THE CITY'S LIFE - 1127 of Wagnerian opera, and La Scala Orchestra under Toscanini. There had to be guarantors for the orchestra concerts, and in 1915 some of these friends of music united in a Musical Arts Association for the purpose of furthering the cause. The late David Z. Norton was president until 1920, when John L. Severance became president at Mr. Norton's request. In 1918 this association decided to make a musical survey of the schools. They engaged for this purpose a young man named Nikolai Sokoloff, Russian by birth, but trained in America, educated at Yale, pupil of Charles Martin Loeffler, American composer. While he was engaged in the survey an occasion developed when an orchestra seemed to be needed. Sokoloff and Mrs. Hughes brought together some fifty-seven local musicians, began rehearsals, and behold, there was the nucleus of the Cleveland Orchestra. But while Mrs. Hughes is sowing the seed for the Cleveland Orchestra and fertilizing the soil for its growth, this narrative must step back a moment and survey another line. What became of all that German interest in music which flowered into the Saengerfests and seems now to be so little heard from? It was still in existence as a separate entity in the early years of this century. There is a statue of Conrad Mizer in Edgewater Park, erected by people grateful for out-door music. It was Mizer who went from office to office and from store to store down town, begging donations to establish a fund for music in the parks. He thought people needed to be gay, and to have the chance to hear good music in the outer air. In the Johnson administration the city took over this work, providing funds itself for bands and orchestras. Johann Beck, born in Cleveland but educated in Germany, remained full of the idea that large numbers of people then staying at home would go to hear music if it were made cheap enough. Beck, Arch Klumph, Conrad Mizer, Emil Ring and a few more people got together and established the Popular Symphony Concerts, usually referred to as the "Pops." They had about fifty players in what they called the 1128 - THIS CLEVELAND OF OURS Cleveland Symphony Orchestra, and gave a good many concerts in the Grays' Armory on Sunday afternoons with very low admission fees. Ring directed one week and Beck the next. Ring's work was fair enough, but this was not his best line. Beck's conducting had a little touch of greatness about it. Some very good music was heard on those Sunday afternoons, most of it merely light and pleasant stuff, but always one or two numbers of more solid value. This attempt died out after two or three years. A new committee was later formed. It consisted of a committee from the Musicians' Union, together with Arch Klumph, Frank Meade, Victor Sincere and Adella Prentiss Hughes. The concerts were resumed with Christian Timner as conductor. Wilson G. Smith interested Newton D. Baker, then mayor, in the project, and in the words of a member of that old committee, "Mr. Baker with one gesture took over the Orchestra and Mr. Timner for his last two seasons, possibly three, and called the organization The Cleveland Municipal Orchestra. These concerts were finally given up because they were not good enough in quality to get the backing of contributions to support them. This is a common end to such ventures. The German musical element gradually merged into the city as a whole. There are still German singing societies, I) ut except for them, no discernible separate German music. The present generation is an undistinguishable part of this, its native city. There is another point. The send-mental, easy-going, singing German did a great service in convincing the Puritan mind that the pursuit of music was not only harmless but wholesome. As an amateur, he was entirely admirable. But people of English stock seem to need to have their recreations as well as their workaday affairs put on a professional basis; and to accomplish that, the English organizing faculties are required. There was a good deal of talk at that time about how unmusical Cleveland was. The fact was that Cleveland was like other cities. It could support a few good concerts a year, and no more. The visiting orchestras had their deficits made up by the guarantors who were brought together by the inde- THE CITY'S LIFE - 1131 fatigable Mrs. Hughes. Occasionally some soloist of spectac-ular drawing power would fill the old armory to the bursting point—such as Paderewski or Schumann-Heink. Fired by the sight, some ambitious soul would undertake to bring another soloist too soon and of insufficient popular appeal. A scattered audience and a deficit frequently resulted, with more talk of unmusical Cleveland. Mrs. Hughes has succeeded where others have failed be-cause she soon