A Panoramic Old Town

After their breakout success in the 1903 Broadway production of The Wizard of Oz, David Montgomery and Fred Stone starred in a string of successful shows. The 1906 hit The Red Mill was devised for their talents, and this was followed by The Old Town in 1910. The Old Town played for 166 performances on Broadway, a very successful run in those days, then toured through the next year.

This photograph of the traveling cast of The Old Town is a fun relic of those days of large productions on the road. At 3' long by 10" tall it’s suffered damage over the years, but I’ve done some digital cleanup to help with viewing an unusual record of an early touring Broadway show.

The production was in town for a week, from November 6th to the 12th, 1911. A poster for the show can be seen at the right of the entrance to the theater, and looking along in that direction we see Dave Montgomery and further down the row, Fred Stone. This tour stop was an event, as it was the first time Montgomery & Stone had performed in Denver since achieving stardom. Allene Crater was a native of Denver and married Fred Stone in 1903 while playing the role of Cynthia Cynch in The Wizard of Oz. She was also in the original cast of The Old Town, but she was not performing in the show at this time. Allene and her sister Edith had acquired some notoriety in Denver, Allene through her marriage to Stone, and Edith through a rumored breach of promise suit against the well known playboy Wilson Mizner. Edith later married the author Rex Beach.

The name of the show is not visible in the photo, but the heads of the two actors can be seen on the large poster, wearing the Scottish headgear seen in the signed photo.

The poster at the other side of the entrance, difficult to see in this photo, appears to be adapted from a publicity picture of the pair in street clothes. To the left of this can be seen a poster for the next week’s attraction, Baby Mine, which had a successful year-long run in New York.

 Fred Stone spent the Friday afternoon of his week in town showing films of a polar bear hunt he participated in during the previous year, on a trip to the Arctic (see here for more details). He and Montgomery both donated toward a Christmas dinner for the local tubercular colony, leaving the town with a feeling of good will toward the pair of famous comedians.

The photo was taken by the Mile High Photo Company in Denver, Colorado in 1911. Mile High appears to have specialized in panoramic photographs, and touring shows took advantage of this to preserve images of the entire troupe in front of the theater where their show was playing. In this case it’s the Broadway Theatre, part of the Hotel Metropole in Denver, built in 1891 and demolished in 1984. I found a few later examples of similar panoramas on the internet, all taken in front of the same theater.

Montgomery & Stone only released three recordings before David Montgomery died in 1917. The Old Town has the distinction of being the source for two of these records: Travel, Travel Little Star and Moriah - A Scotch Medley, both recorded in 1911.

And One More…

Last week I featured two 1903 Oz costume designs that I found in a group of drawings by designer Caroline Siedle. They were clearly identifiable as pieces from that show, but there was another drawing that caused me to ponder possibilities. It’s unfortunate that Siedle’s costume designs do not tend to be clearly marked in terms of what show or character they were intended. Often it’s left to recognition of a costume, or a few small clues written on the drawing to help figure things out. I believe designs for specific shows were originally kept together in folders, but everything has been dispersed over the past century, requiring some detective work for identification. 

This particular piece has suffered some damage over the years, not an uncommon occurrence; these were working drawings that passed through a number of hands while a show was being created. The design caught my eye primarily because of the character’s hairstyle. At first glance it appears to be a hearty peasant woman, but there was something very reminiscent of a couple designs I have from Babes in Toyland, the show that followed the Wizard of Oz at the Majestic Theater in 1903. Specifically, it seemed very much like the hair of the lead character Alan.

Thinking about it, I began to wonder if this might be a design for Alan in Act 1. At the start of Babes in Toyland, Alan and his sister Jane are sent off on a sea voyage by their wicked uncle Barnaby, who has arranged for the ship to sink. They survive, and return home in disguise. Could this be Alan when he is disguised as the fortune teller Floretta?

 I’ve not been able to find any photos of that character, but some details made it seem possible - the tattered white blouse/shirt that could be the remains of Alan’s sailor outfit from the start of the show (the photo at right is from the NYPL Digital Gallery); also the general autumnal color scheme of warm red and green with touches of yellow fit in with other Act 1 designs. Another point was the word Chip written on the drawing; in later tours of the show, Alan was played by an actor named Sam Chip, known as Little Chip. Could this be another lost Toyland design?

So far this was all supposition with no backing. But the other designs I have from that show all have the original actors name written in the upper left hand corner on the reverse of the drawings. If this one were to be labeled with the name William Norris, I would be confident that I’d found the design for Floretta.

