ABANDONED ACTORS

Dominion, Volume 19, Issue 155, 27 March 1926, Page 21

ABANDONED ACTORS

LAW TO SAFEGUARD PLAYERS ON TOUR. A beneficent, if belated, law hits been put upon the Statute Book at Home. It will prevent, under heavy penalties, including imprisonment, a continuance of the practice of abandoning theatrical artists on tour, without friends or money, in strange and distant towns. The new Act, called “The Theatrical Employers’ Registration Act.” came into operation on January 1, 1926. Its main provisions are that all theatrical, evip'overs must be registered, and registration is a proceeding that involves the full light of publicity. Not more than six weeks or less than twentjyme days, before registering as a theatrical employer. every theatrical employer must insert in a London newspaper devoted to the interests of the stage profession, in two different issues, n notice in the prescribed form that he intends , to register, with the date thereof, and registration must be effected within the area in which he resides. .The registration authority, which in London means the County Council and in the provinces the council of the city or borough, shall issue a certificate of registration in a form prescribed. Particulars of'such registration shall be forwarded to the Home Office, where they shall be open to inspection by the public. The offences included in the Act are abandonment of performers, carrying on the business of theatrical employers without being registered, supplying .false particulars, and applying for registration after the suspension or cancellation of a previous registration. This is, observes the “Daily Mail, the Magna Charta of the aspirants to the stage and humb’er members of the theatrical profession.