learned how much music Cleveland could rea-sonably digest, and never tried to feed it more than that. Moreover, she has been efficient about every detail of every big piece of work. She has gone directly after everything she wanted. Whether she got it or not, she moved straight on to the next step with no lost motion. In the fifteen years since the Cleveland Orchestra was organized in 1918, many thing's have happened to Cleveland, The Fortnightly Musical Club has changed its character somewhat. It was always what its name implies, but it came to have, soon after its inception, much of a social character. This has gradually dropped off. It is closer now to those who make music. It admits men as well as women to its membership. Its president is Mrs. Albert Riemenschneider, under whose leadership the musical interest is deepening. The other present officers are : Mrs. Edward S. Bassett and Mrs. Arthur Bradley, honorary vice presidents; Mrs. Charles Edward Mayhew, first vice president; Mrs. Edna Dunham Willard, second vice president ; Mrs. Pearl Kepple Miller, re-cording secretary ; Mrs. A. C. Buell, treasurer ; Mrs. Arthur W. Born, executive secretary. Nikolai Sokoloff concludes in 1933 his fifteenth year as conductor of the Cleveland Orchestra. He has done a very big piece of work in building' it into a successful organization. He leaves at the end of the 1932-33 season to take up other duties. The programs of the Cleveland Orchestra during its fifteen years have been well balanced and inclusive. Composers of the classic, romantic and realistic schools have been repre-sented. The best solo artists have sung, played or danced with the orchestra. 1132 - THIS CLEVELAND OF OURS The growth of the orchestra, which now numbers nearly a hundred members, has brought to the city many excellent performers on the various instruments. These men, several of them teaching at the Institute, others at the Settlement and still others instructing the Saturday classes in the public schools, are helping to raise the standard of musicianship in their several lines. There has been a great development in children's work by the orchestra, also initiated by Mrs. Hughes. There are music appreciation classes in the schools, followed once a year by a music memory contest in which adult teams as well as children's teams from the various schools of the city and its suburbs, together with adult and children's teams from schools all over Northern Ohio, vie for the honors. There are many children's concerts at extremely low fees. All this goes to build up musical feeling in the coming generation, as the Museum of Art endeavors to develop feeling for what is good in art. It is part of Cleveland's civic-mindedness. The Museum presents music as one of the fine arts, giving concerts in historical sequence, or recitals of works of special composers. Arthur Quimby is its present Curator of Music. Cleveland composers whose works have been performed at Museum and Symphony concerts are Arthur Shepherd, who writes for full orchestra, string quartet, solo instruments and voices ; James H. Rogers, whose songs are sung the world over; Beryl Rubinstein, Charles V. Rychlik, Charles G. Sommer, Charles de Harrack, Parker Bailey, Carl Buchman, Carlton Cooley, Beatrice Vokoun, Homer Hatch, Johann Beck, Wilson G. Smith, Patty Stair, Fanny Snow Knowlton. Arthur Shepherd as composer is moving into one of the first ranks. Shepherd is now full professor of Music and chief of the Graduate School Music Department of the university, which has made great strides in the last two or three years in developing a school of music. It recently awarded a music fellowship. His "Horizons," a symphonic suite attempting to give musical expressions to thoughts stirred by western scenery, seems to this writer a composition to be THE CITY'S LIFE - 1133 measured by such writing as Dvorak's "New World Symphony," or Smetana's "River Moldau," and not found wanting. In one recent year the orchestra played forty regular symphony concerts and seventeen children's concerts. It is taking up the old Sunday Popular Concert idea, playing twilight concerts at six o'clock on Sunday evenings for popular prices, and with the cooperation of the city it has given two seasons of summer concerts in the parks, the interest in these heightened by the playing of music of various nationalities. The most remarkable development, however, was the building of Severance Hall. This was the gift of John L. Severance, a living memorial to his wife, and was dedicated in February, 1931. An organ was given to the hall by Miriam Norton White, Robert and Laurence Norton, in memory of their parents, Mr. and Mrs. David Z. Norton. Mr. and Mrs. Dudley S. Blossom have been among the largest donors to the endowment of