Word: roading
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Dates: during 1940-1949
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...exhilarating and heady experience for Dave Beck, a man who is fond of recalling that he had come up a hard and rocky road. He was born in Stockton, Calif, in 1894. His father, a Tennessee-born carpet cleaner named Lemuel Beck, brought his family to Seattle four years later, seeking a handhold on the better life. Lemuel Beck never found it. As his growing son soon discovered, he was the "world's worst businessman...
...first play, "The Road to Rome," was neither a commercial nor an artistic success because the proper ingredients for either were not there. It was a mildly amusing but banal play, containing a certain topical message which could not, however, justify its inclusion in any repertory. The Copley players' second play, which closes tonight, is Shaw's "Heartbreak House," a much wiser and likelier choice, which they do in fine style...
Both "The Road to Rome" and "Heartbreak House" were given excellent, professional productions and "George and Margaret" will doubtlessly get the same. But even though it was a success in London, "George and Margaret" failed when it was seen here in 1937, as often happens with imported hits. Mr. Linenthal describes it as a "pleasant and amusing" play. That much could also be said for "Claudia" and "I Remember Mama," two immense successes--but they do not belong in repertory. There is an uncomfortable suspicion that "George and Margaret" may not either...
With their profits, plus $30,000 from a haberdasher friend, they went to New York-and ran up against potent Klaw & Erlanger, whose syndicate then controlled all New York bookings, plus everything of importance on the road. Though the Shuberts did their best to make friends with the press, some New York papers, dependent on K. & E. ads, panned the brothers and their shows. Libeling a Shubert, scoffed one paper, "would be as cruel as unnecessary...
Money in the Sticks. The Messrs. Shubert also went on building or buying control of theaters across the U.S. To fill them, they shrewdly concentrated on operettas, suitable for road shows. They did not depend on the high-priced Broadway casts, but on low-salaried, second-rate singers. The Shuberts often had as many as 20 operettas (The Student Prince, Blossom Time, Maytime, etc.) touring the U.S. In one season they cleared $850,000 on The Student Prince alone...