chorus shall not be
entitled to any salary (except as otherwise herein specified) for the
time during which said services shall not for such reason or reasons
be rendered. Should any of the foregoing conditions continue for a
period of ten days or more the Manager may terminate the contract by
paying in cash for all services and transportation of the Chorus back
to New York City, including sleeper.

_Lost Rehearsals_

K. If the Manager is prevented from giving rehearsals because of fire,
accident, riot, strikes, illness of star or prominent member of the
cast, act of God, public enemy or any other cause of the same general
class which could not reasonably be anticipated or prevented, then the
time so lost shall not be counted as part of the four weeks' rehearsal
period herein provided. After the fourth week of rehearsal, including
any lay-off period on the above account, the Manager will pay half
salaries for two weeks, at the end of which time the Chorus shall be
free, unless the Manager wishes to continue the services of the Chorus
and pays him full salary therefor.

_Transportation_

L. The Manager agrees to pay for transportation of the Chorus when
required to travel, including transportation from New York City to the
opening point and back to New York City from the closing point,
including sleepers. The Manager has the right to put two in a lower
berth and only one in an upper berth. The Manager also agrees to pay
the cost of transportation of the Chorus' personal baggage up to 200
pounds weight. Sleepers must be supplied for the Chorus for all travel
begun before five o'clock in the morning.

M. (1) If individual notice of termination is given by the Manager, he
agrees to pay the Chorus in cash the amount of the cost of
transportation and sleeper of the Chorus and his baggage back to New
York City, whether the Chorus returns immediately or not.

(2) If this contract is cancelled by the Chorus, he agrees to pay his
own railroad fare back to New York City.

(3) If the company is organized outside of New York City, the name of
such place is herein agreed to be substituted for New York City in
paragraphs L, M-1 and M-2 and elsewhere.

N. The Manager shall not be responsible for any loss occurring to the
personal baggage of the Chorus, whose duty it is, if he desires to
protect himself against loss, to insure the same.

O. Strikes, within the meaning of Paragraph J hereof, is construed to
mean any strike of any name or nature which shall prevent the Manager
from giving performances in the usual course of his business in any of
his theatre or theatres.


RULES GOVERNING CHORUS EQUITY MINIMUM CONTRACTS STANDARD FORM

(To be printed on Chorus Equity Minimum Contracts, Standard Form)

1. A list or lists of all members of the Chorus of the play, stating
the full names and salaries of each member, shall be filed by the
Manager with the Chorus Equity Association not later than the
termination of the first week of performance. If the Manager prefers,
triplicate copies of all Chorus contracts may be so filed instead.

2. Rehearsals begin on the day for which the individual Chorus is
called--whether he works or not--next following the second day of
tryout. If after the second day of tryout the Chorus is required or
permitted to work, he shall be deemed to have been called for a
rehearsal.

Tryouts may, if necessary, be on two separate days, one day for voice,
and one day for dancing and for general qualifications. If said two
days of tryout are not consecutive, the Chorus shall not be required
to report for any purpose on the intervening days between such
tryouts. If the Chorus is called for any day, or works on any day,
after the second tryout day, the probation period of ten days starts
on that day.

3. In case of company rehearsals being held before opening at a place
different from that of organization, the Manager shall pay the Chorus
his reasonable living expenses during said rehearsals, except that the
Manager shall be allowed two days of free rehearsal in cities within
one thousand miles of New York City and one additional day free for
each additional one thousand miles or fraction thereof.

4. If the Chorus shall absent himself from rehearsals for seven days
or more by reason of illness, the Manager may cancel this contract
without payment for service to date. The Association may, in its
discretion, upon appeal by the Manager, reduce this period.

5. Contracts between Manager and Chorus shall be deemed to be entered
into between the said parties no later than the date of the first
rehearsal, and written contracts must be given and signed before the
end of the ten-day probationary period for rehearsals. If such written
agreement is not offered to the Chorus, fully made out and ready for
signatures, on or before the tenth day of rehearsal, the Chorus, at
his option may terminate the employment, in which event the Manager
shall pay to the Chorus a sum equal to one week's minimum
compensation.

If such contract has not been so offered within said ten day period
(and if the Chorus has not then terminated the employment) and such
contract is not offered at the end of the twentieth day of rehearsal,
the Chorus, at his option, may terminate the employment, in which
event the Manager shall pay him a sum equal to two weeks' minimum
compensation.

6. If after joining a company, which has opened and is on tour, a
Chorus is dismissed at rehearsals within the ten day probationary
period (provided the ten day probationary period has not already been
deleted from his contract) the Manager shall pay to the Chorus his
transportation and sleeper both ways and for each day of rehearsal a
sum equal to one-seventh of the weekly salary agreed upon, said
rehearsals to be deemed continuous and to begin not later than the day
after the Chorus's arrival. In case the Chorus is dismissed after the
ten day probationary period the Manager shall pay the Chorus two
weeks' salary and his transportation and sleeper both ways.

7. If the full rehearsal period to which the Manager is entitled be
not used by him before the date of opening, he may employ the balance
thereof immediately before the New York opening, provided the said New
York opening takes place within six weeks of the original opening of
the play.

8. All performances for which admission is charged (except bona fide
benefits) are to be counted and considered as performances under the
Chorus Equity Minimum Contract.

9. If the employment under any contract relates to the second or
subsequent season of any play, then the period of free rehearsals is
three weeks instead of four, but this provision shall not obtain if 50
per cent or more of the cast were not members of the production the
preceding year.

