The Art of Stage Dancing Part 4

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 G.o.ds 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 ent.i.tled 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.

[Ill.u.s.tration: NW]

[Ill.u.s.tration: 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 a.s.sociated 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.

[Ill.u.s.tration: 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 inst.i.tution 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 a.s.surance 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 a.s.sistant. 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 gla.s.s boy at that time with him, and the well-known star, Taylor Holmes, was one of his ushers! Eventually he became a.s.sistant 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 apt.i.tude 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 a.s.serted 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 cla.s.sics 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 Sat.u.r.day 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 cla.s.s company. After months of patient canva.s.sing 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 canva.s.sed 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.

[Ill.u.s.tration: 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 a.s.sembled 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 G.o.ddess of Liberty," "Honeymoon Trail," "The Girl at the Helm," "The Heart Breakers," etc.