Once the drawing arrived and I could examine the back, my guess was proven - in the upper left corner “Mr. William Norris” was written, together with “Act 1”. So, now we know what Floretta’s costume looked like in Babes in Toyland!

 

Siedle Strikes Again!

As a collector, I find it's the unexpected discoveries that tend to be the most memorable. Last month I stumbled across a listing in an upcoming auction that caught my eye. It was a group of 11 costume designs by Caroline Siedle, the designer of many Broadway shows at the turn of the last century. The auction was scheduled for the next day, so I quickly registered for a chance to bid on this set of drawings, hoping to add it to my collection. At a glance there was an interesting variety of pieces, and designs by Siedle don't turn up very often; so I was happy to see them.

Caroline Siedle died unexpectedly in 1907, but from about 1895 until that time she was in great demand as a designer for the many shows being produced on Broadway. She was known for her skill in harmonizing the colors of costumes to blend with the scheme of the overall set design, creating a fully developed stage picture. She was also the first female costume designer to be regularly credited in theater programs for her work. Two standouts among the dozens of productions she worked on were The Wizard of Oz and Babes in Toyland, both produced in 1903. 

I didn't spot anything in the group from these two prize shows, but my collecting interest was certainly piqued. Then later that day I took a closer look through the listing and was caught by this design. It slowly dawned on me that this costume was created for Cynthia Cynch, the Lady Lunatic in The Wizard of Oz! This is her Act 1 costume, and the drawing shows her during one of her Ophelia-like moments, mourning the disappearance of her lover:

"Yes; mad through with blighted love. Now will I to the vegetable garden where I last saw him.

(Taking objects from basket on arm.)

Here are young spring onions - they're for insomnia; here's celery for remembrance,

- and here are March strawberries - for -- a dollar a box!

"Oh, he never more will come,

And I wonder where he's went.

Hey nonney, hey nonney hey!"

(Exit a la Ophelia, L.I.)

The photo on the left shows Allene Crater wearing the finished costume. It's not surprising that the auction house failed to call out the significance of this piece - how many people have ever heard of Cynthia Cynch? The character doesn't appear in any version of The Wizard of Oz other than the 1903 musical. Of course this fired my determination to acquire the group of drawings, and I was quite happy when I won the lot with minimal competition.

(I should mention the presence of the stamp from the Metropolitan Opera, which simply throws confusion on the piece. Siedle's husband Edward was the highly regarded prop-master and technical director at the Met, and I believe that after her early death (or even before) many of her drawings were archived there. It's not uncommon to see the stamp on her work, even when it was clearly not designed for the opera house.)

After the auction was over I studied the group of images again, because now this one was nagging at the back of my mind. There was a caption at the bottom of the drawing, that I couldn't quite decipher in the auction house photo - until it suddenly clicked and I read "Lady Lunatic Act 2". Here was a second act design for the same character, making it two Oz drawings in the group of 11!

 I had been able to recognize the Act 1 drawing from familiarity with several photos of the character in costume; but the only second act photo I've seen of Cynthia shows a significantly different outfit (worn on the left by Helen Byron). However, the design is clearly labeled and the repeating pattern of hearts together with the green & white color scheme certainly is appropriate for the character in the Emerald City. 

When I eventually received the drawings and could look at the back of each piece, this was clinched even further. The upper left corner of the first act design is labeled "Byron", meaning Helen Byron who originated the role on Broadway. On the back of the second act drawing was printed "Miss Crater"; Allene Crater took over the role of Cynthia in 1903, and played the character for several years, during which time she married Fred Stone, the original Scarecrow. 

She was with the company when it returned to Broadway in 1904 as the "Edition de Luxe" version of the show. This production included a number of new songs, and - some redesigned costumes. I believe this may be one of the new designs. For more info, check out David Maxine's Vintage Broadway blog where he discusses another redesigned costume.

The backs also have handwritten notes concerning fabric choices, and details about the construction of the costumes; always a fascinating insight into the process of putting a show together. The Act 1 costume describes a necklace of red peppers for the character, and floats the idea of using fresh peppers. On the Act 2 design, attention is called to the “gloves to wrist with long turned up tips to fingers”. It’s fun to ponder whether these particular suggestions were carried out!

These are the first drawings I've run across in the wild of a main character from the show. The Shubert Archive in New York City holds the majority of designs that survive from the production, including the third act costume design for Cynthia. So, here's a reunion of the three drawings!