10. If the play for which the Chorus is engaged is rehearsed seven
days or less and then rehearsals are discontinued or postponed, or if
the production is abandoned during rehearsals on or before the ten day
probationary period would have expired, the Manager shall pay the
Chorus as follows: If the contract has been signed or entered into
within two months of the date mentioned in Paragraph 2 of the Standard
Minimum Contract, a sum equal to one week's salary, otherwise a sum
equal to two weeks' salary.

11. In case the play is abandoned before rehearsals or the Chorus is
entitled to compensation under the preceding paragraph, payment shall
be made by the Manager to the Chorus not later than three weeks prior
to date of opening specified in Paragraph 2 of the main contract.

12. Ten days' rehearsals means ten consecutive calendar days, counting
Sunday (when Sunday is used for rehearsals) and said ten days
terminate with the dismissal of rehearsal on the tenth day, as herein
reckoned.

13. If the Chorus is not allowed or required to work out any notice of
dismissal properly given under his contract the amount to which he is
entitled shall be paid forthwith upon the giving of the notice.

14. The right of the Manager to close a play and company without a
week's notice within four weeks after the opening date does not apply
to the second or subsequent season thereof.

15. Notices of termination or closing given at or before the end of
the performance on Monday night, effective at the end of the Saturday
night following, shall be deemed one week's notice; and such notice
effective at the end of Saturday week following shall be deemed two
weeks' notice.

16. The essence of this contract is continuous employment and a play
once closed shall not be re-opened during the same season within eight
weeks of the date of previous closing, without the consent of the
Chorus Equity Association. Such consent, if given, shall be upon such
terms and conditions as may be considered just and equitable by such
Association.

17. Except in a case of notice given on Monday as otherwise provided
in these rules, a week's notice shall be seven calendar days and two
weeks' notice fourteen calendar days.

18. The Chorus shall be responsible for transporting his own baggage
to and from the station or theatre in New York City. The Manager will
pay the cost of or reimburse the Chorus for such transportation
anywhere on Manhattan Island.

19. Should the Citizens' Jury provided for in New York decide
adversely to the continuance of a production because salacious or
against public morals, the Chorus shall forthwith terminate his
employment without notice, payment or penalty.

20. Should the production in which the Chorus is engaged be complained
of as being in violation of any statute, ordinance or law of the
United States, any state or municipality in any state and should a
claim or charge be made against the Chorus on account of his being
engaged in such a production, either civil or criminal, the Manager
shall defend the Chorus at his own expense, or shall pay any and all
reasonable charges laid out or incurred by the Chorus in his defense,
and the Manager agrees to indemnify the Chorus against any loss or
damage which he may suffer on account of being engaged in any such
production.

This rule shall not apply to any case or any set of conditions where
its enforcement would be illegal or against public policy.

21. The Manager shall have the right to lay off his company the week
before Christmas and Holy Week without pay. Should such lay-off take
place the Manager shall not during said lay-off period be entitled to
the services of the company except for a run-through rehearsal on the
day of re-opening, and except further that additional rehearsals may
be allowed by the Chorus Equity Association in case of illness of the
star or prominent member of the company or change of cast.

[Illustration: EDDIE CANTOR]

22. If in any production, the star or featured member of the cast
shall be ill and a lay-off shall take place on that account, Chorus
receiving less than $100 weekly (but no others) shall be paid by the
Manager an amount equal to their board and lodging for the first week.
If said lay-off continues beyond one week half salaries shall be paid
to the entire company for each day the Chorus are retained up to and
including two further weeks. From and after the beginning of the
fourth week the Manager shall either pay full salaries to all members
of the company or may abandon the production.

23. In case after the opening of the play and after at least two
weeks' employment the Manager shall desire a lay-off for the purpose
of re-writing or making changes in the cast or any other reason deemed
sufficient by him, he may apply to the Chorus Equity Association for
the right to do so, which right shall be granted if the Actors' Equity
Association grants the same right, and shall be granted upon the terms
and conditions that are acceptable to the Actors' Equity Association.
But in any event if a change or changes in the cast is made the Chorus
dismissed and not employed upon the renewed run of the play shall be
paid at least one week's additional salary.

24. Musical comedies, revues or spectacular plays shall immediately
after a New York run be allowed one day's lay-off without pay before
the opening in either Boston or Chicago. This does not apply to
premiers, i.e., original openings in those cities.

25. Should the Chorus deem that he has any claim against the Manager
under his contract, he shall present the same to the Chorus Equity
Association or to the Manager or both within two months after the time
when such claim has arisen, unless he shall give to the Board of
Arbitration good and sufficient reason for any delay after such period
of two months.

26. Should either party give the other any notice under his contract
which terminates the same at any future date and should the Chorus
have or secure a new engagement he shall be permitted to attend the
rehearsals under the new engagement as may be necessary and as do not
conflict with his performance under his then existing contract.

27. The actual salary of the Chorus agreed upon shall be stated in the
contract and a lesser or fictitious salary shall not be stated in the
contract.

28. Unless special consent otherwise is given by the Manager,
understudies shall be present at each performance.

29. "Tryouts" during May, June and July are permissible where the
Manager agrees to pay and pays one week's salary for two weeks'
rehearsals and an additional half week's salary for each additional
week of rehearsal, one week's salary to be guaranteed. Payment for
part of a week's rehearsal shall be pro-rata.

30. Sunday performances, referred to in the "Regulations," under
Subdivision 4 of paragraph "H" are regular dramatic and musical
productions and do not include vaudeville, recitals, concerts and the
like.

31. Chorus Equity will raise no objection to the trying out of
vaudeville acts in revues or similar type of productions for one
performance, provided the act understands and is agreeable to this
arrangement and provided, further, that this entails on the company no
rehearsal.

