MUSICAL and DRAMATIC.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LV, Issue 16823, 13 April 1918, Page 3 (Supplement)

MUSICAL and DRAMATIC.

Charles Chaplin may pay a brief visit to Australia, and possibly New Zealand, at the end of the present contract. Latest advices state that he had nearly completed the first film under the new contract at Los Angeles. It treats of a dog and an employment bureau.

William Saunders, who the other day was found lying dead across his bed in a I hut on the banks of Broken Creek, near Devenish, Victoria, was one of the last of the original Georgia Minstrels. He was born in Alabama 75 years ago, and" in his early days was a slave. Gaining his freedom after the Civil War he went to Australia with the first Georgia Company in 1877. That combination, which was under the management of Charlie Hicks and Billy Wilson, appeared at Melbourne Princesses, with " Uncle Tom's Cabin," the cast including Charles Crusoe, J. Matlock, Sara Kienau. Hosea Easton, and Morton Jackson. He was mostly cast for female parts, but was also a capital endman. He left the stage about twenty years ago to go on the land, and of recent years had worked at a sawmill.

A novelty was introduced at a performance of the pantomime " Aladdin' at the King's Theatre, Melbourne, recently. Two kookaburras ("laughing jackasses") trained by Mrs. Captain Ellis, of the Colliseum, Ballarat, laughed heartily at the jokes of the principal comedians, Barry Lupino and Bert Bailey. In their business was a series of conundrums, and the answer to each of these was the signal for an outburst of mirth by the birds. From a point of vantage in a box with their trainer the birds saw the pantonTirae through and laughed in appropriate places. Mrs. Ell's has been training the birds for three years.

Miss Daisy Jerome has signed a contract with the Shubcrts to play in ausica] comedy in America.

' " Samples," the revue now being played at the Tivoli Theatre, Melbourne, has discovered latent talent in quite a number of pretty children, according to an Australian writer. He says: "The smallest tot in the show is Baby Zillah, whose twinkling feet and auburn curls are a feature of tho Bonnie Scotland number. Jean Keith is the bright particular star in the " Million Dollar Smile," but she has four strong aspirants for popular favour in the assisting children. Buster Murphy is one of the prettiest little girls we have ever had on the stage, while Gladys Hermes and Dorothy Ryder are just amazingly clever. Dorothy Ryder has all the freshness of a child, combined with the sureness of touch of an experienced actress. Her voice, too, is quite phenomenal, filling the theatre. When to these attractions are added a sweet smile and a pair of wonderfully brig Tit eyes, it is not any wonder that tho Million Dollar Smile' never failed to hold up the performance each J night in Sydney.

Miss Doris Keane, an American actress, has married her " leading man," Mr. Basil Sydney, who since July, 1917, has played the young curate hero, in London, of "Romance." Miss Keane brought "Romance" to London in 1915, and it had been running for two years and three months when she was married. She had earlier appeared in " Whitewashing Julia" and "The Hypocrites," the popular Henry Arthlr Jones' plays. Her marriage to Mr. Basil Sydney," the stage " Romance" of the New Year, is regarded as one of the happiest romances of the stage. Since invalided out of the Armv, Lieutenant Sydney has been doing work for the War Office, with permission to appear each night in "Romance."

Kathlena MacDonnell is bark in Melbourne, appearing at the Theatre Royal in the first production in Australia of "The Cinder-ilia Man," a play of love and sentiment, in a similar van to that of " Daddy Long Legs." The author of "The Cinderella Man" is Edward Childs Carpenter, one of the best-known and most successful of American playwrights. It is a charming play of youth and romance. Mr. Charles Waldron plavs the penniless Cinderella Man, and Miss Kathiene MacDonell the daughter of a millionaire.

In the chorus of the J. C. Williamson Royal Comic Opera Company, now in the South, are three returned New Zealand soldiers, each of whom has seen considerable active sen-ice. Lieutenant Llewellyn East was in Gallipoli and France in the firing-line for three years. Corporal Jack Collins saw much active service on the Western front, while Private G. P. 6Brown served two years with the First Battalion, and was through the Messines, Bapanme, and Polygon Wood engagements.

Mr. Reynolds Denniston has lately been touring the East with an American company. Jerome Patrick, a young New Zealand actor, is doing well on the American stage, he being one of a small and select cast of the Charles Frohman production of "The Three Bears," the latest American success. Bush, another young New Zealander, is appearing in " Yes or No" in Indianopolis, Musico-Dbahahccs,