the hall. There has also been raised an endowment for the orchestra, not yet of sufficient size to provide for it entirely, but enough to help a great deal. There is an. active Musical Arts Association standing behind the orchestra, and a Women's Committee of the Cleveland Orchestra. This committee has charge of the music memory work. The officers of the Musical Arts Association for the year 1932 are : John L. Severance, president; D. S. Blossom, executive vice president; W. G. Mather, Newton D. Baker and F. H. Ginn, vice presidents; Adella Prentiss Hughes, secretary ; A. A. Brewster, treasurer; C. J. Vosburgh, assistant treasurer. Mr. Vosburgh is also associate manager and hall manager. He is in charge of the orchestra while on tour. The 1932 officers of the Women's Committee of the Cleveland Orchestra are : Mrs. H. P. McIntosh, Jr., president; Mrs. R. Livingston Ireland, Jr., and Mrs. Howard F. Burns, vice presidents; Mrs. Wingate Todd, secretary; Mrs. Cyrus E. Eaton, treasurer; Mrs. Thomas J. Bryson, executive secretary. Severance Hall has been constructed as part of the University Group, its exterior in Georgian style harmonizing with 1134 - THIS CLEVELAND OF OURS the classic Museum of Art, its auditorium employing the most modern methods of providing satisfactory acoustics together with comfort for the listener. The soft blue and silver of the auditorium, its quiet, serenely sweeping lines, produce in the mind a peace in which it is easy to give attention. Rightly built seats and adequate ventilation give similar repose to the body. Between the exterior, severe of line, and the interior, severe in color, is an oval foyer with red jasper pillars and exquisite tracery of bronze in doors and balcony railing.. This is rich but low-toned in color and design, warm, glowing, satisfying. Delicate gowns and flowing draperies here find themselves quite at home. Joy in wearing them is ministered to by the motor drive flowing through the basement of the building, so far the only one of its kind. The lovely dress may step out of the motor and into an elevator or up a pleasant stairway with no exposure to the elements. There are other extraordinary features of this hall, built for the music of the future as well as the present. The mod-ern device of suspended ceiling. obviates the necessity of pil-lars breaking the auditorium. The clavilux or "light organ" with its roomful of neon transformers, which plays light and color on the stage when needed, is a marvelous affair, worked out by a Cleveland man, Dean Hawley Holden, in connection with the Westinghouse Electric Company, and the architects, Walker and Weeks. Its console is as complicated as that of the most modern sound organ and looks very much like it. The whole orchestral development of the past thirty years, finding fruition in the established orchestra, the beautiful hall, the long list of influential people active in its support, is due to the labors of this one woman, Adella Prentiss Hughes. Hers is an invaluable contribution to the growth of Cleveland. Where once there was a dearth of halls, now there are a great number. The Masonic Auditorium, at 3515 Euclid Avenue, was welcomed by the orchestra as a great improve-ment over the armory. It seats 2,200 and is comfortable for auditors, but the requirements of ceremonial observances by THE CITY'S LIFE - 1135 the Masons often necessitate taking out the entire stage background, making it impossible to heat the stage, and rehearsals had to be conducted ofttimes with overcoats. The orchestra was glad to have its own hall, with comfortable lounge and dressing rooms for its members, but some concerts by other artists and societies are still given in Masonic Auditorium when the Masonic orders, who use it increasingly, can spare it for an evening. The Municipal Auditorium seats 8,000 and has a fine organ. Here are held such events needing great space as the week of Metropolitan Grand Opera given annually for many years under the auspices of the Northern Ohio Opera Association, managed effectively by Howard Miskell and Rodney Sutton. This week of Grand Opera which fills the hall with auditors from all over northern Ohio is one of the gorgeous social and musical high lights of the Cleveland year, and the Cleveland Municipal Auditorium holds the record for the greatest number of people ever assembled under one roof for a performance of Grand Opera. Within the beautiful building of the Municipal Auditorium, besides the great room usually referred to as Public Hall, are three smaller auditoriums, Public Music Hall seating 2,000, the Little Theatre and the Ball Room, both of smaller capacity. Severance Hall seats 1,844, and the Chamber Music Auditorium on the floor below it about 400. Besides being the home of the