* * * * *

FORM 2B

TO BE ISSUED ONLY TO C.E.A. MEMBERS IN GOOD STANDING

CHORUS EQUITY MINIMUM CONTRACT

Standard Form Issued by the

_Chorus Equity Association_

(Affiliated with the American Federation of Labor)

229 West 51st Street, New York City

LOS ANGELES OFFICE 6412 Hollywood Blvd.
SAN FRANCISCO OFFICE Theodore Hale, 369 Pine St.
CHICAGO OFFICE 1032 Capitol Bldg.
KANSAS CITY OFFICE Gayety Theatre Bldg.

_To be used by "Independent" New York Managers and others playing the
same class of attractions_


AGREEMENT made this ---- day of ----, 192-, between ---- (hereinafter
called "Manager") and ---- (hereinafter called "Chorus").

_Regulations and Rules Over Leaf_

Regulations covering rehearsals, notice of termination before and
during rehearsals, lost rehearsals, individual termination, closing of
play and season, clothes, number of performances, lost performances,
transportation, lay-off, method of giving notice and other matters are
set forth in the "Regulations" on the reverse side of this page and in
"Rules Governing Independent Chorus Equity Minimum Contract Standard
Form," on the pages following, and except as hereinafter provided are
a part hereof.

_Agreement of Employment_

1. The Manager engages the Chorus to render services in ----, (Here
insert present title of play.) and the Chorus hereby accepts such
engagement upon the terms herein set forth.

_Opening Date_

2. The date of the first public performance shall be the ---- day of
----, 19--, or not later than fourteen days thereafter.

Employment hereunder shall begin on the date of the beginning of
rehearsals and shall continue until terminated by notice given as
herein provided and not otherwise.

_Compensation_

3. The Manager agrees to pay the Chorus the sum of ---- Dollars ($----)
each week, in New York City, and ---- Dollars ($----) each week
outside of New York City, on Saturday thereof, from and after the date
named in paragraph "2" and until this agreement is duly terminated.
The minimum salary of this contract shall be the sum of Thirty ($30)
Dollars weekly in New York City; outside of New York City the minimum
salary shall be the sum of Thirty-five ($35) Dollars, unless the
production shall be designated by the Chorus Equity Association of
America, as a Number 2 attraction, in which case the road salary shall
be Thirty ($30) Dollars.

_Duties of the Chorus_

4. The Chorus agrees to be prompt at rehearsals, to pay strict regard
to makeup and dress, to perform his services in a competent and
painstaking manner, to abide by all reasonable rules and regulations
of the Manager, and, except as otherwise herein provided, to render
services exclusively to the Manager from the date of beginning of
rehearsals, and shall not render services to any other person, firm or
corporation without the consent of the Manager.

5. The Manager agrees that he has notice that the Chorus herein is a
member of the Chorus Equity Association and as such member is bound to
conform to its lawful rules and regulations, and that it is a lawful
rule and regulation of said Association that, as far as the Manager
herein is concerned, the Chorus is to work only in companies operated
by the Manager herein when all members of said chorus of said company
or companies are members of the Chorus Equity Association in good
standing and continue to be such during the entire term of employment
hereunder. And the Manager agrees that the Chorus shall not be
required to work hereunder in violation of said rule or other lawful
rule of said Association, and further agrees to the full extent to
which said agreement is lawful that all chorus members in the company
in which the Chorus herein is employed, shall be and shall continue
throughout the term hereof to be members in good standing of the
Chorus Equity Association.

Should the Manager employ any non-member of the Chorus Equity
Association, or any member not fully paid up or not in good standing,
or one who fails to continue himself in good standing, or should the
Manager breach any covenant herein made, the Chorus member may (The
Chorus Equity Association consenting) not only terminate this
agreement forthwith, but the Manager also agrees to pay the Chorus all
sums due to the date of termination, plus his return fare and plus, as
liquidated damages, no present basis for calculation existing, a sum
equal to two weeks' salary.

_Arbitration_

6. In event that any dispute shall arise between the parties as to any
matter or thing covered by this agreement, or as to the meaning of any
part thereof, then said dispute or claim shall be arbitrated. The
Manager shall choose one arbitrator, and the Chorus Equity Association
the second. ---- shall be the third. These three shall constitute the
Board and the decision of a majority of the arbitrators shall be the
decision of all and shall be binding upon both parties and shall be
final. The Board shall hear the parties and within seven (7) days
shall decide the dispute or claim. The Board shall determine by whom
and in what proportion the cost of arbitration shall be paid, and the
parties hereby constitute said Board their agents and agree that its
decision shall constitute an agreement between them, having the same
binding force as if agreed to by the parties themselves. Further, that
they and each of them will, if required, sign such individual
arbitration agreement as to make said arbitration comply with a legal
arbitration under the laws of the State of New York and the rules of
the Supreme Court thereof, and that judgment upon the award may be
entered in the Supreme Court of the State of New York. The oath of the
members of the Board of Arbitration shall not be necessary unless
specifically requested by one of the parties.

IN WITNESS WHEREOF we have signed this agreement on the day and year
first above written.

----
Manager.

----
Chorus.


REGULATIONS

(To be printed on Independent Chorus Equity Minimum Contract, Standard
Form)

_Rehearsals_

A. (1) The Chorus, if required, shall give four weeks' rehearsal
without pay; if further rehearsals are required then for each
additional week or part thereof the Manager shall pay the Chorus half
salary for the next two weeks and full salary thereafter. All payments
for rehearsals beyond the four weeks shall be made on or before the
Saturday of each week.

