SEA-GOING THEATRE.

Hawera Star, Volume XLVII, 29 August 1927, Page 7

SEA-GOING THEATRE.

MR. ADAMS’ “PLAYHOUSE.” AN AMERICAN NOVELTY A sea-going theatre is one of the many wonders of the United States. The .lames Adams Floating Theatre, which for the past twelve years has been a familiar institution along the coasts and waterways of Virginia and North Caroline, is the only deep-sea playhouse in North America; on the Mississippi there are a few floating places of entertainment, mostly movie shows, but they do not venture into the open sea as does the “Playhouse,” which is listed in the tonnage register at Washington among the unrigged merchant vessels.

Mr James Adams, owner of the ‘‘Playhouse,” was -originally a circus performer, and as the part-oivner of an itinerant vaudeville show he aecumu latcd a substantial fortune. In 1914 he grew tired of travelling on terra firma, and decided that it would be a pleasant change to start a floating theatre; so he ordered a special vessel to be built to suit his requirements. The enterprise proved extraordinarily successful, and the arrival of the “Playhouse” now ranks as a great event in the towns and villages along the coast whipli it frequents. In the year’s round a week each is allocated to thirty-five different places in the same order, and' there is no need for any advance publicity as every town knows when its turn is coming, and the occasions arc rare when all the 700 available seats are not taken. Two ti.gs haul the floating theatre from one place to another, and sometimes quite rough weather is encountered in -Chesapeake Bay. The plays given are described by the manager as “all about- mother love, faithful and unfaithful sweethearts, the lamp in the avindow, an occasional villain, and all in a play full of smiles and tears, but mostly hilarity and fun.” Mi Adams is no longer regularly aboard his craft, but his brother- acts as manager of the enterprise, and his sister is the leading actress. Her husband is the stage director, and these three, with two other married couples, who have been members of troupes for some years make the company a firmly established and very happy family.