orchestra, Severance Hall serves university needs, such as that of commencement, and other civic purposes. The Museum of Art has a music hall seating 500 and a picturesque garden court in the balcony of which is placed the McMyler Memorial Organ. Kathryn Pickard manages a few concerts given in Cleveland annually, and James Devoe of Detroit sends a series of soloists. The music of today shows certain interesting tendencies. The long school day with its many institutional and extracurricular activities, makes it difficult for a child to do any- 1136 - THIS CLEVELAND OF OURS thing outside it. The number of music students going to private teachers is therefore lessened. On the other hand, this long school day admits class instruction in music. The work in chorus and orchestra in the high schools is far beyond that of twenty years ago. There has been a great flowering in the public school music of Cleveland under Russell V. Morgan, supervisor, and Griffith J. Jones. There is a strong cooperation between The Cleveland Orchestra and the Public School Music Department, which bears fruit in ways mentioned earlier in the chapter, such as the Music Memory Contest which has been given for fourteen years, the instrumental class teaching and the appearance of voices with the orchestra when it is desired to give such music as Pierne's Children's Crusade, presented last year. Cleveland has become a laboratory for the development of public school music, watched very closely by other schools and cities. Some of the schools teach harmony and composition among the academic classes. Almost all of them allow some credit for applied music. Many of the schools also have bands. These contribute more, perhaps, to the glory of athletic contests than to the cause of pure music, and should be charged rather to recreation than to art. There can be no thorough individual teaching in these groups, but the theory is that the class work stimulates interest, and the students who develop real liking will go on into individual instruction, for which there can be no substitute in the study of music as an art. The coming of radio brings music into every home without the necessity of making it. This, too, lessens the desire to go through the hard work necessary for the making of music. Where this will lead is a question which must be left to the future. But it seems evident that the world in general is entering a period of shorter hours of labor with increased leisure. Mankind, given leisure and energy, turns instinctively to the arts. It seems reasonable that these children who have learned to play, however slightly, on some instrument in a school orchestra, will like, when grown and with time to spare, THE CITY'S LIFE - 1139 to join some group for the further pursuit of that remembered pleasure. The appreciation of music without the work of making it, carried too far, results in sterility. It is through the making that the desire for composition is developed. The appreciation is spreading, and is in itself a pleasant use of leisure. It will perhaps lead after a time in the direction of the fruitful forms of amateur performance and composition. There will always be great composers and performers whose work infinitely outranks that of the amateur, but the man who works a little at some activity is the one who appreciates to the full the man who achieves much. It is of that day when balance will be obtained between listening and creating that every musician dreams. DRAMA At some first things in Cleveland's history the student must guess, but the play-acting is recorded. In 1820 the first theatrical troupe came to town, under the leadership of an actor named Blanchard. It gave performances in the ball room of the Cleveland House, on the site later occupied by the Forest City House and now by the Hotel Cleveland. Afterward many performances were given in that ball room, and later in the old brick courthouse on the Square. Shakespeare was first given there in 1831. The first theatre building was at the corner of Union Lane and Superior Street hill, built by Samuel and William Cook. The theatre was on the second floor, a room about 50 by 70 feet in size and said to be poorly equipped for its purpose. Italian Hall came within the next few years, on Water (now West Ninth) Street. This was a brick building, three stories high, with the theatre on the top floor. The first theatre license was issued by the City of Cleveland in 1836, to Messieurs Dean and McKinney, to be in force for one year, the payment to be seventy-five dollars. Mechanics' Hall was fitted out as a theatre in 1839, says Kennedy, but the enterprise was unsuccessful. It is not to be supposed that all these halls housed and 1140 - THIS CLEVELAND OF OURS continued to house uninterrupted