(2) It is agreed that rehearsals shall be continuous from the date of
the first rehearsal to the date of the first public performance of the
play, as stated in Paragraph 2 on the face hereof.

_Notice of Termination before Rehearsal_

B. This contract may, before the beginning of rehearsals, be
terminated as follows:

(1) If the contract be signed and entered into prior to two months
before the specific date mentioned in Paragraph 2 on the face hereof,
by the Manager's giving to the Chorus written notice and paying him
two weeks' salary.

If, however, previously to giving such written notice, the Manager
shall have given to the Chorus written notice that the play will not
be produced or that the Chorus will not be called for rehearsals, and
the Chorus thereafter secures a new engagement under which payments to
him are to begin not later than the date specified in paragraph 2 on
the face hereof, then and in that event, instead of two weeks' salary,
the only sum, if any, which the Manager need pay the Chorus, shall be
the amount, if any, by which said two weeks' salary exceeds two weeks'
salary to the Chorus under said new engagement.

_Notice of Termination During Rehearsal_

C. This contract may, during rehearsals, be terminated as follows:

(1) At any time during the first ten days rehearsal of the Chorus, by
either party, by giving written notice, if this contract be signed and
entered into within two months of the specific date mentioned in
paragraph 2 on the face hereof, except in case the Chorus be
re-engaged by the Manager for a Chorus in which he has previously
worked, in which event he shall be paid two weeks' compensation; or

(2) Any time after the first ten days rehearsals of the Chorus by the
Manager paying the Chorus immediately a sum equal to two weeks'
compensation; or

(3) If this contract be signed and entered into prior to two months of
the date mentioned in paragraph 2, by the Manager giving written
notice to the Chorus and paying two weeks' compensation.

(4) If the contract be signed and entered into within two months of
the specific date mentioned in paragraph 2 on the face hereof and the
play is not placed in rehearsal or is abandoned, the Manager shall pay
the Chorus a sum equal to one week's salary.

_Individual Termination After Opening_

D. Either party may terminate this contract at any time on or after
the date of the first public performance of the play by giving the
other party two weeks' written notice.

_Termination by Closing of Play and Season_

E. (1) If the play runs four weeks or less, the Manager may close the
play and company without notice, and terminate the right of the Chorus
to further compensation, provided he has paid the Chorus for all
services rendered to date, and in no event less than two weeks'
compensation.

(2) If the play shall run more than four weeks, the Manager shall give
one week's notice of the closing of the season of the play and
company, or pay one week's compensation in lieu thereof.

_Clothes_

F. All hats, costumes, wigs, shoes, tights and stockings shall be
furnished the Chorus by the Manager.

_Notices_

G. All communications which refer to the company in general shall be
posted upon the call-board. Notice to the Manager must be given to him
personally or to his company or Stage Manager.

_Number of Performances_

H. (1) Eight performances shall constitute a week's work.

(2) A week's compensation shall be paid even if a less number than
eight performances are given, except as herein otherwise provided in
Paragraph J.

(3) A sum equal to one-eighth of the weekly compensation shall be paid
for each performance over eight in each week. (This also applies to
understudies.)

(4) It is assumed that Sunday rehearsals and performances will take
place only where it is lawful, and the Chorus shall not be required to
perform in the play and part above named on Sunday in any theatre
except those where Sunday performances were customarily given on May
1st, 1924.

_Lost Performances_

I. The Chorus shall travel with the company by such routes as the
Manager may direct, and the Chorus shall not demand compensation for
any performance lost through unavoidable delay in travel which
prevents the giving of performances by the company.

J. (1) It is further agreed if the company cannot perform because of
fire, accident, strikes, riot, act of God, the public enemy, or for
any other cause of the same general class which could not be
reasonably anticipated or prevented, or if the Chorus cannot perform
on account of illness or any other valid reason, then the Chorus shall
not be entitled to any salary (except as otherwise herein specified)
for the time during which said services shall not for such reason or
reasons be rendered. Should any of the foregoing conditions continue
for a period of ten days or more the Manager may terminate the
contract by paying in cash for all services and transportation of the
Chorus back to New York City, including sleeper.

(2) Strikes, within the meaning of this Paragraph, is construed to
mean any strike of any name or nature which shall prevent the Manager
from giving performances in the usual course of his business in any of
his theatres.

_Lost Rehearsals_

K. If the Manager is prevented from giving rehearsals because of fire,
accident, riot, strikes, illness of star or prominent member of the
cast, act of God, public enemy or any other cause of the same general
class which could not reasonably be anticipated or prevented, then
the time so lost shall not be counted as part of the four weeks'
rehearsal period herein provided. After the fourth week of rehearsal,
including any lay-off period on the above account, the Manager will
pay half salaries for two weeks, at the end of which time the Chorus
shall be free, unless the Manager wishes to continue the services of
the Chorus and pays him full salary therefor.

_Transportation_

L. The Manager agrees to pay for transportation of the Chorus when
required to travel, including transportation from New York City to the
opening point and back to New York City from the closing point,
including sleepers. The Manager has the right to put two in a lower
berth and only one in an upper berth. The Manager also agrees to pay
the cost of transportation of the Chorus's personal baggage up to 200
pounds weight. Sleepers must be supplied for the Chorus for all travel
begun before five o'clock in the morning.

M. (1) If individual notice of termination is given by the Manager, he
agrees to pay the Chorus in cash the amount of the cost of
transportation and sleeper of the Chorus and his baggage back to New
York City, whether the Chorus returns immediately or not.

(2) If this contract is cancelled by the Chorus, he agrees to pay his
own railroad fare back to New York City.

