QUEER REHEARSALS.

Evening Star, Issue 11666, 28 September 1901, Page 8

QUEER REHEARSALS.

A theatrical rehearsal was recently held in a railway station waiting room. The company concerned being somewhat " shaky" in their respective roles, the manager resolved to avxil himself of a long wait at a certain junction to put the performers through their paces, and the <jueer spectacle was watched from without by dozens of amused spectators Who were also waiting.for their train. At the conclusion of the rehearsal the "audience" applauded vociferously, much delighted with tho unusual exhibition. During the recent heat wave in New York the rehearsals of a play to bo produced in the autumn were conducted on the roof of a Bowery theatre, some 250 ft above the street level. However, the affair caused so great a crowd to assemble in the thoroughfare below that the police put an end to the open-air repetitions after the first week. America is certainly the land par excellence of unique rehearsals, for some two or three years ago, when tie heat throughout the United States was quite abnormal, a rehearsal actually took place in a swimming bath, which had been specially arranged for the purpose. At no point did the water rise above the performers' waists, and, of course, both ladies and gentlemen wore elaborate bathing costumes. Only in this manner could tho heat-oppressed players contrive to undergo the fatigue of a rehearsal, and it said much for the ingenuity of the manager that he hit upon this remarkable expedient, which proved, it may be added, a complete success.

_ The write' himself once rehearsed his part in a "curtm-raiser* whilst travelling with the three other members of the cast in a Pullman car. So smooth was the "going," to use a sporting expression, that the rehearsal passed off as satisfactorily as postdate, though the train was travelling at the rate of fifty miles an hour during the progress of the proceedings.—'ThVßtts.'