Stock Companies

They Rove the Whole U. S., Manhattan Excepted To the average New Yorker (if there is one) the theatre is apt to mean a playhouse within walking distance, at least, of Broadway, and the theatrical season a period that begins in the Fall with the appearance of an A. H. Woods bedroom-farce and ends shortly after straw-hat-day with a wave of musical comedies. Of course the a. N. Y. has heard about stock companies--but, if he reads theatrical reviews, he doubtless connects them with the grand old days.

Such an interesting and successful organization as the Cleveland Play-house of Cleveland, Ohio, for instance, is outside his ken. And yet this admirable group of amateurs and semi-professionals has recently concluded a repertory-season including such plays as Candida, Six Characters in Search of an Author, Hindle Wakes, Hamlet, presented with skill and intelligence and receiving the unforced support of its audience entirely upon the merits of its productions. The newly organized Theatre Guild of Philadelphia has already scored a distinct success with two Clare Kummer plays, featuring Lola Fisher as a " visiting star." The Bainbridge Players of Minneapolis, also employing the " visiting star" system with such actresses as Mrs. Leslie Carter and Florence Reed, has shown that it is possible for a stock-company to produce good plays and make money in the Northwest--a region vaguely thought of by the a. N. .Y. as entirely surrounded by flour and Mounted Police.

As for summer stock, you have only to glance at the professional theatrical journals to discover that it is nationwide. Troy, N. Y., Lewiston, Me., Newark, Binghamton, Cumberland, Md., Trenton, are only a few of the localities where stock companies are playing at present. The Root Bros, organization is about to tour the Dakotas under canvas. Brown Bros, dramatic stock is tenting the fields of Illinois. Miss Jessie Bonstelle, having just begun a stock season at the Harlem Opera House with The Second Mrs. Tanqueray, is now in Detroit, at the opening of her summer stock company there.

Some day, perhaps, every city of any importance in the country will have its own group of repertory-players. And there is a need for just that sort of thing. Not all the alarums and excursions of a possible American National Theatre with any sort of an all-star cast, situate exclusively in New York, could possibly take its place.