(3) If the company is organized outside of New York City, the name of
such place is herein agreed to be substituted for New York City in
Paragraphs L, M-1 and M-2 and elsewhere.

N. The Manager shall not be responsible for any loss occurring to the
personal baggage of the Chorus, whose duty it is, if he desires to
protect himself against loss, to insure the same.

O. Strikes, within the meaning of Paragraph J hereof, is construed to
mean any strike of any name or nature which shall prevent the Manager
from giving performances in the usual course of his business in any of
his theatre or theatres.


RULES GOVERNING CHORUS EQUITY MINIMUM CONTRACTS STANDARD FORM

(To be printed on Independent Chorus Equity Minimum Contracts,
Standard Form)

1. A list or lists of all members of the Chorus of the play, stating
the full names and salaries of each member, shall be filed by the
Manager with the Chorus Equity Association not later than the
termination of the first week of performance. If the Manager prefers,
triplicate copies of all Chorus contracts may be so filed instead.

2. Rehearsals begin on the day for which the individual Chorus is
called--whether he works or not--next following the second day of
tryout. If after the second day of tryout the Chorus is required or
permitted to work, he shall be deemed to have been called for a
rehearsal.

Tryouts may, if necessary, be on two separate days, one day for voice,
and one day for dancing and for general qualifications. If said two
days of tryout are not consecutive, the Chorus shall not be required
to report for any purpose on the intervening days between such
tryouts. If the Chorus is called for any day, or works on any day,
after the second tryout day, the probation period of ten days starts
on that day.

3. In case of company rehearsals being held before opening at a place
different from that of organization, the Manager shall pay the Chorus
his reasonable living expenses during said rehearsals, except that the
Manager shall be allowed two days of free rehearsals in cities
within one thousand miles of New York City and one additional day free
for each additional one thousand miles or fraction thereof.

4. If the Chorus shall absent himself from rehearsals for seven days
or more by reason of illness, the Manager may cancel this contract
without payment for service to date. The Association may, in its
discretion, upon appeal by the Manager, reduce this period.

5. Contracts between Manager and Chorus shall be deemed to be entered
into between the said parties no later than the date of the first
rehearsal, and written contracts must be given and signed before the
end of the ten-day probationary period for rehearsals. If such written
agreement is not offered to the Chorus, fully made out and ready for
signatures, on or before the tenth day of rehearsal, the Chorus, at
his option, may terminate the employment, in which event the Manager
shall pay to the Chorus a sum equal to one week's minimum
compensation.

If such contract has not been so offered within said ten day period
(and if the Chorus has not then terminated the employment) and such
contract is not offered at the end of the twentieth day of rehearsal,
the Chorus, at his option, may terminate the employment, in which
event the Manager shall pay him a sum equal to two weeks' minimum
compensation.

6. If after joining a company, which has opened and is on tour, a
Chorus is dismissed at rehearsals within the ten day probationary
period (provided the ten day probationary period has not already been
deleted from his contract) the Manager shall pay to the Chorus his
transportation and sleeper both ways and for each day of rehearsal a
sum equal to one-seventh of the weekly salary agreed upon, said
rehearsals to be deemed continuous and to begin not later than the day
after the Chorus's arrival. In case the Chorus is dismissed after the
ten day probationary period the Manager shall pay the Chorus two
weeks' salary and his transportation and sleeper both ways.

7. If the full rehearsal period to which the Manager is entitled be
not used by him before the date of opening, he may employ the balance
thereof immediately before the New York opening, provided the said New
York opening takes place within six weeks of the original opening of
the play.

8. All performances for which admission is charged (except bona fide
benefits) are to be counted and considered as performances under the
Chorus Equity Minimum Contract.

9. If the employment under any contract relates to the second or
subsequent season of any play, then the period of free rehearsals is
three weeks instead of four, but this provision shall not obtain if 50
per cent or more of the cast were not members of the production the
preceding year.

10. If the play for which the Chorus is engaged is rehearsed seven
days or less and then rehearsals are discontinued or postponed, or if
the production is abandoned during rehearsals on or before the ten day
probationary period would have expired, the Manager shall pay the
Chorus as follows: If the contract has been signed or entered into
within two months of the date mentioned in Paragraph 2 of the Standard
Minimum Contract, a sum equal to one week's salary, otherwise a sum
equal to two weeks' salary.

11. In case the play is abandoned before rehearsals or the Chorus is
entitled to compensation under the preceding paragraph, payment shall
be made by the Manager to the Chorus not later than three weeks prior
to date of opening specified in Paragraph 2 of the main contract.

12. Ten days' rehearsals means ten consecutive calendar days, counting
Sunday (when Sunday is used for rehearsals) and said ten days
terminate with the dismissal of rehearsal on the tenth day, as herein
reckoned.

13. If the Chorus is not allowed or required to work out any notice of
dismissal properly given under his contract the amount to which he is
entitled shall be paid forthwith upon the giving of the notice.

14. The right of the Manager to close a play and company without a
week's notice within four weeks after the opening date does not apply
to the second or subsequent season thereof.

15. Notices of termination or closing given at or before the end of
the performance on Monday night, effective at the end of the Saturday
night following, shall be deemed one week's notice and such notice
effective at the end of Saturday week following shall be deemed two
weeks' notice.

16. The essence of this contract is continuous employment and a play
once closed shall not be opened during the same season within eight
weeks of the date of previous closing, without the consent of the
Chorus Equity Association. Such consent, if given, shall be upon such
terms and conditions as may be considered just and equitable by such
Association.

