THE POLLARDS. A BIRTHDAY RECORD.

Evening Post, Volume LIX, Issue 127, 30 May 1900, Page 2

THE POLLARDS. A BIRTHDAY RECORD.

With the coming month of June the Pollard Opera Company, familiar to playgoers from one end of the coiony to the other, attains its ninth birthday. The event is a notable one in the theatrical amjals of the colony, because it shows what energy and enterprise can do in a young country, which few outsiders would suspect as capable of permanently supporting an expensive theatricai company. ' The existence of the Pojlards to-day, as popular with tho public as ever they were, proves that it can be done. A genial spirit with a turn that way has, with Mr. Tom Pollard's leave, gone to the trouble of taking out a few quantities, concerning the company's connection with Wellington. The company was organised in Melbourne in June, 1891, and made its first appearance in Wellington on 4th September of that year, opening in Audran's well-known work La Mascotte. Since that date tho company has played seventeen distinct seasons here, aggregating the somewhat phenomenal number of 270 separate performances, not including fifteen matinees and fi\& Sunday concerts. As the company has frequently been rehearsing a Week before ! opening, we find that in the nine yearf its members have lived exactly one year in Wellington. The company has produced 36 pieces, and as it may interest some to know the degrees of popularity of the operas, the number of times each piece has been produced in Wellington is given below : — Paul Jones, 18; La Mascotte, 17 ; Djin-Djin, 14 ; Boccaccio, IS ; The Belie of New York, 13 ; The FortyThieves (original), 12 ; The Geisha, 12 ; The Gondoxiers, 12 ; Olivette, 11 ; The Gay Parisienne, 11 ; Tambour Major, 10 ; The French Maid, 10 ; Uncle Tom's Cabin, 10 ; Aladdin, 10 ; Falka, 8 ; La Poupee, 8 ; In Town, 8 ; The Pirates, 7 ; Mikado, 7 ; Rip Van Winkle, 6 ; Forty Thieves (second version), 6 ; Les Cloches, 5 ; Black Cloaks, 4 ; A Gaiety Girl, 4 ; Saucy Susie, 4 ; Erminie, 4 ; Fatinitza, 4 ; Pinafore, 4 ; The Little ' Duke, 3 ; Madame Favart, 3 ; Nell Gwynne, 3 ; Girofle-Girofla, 2 ; Madame Angot, 2 ; Prince Bulbo, 2 ; Trebizonde, I 2; Patience, 2 ; Adamless Eden, 1. j AU this represents cash, and a glimpse j afc Mr. Pollard's books exhibits some as I tonishing figures. The following, for inI stance, represents what Mr. Pollard has I paid to business people in Wellington I during tho nine years under .review: — I Opera House Company, rent, £2313 6s ! 8d ; hotelkecpers expenses, board, I £2575 ; local people, including orchestra, I stage hands, door-tenders and supers £197 C 1 10s ; wholesale chemists, limelight, £310 ; i canvas, paints, timber, £886 12s 6d ; cartage in and out, £776 15s ; advertising, £845 10s; local printing, £972; j gas and electric light, £780 12s ; ironmongery, including nails, screws, etc., £210 11s 6d ; piano and organ hire, £125 10s ; posting and distributing buls, £455 ss ; drapers, material for dresses, £563 16s 6d; hire of furniture, £230; as the fares average £9 jlus for each performance, this item totals up to £2574. There aro, besides, numerous small accounts for sundries, which total some hundreds. When to the above is added the salaries of the company, which have grown from £180 per week in 1891 to £380 last Christmas, and as the majority of this money is spent in the city, it will bo recognised that Mr." Pollard is in a material sense a benefactor to the community. The public, however, will ' have its players as we-11 as its priests, its politicians, and other perquisites, and if Mr. Tom PoHard can brighten lives with his merry corfipany, ' no one will grudge him the success he deserves. May his nine years of prosperity grow into nine times nine.