successions of dramatic performances. Quite the contrary. Meeting places are needed by little cities for many purposes. It seemed a good plan to put, on the top floor of a new building, a hall which could be rented for meeting's and dances as well as plays. A few weeks in the year there would be theatrical entertainment. The first playhouse really designed for the purpose was the Water Street Theatre, built by John S. Potter in 1848. Kennedy says it was "a magnificent structure for the times. It had a front of sixty feet, a spacious pit, two tiers of boxes and four private boxes, and seated over a thousand people." It was burned two years later. Watson's Hall on Superior Street was erected in 1840. Silas Brainerd bought it in 1845 and called it Melodeon Hall. It kept this name fifteen years, but from 1860 on it was called Brainerd's Hall, later Brainerd's Opera House, and finally the Globe Theatre. It was torn down in 1880. The Academy of Music was built by Charles Foster in 1852 on Bank (now West Sixth) Street. Foster could not make it go financially, and soon leased it to John A. Ellsler, Jr., with whom the real dramatic history of Cleveland begins. The building had an eventful history. It was destroyed by fire twice and rebuilt, its uses going lower in the dramatic and social scale as time went on. P. T. Barnum was one of the theatre optimists of the period before the war. He started a theatre in the Kelley Block, on Superior Street, which before long fell into the hands of A. Montpelier, who ran a variety house in it. Montpelier, feeling hopeful, took over the management of the new Theatre Comique built in 1848 by G. Overacher, and it prospered as a legitimate theatre until the Academy of Music began cutting into its revenues five years later. There was not room for two such homes of drama, so Montpelier turned his house back to variety, and there it stayed until it passed out a long time afterward. John A. Ellsler, Jr., formed a stock company in 1875 and built the Euclid Avenue Opera House on the corner of THE CITY'S LIFE - 1141 Euclid and Sheriff (East Fourth) Street in the face of serious criticism because it was "so far uptown." He organized a company, led by Clara Morris, which is said to have accomplished more than any other factor in breaking down the Puritan prejudice against "play-acting." This company trained many of the great actors of a later day. Ellsler's dramatic management outshone his financial ability, and the house was sold at sheriff's sale to Mark Hanna three years later. Hanna had no idea of buying the theatre, but happened to come by as the sale was in progress, made a bid and was surprised to find a few minutes later that he owned an opera house. He got a cousin, L. G. Hanna, to run it for him. When it burned in 1892 it was rebuilt on a more elaborate scale. Shortly after this Augustus F. Hartz was burned out of the Park Theatre on Public Square which he had been managing, and Hanna called him into the management of the Euclid Avenue Opera House. Under his direction it prospered and brought to Cleveland most of the famous actors of its time. It was the high-class theatre of its day, serving such a purpose as the Hanna and Ohio theatres of the present period. The Park was later rebuilt as the Lyceum, serving legitimate drama well in its day; Sarah Bernhardt played "Tosca" there. Madame Rhea played regularly, and others well known, for Cleveland soon arriced at the ability to support two good theatres. The old Cleveland Theatre was built in 1885, and was long the home of melodrama. The Star appeared in 1887, and became famous as a burlesque house. The People's Theatre, once a skating rink, was opened as a theatre in 1885, but turned into a business block two years later. The Colonial Theatre only recently disappeared from Cleveland. Many good things came to it. Kennedy, writing in 1896, says : "Of the minor places of amusement, Case Hall, now turned into offices, was the most famous, and all the great musicians of the past thirty years appeared here. Also there are the Y. M. C. A. Hall, Music Hall, and various smaller halls used for concerts and the like." 1142 - THIS CLEVELAND OF OURS All these are now gone, their space occupied by public buildings or business blocks. The Engineers' Hall on St. Clair Avenue is now a favorite for lectures. The music halls are mentioned in their own chapter. One of the rather amazing things is the number of theatre fires. In a page and a half of Kennedy's History six are mentioned in which theatres were wholly or in large part destroyed. Out of these disasters came the present laws which safeguard heating plants, exits and clear aisles. Today's theatregoer, in his fireproof building with its safe heating system, and its auditorium