17. Except in a case of notice given on Monday as otherwise provided
in these rules, a week's notice shall be seven calendar days and two
weeks' notice fourteen calendar days.

18. The Chorus shall be responsible for transporting his own baggage
to and from the station or theatre in New York City. The Manager will
pay the cost of or reimburse the Chorus for such transportation
anywhere on Manhattan Island.

19. Should the Citizens' Jury provided for in New York decide
adversely to the continuance of a production because salacious or
against public morals, the Chorus shall forthwith terminate his
employment without notice, payment or penalty.

20. Should the production in which the Chorus is engaged be complained
of as being in violation of any statute, ordinance or law of the
United States, any state or any municipality in any state and should a
claim or charge be made against the Chorus on account of his being
engaged in such production, either civil or criminal, the Manager
shall defend the Chorus at his own expense, or shall pay any and all
reasonable charges laid out or incurred by the Chorus in his defense,
and the Manager agrees to indemnify the Chorus against any loss or
damage which he may suffer on account of being engaged in any such
production.

This rule shall not apply to any case or any set of conditions where
its enforcement would be illegal or against public policy.

21. The Manager shall have the right to lay off his company the week
before Christmas and Holy Week without pay. Should such lay-off take
place the Manager shall not during said lay-off period be entitled to
the services of the company except for a run-through rehearsal on the
day of re-opening, and except further that additional rehearsals may
be allowed by the Chorus Equity Association in case of illness of the
star or prominent member of the company or change of cast.

22. If in any production the star or featured member of the cast shall
be ill and a lay-off shall take place on that account, Chorus
receiving less than $100 weekly (but no others) shall be paid by the
Manager an amount equal to their board and lodging for the first week.
If said lay-off continues beyond one week half salaries shall be paid
to the entire company for each day the Chorus are retained up to
and including two further weeks. From and after the beginning of the
fourth week the Manager shall either pay full salaries to all members
of the company or may abandon the production.

[Illustration: NED WAYBURN STUDIOS OF STAGE DANCING]

23. In case after the opening of the play and after at least two
weeks' employment the Manager shall desire a lay-off for the purpose
of re-writing or making changes in the cast or any other reason deemed
sufficient by him, he may apply to the Chorus Equity Association for
the right to do so, which right shall be granted if the Actors' Equity
Association grants the same right, and shall be granted upon the terms
and conditions that are acceptable to the Actors' Equity Association.
But in any event if a change or changes in the cast is made the Chorus
dismissed and not employed upon the renewed run of the play shall be
paid at least one week's additional salary.

24. Musical comedies, revues or spectacular plays shall immediately
after a New York run be allowed one day's lay-off without pay before
the opening in either Boston or Chicago. This does not apply to
premieres, i.e., original openings in those cities.

25. Should the Chorus deem that he has any claim against the Manager
under his contract, he shall present the same to the Chorus Equity
Association or to the Manager or both within two months after the time
when such claim has arisen, unless he shall give to the Board of
Arbitration good and sufficient reason for any delay after such period
of two months.

26. Should either party give the other any notice under his contract
which terminates the same at any future date and should the Chorus
have or secure a new engagement he shall be permitted to attend the
rehearsals under the new engagement as may be necessary and as do not
conflict with his performance under his then existing contract.

27. The actual salary of the Chorus agreed upon shall be stated in the
contract and a lesser or fictitious salary shall not be stated in the
contract.

28. Unless special consent otherwise is given by the Manager,
understudies shall be present at each performance.

29. "Tryouts" during May, June and July are permissible where the
Manager agrees to pay and pays one week's salary for two weeks'
rehearsals and an additional half week's salary for each additional
week of rehearsal, one week's salary to be guaranteed. Payment for
part of a week's rehearsal shall be pro-rata.

30. Sunday performances, referred to in the "Regulations," under
Subdivision 4 of Paragraph "H" are regular dramatic and musical
productions and do not include vaudeville, recitals, concerts and the
like.

31. Chorus Equity will raise no objection to the trying out of
vaudeville acts in revues or similar type of productions for one
performance, provided the act understands and is agreeable to this
arrangement and provided, further, that this entails on the company no
rehearsal.

* * * * *

AGENT'S CONTRACT

(Usual form of contract required by artist's representative, business
manager or "agent" as he is called, who negotiates with managers for
the artist's services.)


THIS AGREEMENT made this ---- day of ----, 19--, between ----,
hereinafter called the Manager, and ----, hereinafter called the
Artist.

WITNESSETH: In consideration of the covenants and conditions
hereinafter contained, the parties hereto have agreed and do hereby
agree as follows:

1st--The Artist engages the Manager as ---- exclusive Business Manager
and agrees to remain under his personal charge and supervision for a
term of ---- years from the date hereof, and in all matters and things
connected with the theatrical engagements and motion pictures, or in
any wise affecting the rendition of the Artist's services therein, to
be governed and controlled exclusively by the Manager's judgment and
discretion.

2nd--The Manager accepts the engagement as ---- Manager of the Artist
as above mentioned and agrees to manage, take sole charge of,
supervise and control the development and exploitation of the Artist
as an ---- in theatrical productions and motion pictures, and to use
his best efforts to promote the Artist's interests and enhance the
value of ---- services. The Manager further agrees to give due
publicity to the fact that the Artist is under his personal direction
and to render such other services as are customarily performed by the
Business Manager of actors or actresses engaged in theatrical
productions or in the production of motion pictures.