constructed so that it can be emptied in a very few minutes, is in a far happier situation. One of the high lights of the 'nineties was Haltnorth's Garden at the corner of Woodland Avenue and Willson (East Fifty-fifth) Street. It was an old-fashioned German garden where beer and soft drinks were sold at little tables between acts of the light operas given on its stage. Pinafore, Bohemian Girl, Fra Diavolo and their sisters and their cousins and their aunts appeared on that stage to the great joy of Cleveland. Later the Euclid Garden Theatre tried the same sort of thing on Euclid Avenue between East Fortieth and East Forty-sixth streets, but was never very successful. The overhead was greater, and Cleveland was no longer young enough to enjoy such simple pleasures. It was already moving in the direction of that attack of sophistication from which it is only now beginning to recover. The name of Max Faetkenheuer runs through many musical adventures. He came to Cleveland first from Berlin to direct the orchestra of the Lyceum Theatre when it was first opened. From there he went to be the guiding spirit of the Murray-Lane Opera Company at Haltnorth's Gardens, with the orchestra of the Empire Theatre, opened in 1901 on Huron Road, for a winter job. It was he who tried the Euclid Garden experiment, putting on among the others his own very bright little opera along Gilbert and Sullivan lines called "The Merry Khan." He emerged from this with undimmed ambition, inspired to try the theatrical game on a larger scale. THE CITY'S LIFE - 1143 Faetkenheuer managed to finance the building of the Hippodrome. The building itself, with plenty of office space, runs through from Euclid to Prospect. The theatre seats 4,500 and was planned to give Cleveland an adequate place for large spectacles and for grand opera. Cleveland was unfortunately unable to maintain so large a theatre on this level. Grand opera, light opera and spectacles were given in it many times in the next seven years, but the investors lost heavily, Faetkenheuer among them, and a receiver finally leased it to Keith's. Vaudeville and moving pictures keep it going, as they do the Stillman, Allen, State, Keith's Palace and others. Faetkenheuer is now promoting his own company with Fritz Leiber in Shakespearean roles. With the turn of the century Cleveland entered a different theatre period. Business began to move uptown and the city's growth was great. There are today in the East Fourteenth Street district two big and beautiful theatres for legitimate drama, several large ones which offer vaudeville in addition to the cinema, and still others, large and small, which are devoted solely to the drama of the silver screen. The other theatres in other districts are many, pleasant and well managed. In these respects Cleveland's dramatic history is like that of other American cities, with no special differentiating features, but in another respect Cleveland has achieved great distinction. A Little Theatre movement has been growing up in the country for some twenty years. Here a small group, there another, has been moved to give plays. Such a little group was inspired to organize in Cleveland in 1915 by the enthusiasm of Raymond O'Neil. Its members had been itching to act and had been talking about it for some time. O'Neil had been in the heat of this discussion the year before, and in a summer's European tour had visited many of the smaller theatres of Paris, Berlin and Moscow. He had talked with Gordon Craig. Before the year was over, a dramatic society called the Play House had taken form. Its first president 1144 - THIS CLEVELAND OF OURS was Charles S. Brooks, its first art director Raymond O'Neil. The other members of that year were Ernest Angell, treasurer ; Hildegarde Angell, secretary ; Arthur D. Brooks, Judge William C. Keough, Myrta L. Jones, Minerva Kline, Jessica W. McMurray, Ida and Grace Treat, Katharine S. Angell, Ernest and Helen Haiman Joseph, Mr. and Mrs. Walter L. Flory. Within another year there had been added Mrs. H. P. McIntosh, John Newberry, George Kennerdell, Carl Broemel, William and Ruth Feather, Richard Laukhuff, Ben Levine, George Clisbee and Leonard Smith. There they were, all ready to act and no place to act in. Miss Myrta L. Jones interested Francis E. Drury. He had purchased the Ammon estate, across the street from his house, with the idea of creating there what later became the rather famous Drury gardens. First the actors used the attic of the house. Then they moved out to the disused barn. In two years they had outgrown the barn, with a membership of 125 actors, artists and musicians. There were also marionettes, in the field of which Helen Haiman Joseph was already beginning to distinguish herself. On Cedar Avenue at East Seventy-third