3rd--The Manager is authorized, on behalf of the Artist and in the
Artist's name, to negotiate for and enter into a contract or contracts
with theatrical managers and motion picture producers for the services
of the Artist at a minimum salary of ---- Dollars per week, or for
such other compensation as may be mutually agreed upon between the
parties. The Artist agreeing to conduct all negotiations through the
Manager and to advise him of all calls and offers of employment during
the terms of this agreement.

4th--The Manager will receive ten per cent (10%) of all salaries,
compensation, earnings or share of profits or receipts accruing to the
Artist during the term hereof, or through any contract for the
Artist's services made during the term of this agreement, said sum to
be payable to the Manager periodically as the compensation of the
Artist shall become due and payable, and the Artist does hereby
assign, transfer and set over unto the Manager ten per cent (10%) of
all compensation for services received during the period of this
agreement, and the Artist hereby authorizes and empowers any person,
firm or corporation for whom the Artist shall render services as
aforesaid, to withhold and pay over to the Manager ten per cent (10%)
of all compensation payable to the Artist from time to time as such
compensation shall become due.

5th--All advertisements, announcements or publicity relating to the
Artist paid for or payable by the Artist shall contain a statement or
notice to the effect that the Artist is under exclusive management or
direction of said manager.

IN WITNESS WHEREOF, the parties hereto have hereunto set their hands
and seals the day and year first above mentioned.

---- (L.S.)
---- (L.S.)

In presence of: ----

[Illustration: NW]

* * * * *

AGENT'S AGREEMENT


AGREEMENT made this the ---- day of ----, 19--, between ---- New York
City, hereinafter called the Manager, and ----, hereinafter called the
"Act."

WHEREAS the Manager is engaged in the business of managing, producing
and exploiting theatrical, motion picture and vaudeville enterprises
and specialties, and

WHEREAS, the said Manager is acquainted with the producers of
theatrical and motion picture enterprises and with persons desirous of
obtaining the employment of theatrical and vaudeville specialties,
similar to the one owned by the Act, and

WHEREAS, the said Manager has a wide experience and knowledge of the
method of staging and producing specialties and theatrical and motion
picture enterprises, and also of the duties of a Manager, and

WHEREAS the said Act is engaged in rendering and producing a certain
specialty in various cities and is constantly traveling and requires
the services of a person to attend to the making of contracts and the
proper advertising, correspondence, transportation, music, billing,
program and press matters of the said Act;

NOW therefore, in consideration of the premises and the sum of One
Dollar by each of the parties to the other in hand paid and in
consideration of the mutual covenants herein expressed, it is agreed
as follows:

FIRST: The Act hereby employs and engages the Manager to render his
services as personal representative and business manager for the Act
for a period of ---- or, ---- from the date hereof, and the Manager
hereby accepts said employment, upon the following terms and
conditions.

SECOND: The Manager agrees to attend to all correspondence of the Act
and to maintain an office at his own expense, which the Act may use,
and to arrange and to attend to the details in connection with the
transportation, advertising, billing, program and press matters and to
attend to the delivery of the same at such theatres as the Act may be
engaged to play, and to make and execute in the name of the Act as its
personal representative and Manager any and all contracts in
connection with the said Act. Also to advertise and exploit and to
procure and advertise reports of the said Act and to otherwise
popularize the same in such manner and such times as the Manager deems
best.

THIRD: The Act agrees to pay the said Manager for his services as such
a weekly salary of $---- during each week that the Act may perform at
a salary of $---- per week, and less or more than such compensation in
proportion to the salary earned by the Act, and to pay the Manager
such sums as he may disburse for other things necessary in managing
said Act.

FOURTH: The Act in order to secure the Manager the aforesaid salary
hereby assigns the amount of such weekly compensation to the said
Manager and hereby authorizes said Manager to draw and execute such
assignment in the name of the Act and hereby authorizes the managers
of the theatres to deduct said compensation and pay the same to the
Manager from the money due the Act.

FIFTH: The Act further agrees that the Manager shall be the sole and
exclusive Manager and representative of the Act during the said period
and that he shall not be required to devote all his time to or with
said Act.

SIXTH: The Manager further agrees at his own expense and when
necessary to employ employment agent or agencies in order to procure
the best employment for the Act and it is agreed that the Manager is
not to receive any compensation for procuring employment through said
agents or agencies or otherwise.

SEVENTH: It is further agreed that no oral agreement not included
herein is binding on the parties hereto:

In witness whereof the parties hereunto have set their hands and seals
this ---- day of ----, 19--.

It is understood that
if the Artist shall
play vaudeville the (Signed) ---- (L.S.)
commission to us
shall only be five
(5%) per cent. (Signed) ---- (L.S.)

In the presence of ----

* * * * *

MANAGERIAL CONTRACT


THIS AGREEMENT made this ---- day of ----, 192-, between NED WAYBURN
OFFICE, Inc., hereinafter called the Manager, and ----, hereinafter
called the Artist.

WITNESSETH: In consideration of the covenants and conditions
hereinafter contained, the parties hereto have agreed and do hereby
agree as follows:

1st--The Artist engages the Manager as ---- exclusive Business Manager
and agrees to remain under his personal charge and supervision for a
term of ---- years from the date hereof, and in all matters and things
connected with the theatrical engagements and motion pictures, or in
any wise affecting the rendition of the Artist's services therein, to
be governed and controlled exclusively by the Manager's judgment and
discretion.

2nd--The Manager accepts the engagement as Manager of the Artist as
above mentioned and agrees to manage, take sole charge of, supervise
and control the development and exploitation of the Artist as a ---- in
theatrical productions and in motion pictures, and to use his best
efforts to promote the Artist's interests and enhance the value of
---- services. The Manager further agrees to give due publicity to the
fact that the Artist is under his personal direction and to render
such other services as are customarily performed by the Business
Manager of actors or actresses engaged in theatrical productions or in
the production of motion pictures.

3rd--The Manager is exclusively authorized, on behalf of the Artist
and in the Artist's name to negotiate for and enter into a contract or
contracts with theatrical managers and motion picture producers for
the services of the Artist for such period or periods of time as in
his judgment the Manager shall deem wise, at a minimum salary of ----
Dollars per week, or for such other compensation as may be mutually
agreed upon between the parties hereto, the Artist agreeing to conduct
all negotiations exclusively through the Manager and to advise him of
all calls and offers of employment during the term of this agreement.

4th--The Manager will receive ten percent (10%) of all salaries,
compensation, earnings or share of profits or receipts accruing to the
Artist during the term hereof, or through any contract for the
Artist's services made during the term of this agreement, or for any
renewal of any contract which the manager negotiates during the period
of this agreement, said sum to be payable to the Manager periodically
as the compensation of the Artist shall become due and payable, and
the Artist does hereby assign, transfer and set over unto the Manager
ten percent (10%) of all compensation for services received during the
period of this agreement, and the Artist hereby authorizes and
empowers any person, firm or corporation for whom the Artist shall
render services as aforesaid, to withhold and pay over to the Manager
(10%) ten percent of all compensation payable to the Artist from time
to time as such compensation shall become due.

5th--All advertisements, announcements or publicity relating to the
Artist paid for or payable by the Artist shall contain a statement or
notice to the effect that the Artist is under exclusive management or
direction of NED WAYBURN OFFICE, INC.

IN WITNESS WHEREOF, the parties hereto have hereunto set their hands
and seals the day and year first above mentioned.

In presence of

NED WAYBURN OFFICE, Inc.,
By ---- [L.S.]
President.

---- [L.S.]


[Illustration: CURTAIN]

J. THOMAS CO., PRINTERS, CHICAGO




DAILY SCHEDULE FOR ADULT GIRLS


(From Monday to Friday, Inclusive)

At Ned Wayburn Studios of Stage Dancing, New York

1841 Broadway (at Columbus Circle) Entrance on 60th Street

New Classes Start Monday of the First Week of Every Month


A.M. MORNING

9:30 to 10:30 Advanced Class in Acrobatic Dancing.

10:00 to 11:00 Advanced Class in Musical Comedy Dancing.

10:30 to 11:30 Beginners' Class in Limbering and Stretching.

11:30 to 12:30 Beginners' Class in Musical Comedy Dancing.

11:30 to 12:30 Advanced Class in "Tap" and "Step" Dancing.

12:00 to 1:00 Professional Ballet Class.


P.M. AFTERNOON

12:30 to 1:30 Beginners' Class in "Tap" and "Step" Dancing.

1:00 to 2:00 Intermediate Ballet Class.

1:30 to 2:30 Semi-professional Class in Musical Comedy Dancing.

2:00 to 3:00 Beginners' Ballet Class.

2:30 to 3:30 Professional Class in Musical Comedy Dancing.

3:00 to 4:00 Special Conditioning Class--(Reducing, Increasing Weight).

3:30 to 4:30 Professional Class in "Tap" and "Step" Dancing.

3:30 to 4:30 "Special Dance" Ballet Class.


EVENING

5:30 to 6:30 Professional Class in "Tap" and "Step" Dancing.

6:30 to 7:30 Advanced Class in "Tap" and "Step" Dancing.

7:00 to 8:00 Advanced Class in Acrobatic Dancing.

7:30 to 8:30 Beginners' Class in "Tap" and "Step" Dancing.

8:00 to 9:00 Beginners' Class in Limbering and Stretching.

8:00 to 9:00 Beginners' Ballet Class.

8:30 to 9:30 Beginners' Class in Musical Comedy Dancing.

Special classes in "How to Make Up"--"The Ned Wayburn Way"--at 2:30
p.m. on specified Saturdays.

Private lessons in all types of dancing or facial makeup at any time
the Studios are open, only by appointment made in advance.




SATURDAY CLASSES FOR CHILDREN


At Ned Wayburn Studios of Stage Dancing, Inc.

1841 Broadway (at Columbus Circle) Entrance on 60th Street


MORNINGS

Junior Class--

(Ages 4, 5, 6 and 7 years)--1 hour only

10 to 11 A.M.--Body Building and Dancing Games.

Intermediate Beginners' Class--

(Ages 8, 9, 10 and 11 years)--2 hours instruction.

10 to 11 A.M. {Technique, Limbering and Stretching
{Ballet Work, Deportment, Etc.

11 to 12 A.M. {Ballet Dances (Toe, Classical, Etc.)
{Musical Comedy Dances

Senior Beginners' Class--

(Ages 12, 13, 14 and 15 year)--2 hours instruction

11 to 12 Noon {Technique, Limbering and Stretching
{Ballet Work, Deportment, Etc.

12 to 1 P.M. {Ballet Dances (Toe, Classical, Etc.)
{Musical Comedy Dances


AFTERNOONS

Intermediate Advanced Class--

(Ages 8, 9, 10 and 11 years)--2 hours instruction

1 to 2 P.M. {Ballet Technique
{Acrobatic Technique

2 to 3 P.M. {Ballet Dances (Toe, Classical, Etc.)
{Tap and Step Dances

Senior Advanced Class--

(Ages 12, 13, 14 and 15 years)--2 hours instruction

1 to 2 P.M. {Acrobatic Technique
{Ballet Technique

2 to 3 P.M. {Tap and Step Dances
{Ballet Dances (Toe, Classical, Etc.)









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