Street there was a little old brick church, built by Schweinfurth in the solid Schweinfurth manner for a Lutheran congregation which no longer needed it. This was bought. How? When did actors have a cent? Seldom if ever. But bankers and business men came to the rescue. Joseph R. Nutt, Walter Flory and Ernest Joseph, backed by members, got a bank loan, Mr. Drury added a gift, and the thing was done. For ten years the Play House gave dramas of all kinds in its little brick house. It was an amateur organization pure and simple, with the disadvantages of organization which that implies, but it gave first class drama, and more and more it found its little old hard pews filled with Clevelanders who liked this kind of fare better than the more spectacularly produced but often thinner matter offered them down town. The time finally came to change the tactics. A professional director was brought in, Frederic McConnell, who had THE CITY'S LIFE - 1145 been assistant director of the. Greek Theatre at Berkeley, California. McConnell brought K. Elmo Lowe to do professional acting on a professional basis, and Max Eisenstadt who is artist, technician and general sultan of back stage. The amateur actors remained, but a professional order was brought out of the amateur lack of keen organization. The Play House continued to flourish ; and thanks to gifts from interested benefactors, it was able to move into a building, of its own in 1927. The building itself is somewhat remarkable. It stands a little south of Euclid on East Eighty-sixth Street—which, when it was first put through, was called most appropriately "Drury Lane." Designed by Philip Small of Small and Rowley, the structure has met with interest and no little charm the problems incident to theatres, one of them being that of the necessary height back stage for shifting scenery. Its interior is delightful, and contains two theatres. The larger is called, for its constant benefactor, the "Drury Theatre," and the smaller the "Brooks Theatre," for the man to whose unwearying force the Play House owes its present high place, Charles S. Brooks. Drury gave the land on which the fine building stands, and Brooks, who had been the first president, and who was at that time holding the same office, headed the drive for funds which made it possible to build. Himself a play-writer of no mean ability, Brooks radiated through the trying years of difficult and irregular growth a kindly strength, a mental power clear and quiet in the midst of confusion, without which the Play House could never have reached its present status. The present situation in which the Play House finds itself is different from that of any other dramatic development in the country. Its building is owned and managed by a holding company. It has a large professional staff, headed by Frederic McConnell, with K. Elmo Lowe as associate director. Among its actors may be mentioned Katharine Wick Kelley, Norma Harrison Thrower and Noel Leslie. The original Play House members are still sometimes called in for pro- 1146 - THIS CLEVELAND OF OURS ductions which need them, but the whole thing has moved rather onto the professional basis. The Play House maintains an apprentice school to which dramatic students may apply, and if accepted, they give their time and learn what they can without fees paid or received. Students are coming to this school from other cities and states. The organization says for itself : "The Play House is an independent producing theatre, non-commercial, operated not for profit. It maintains a permanent acting company and a production and direction staff which for the most part has been trained and developed within the reaches of the theatre itself. "The theatre plays to an annual audience of more than one hundred thousand people. It aims toward intelligent standards in the drama and the technic of theatre production. In the Drury Theatre is presented the main repertory program. In the Brooks Theatre is conducted a program of untried newness and novelty deserving trial. Its audiences find here plays which they would not otherwise have opporspecialization and experiment in the classics and the play of tunity to see. "The Play House is self-supporting, and the basis of this support is its annual subscription audience. The pledges of the subscribers given in advance of the opening of the new season provide the Play House with its guarantee of existence." What happened to the amateurs, growing larger in numbers and keener in interest, when the Play House went on its present basis? They started other amateur acting groups, of course. The city is full of them. There are the Shaker Players, who produce delightful things in a purely amateur manner, doing everything themselves. Some of their plays are written by themselves, one of their playwrights being Mrs. W. B. Neff. In her home there is a ball room on whose stage are often given tiny plays for this group, and also for and by the Cleveland Writers' Club. The usual stage of the Shaker Players is that of one of the modern schools of Shaker Heights. THE CITY'S LIFE - 1147 There are the Bay Village Players, who have recently acquired a building of their own, something in the manner of the original Play House group. There are the Chagrin Falls Players, and the Library Players, drawing from the staff of the Cleveland Public Library. Helen Whitslar Alburn, long a member of the Play House, still often called in to take parts in plays in which she made a reputation, says that the University groups of players are among the best in the city. She adds that it is impossible to list all the acting groups, because the city is now full of little organizations starting out somewhat as the Play House did —with a circle of interested young folk sitting around on the floor reading plays. There are the Try-Out Players, and the Thimble Theatre and a host besides. Charles Brooks, who withdrew from the Play House when it became more professional than amateur, has built a small theatre on his own property where plays are given by friends. His own are often tried out there, and those of local acquaintances. There are several of these backyard theatres about town, and some surprisingly fine work goes on in some of them, as well as much fine fun. The various national groups have dramatic societies doing colorful and interesting work. No narrative, however slim and sketchy, about Cleveland's little theatres, would be complete without the story of the Gilpin Players of the Kharamu Theatre on Central Avenue. Their development came about in a curious way. The Play House Settlement has no connection with the Play House, and it was not started with any idea of Play in the sense of Drama. It was a little house on Central Avenue where colored children were invited to come to have good times. They soon grew from the usual indoor children's games into art metal work, sculpture and other arts and handicrafts under the leadership of Russell Jelliffe. A few grown-ups with an acting urge dropped in and asked if they might have little plays in the evening. They were welcomed. 1148 - THIS CLEVELAND OF OURS The dramas were small and casual, and the occasions more social than dramatic. John Gilpin, famous Negro actor, came to view them and was charmed. He gave them much good advice, one point standing out beyond others—that their field was that of Negro drama, and their success lay in sticking to it. They then proceeded with a stiffer organization and higher standards, calling themselves the Gilpin Players. There are now four groups of players of different ages in the organization. Their dramatic production is as fine in its way as that of the Play House in its different manner. It would be impossible to name the playwrights in the city without naming the authors, because every writer at some time or other tries his hand on a play, and "This Cleveland of Ours" cannot go into the complicated field of Cleveland Literature. That calls for a volume in itself. But among those whose dramas are regularly published, read and produced may be named Mr. Brooks, Clarence Stratton, who not only writes small plays but whose book "Producing in Little Theatres" is well known to those who play in them, and Walter Bissell, head of the English department of Central High School, who writes, sells and produces plays and pageants for the use of schools and assemblages of young people. Some of these are delightfully well done. Mr. Bissell has his own printing plant and is his own printer, publisher and sales manager in vacation hours, besides producing. plays in the natural course of his work in the school. Much good dramatic criticism appears in Cleveland news-papers and in its weekly magazines. The most thorough and scholarly is done by William MacDermott. George Davis is keen and concise. Archie Bell has a large following among those who enjoy his anecdotal manner. Filling a different need from that of the organizations which have been mentioned, but still in the amateur class, are the dramatic productions of the Hermit Club and the City Club of Cleveland. The Hermit Club's annual shows are in the nature of musical revues and have always been marked by their cleverness. THE CITY'S LIFE - 1149 There is nothing in modern life which comes closer to the comedies of Aristophanes than the annual show of the City Club. For several years Carl Friebolin has written most of its crackling lines. It does for Cleveland what the productions of the Gridiron Club do for Washington, and its quality is at least as high.