FOOTLIGHT FLASHES.

Waikato Times, Volume 109, Issue 18342, 30 May 1931, Page 17 (Supplement)

FOOTLIGHT FLASHES.

. Stan. Lawson, for many years a popular member of the New Zealand and. Pat Hanna’s Diggers, is now settled in Dunedin, and will have a prominent role in “A Country Girl," to be produced by the Dunedin Operatic Society next week. • ■ w • Roger Barry, who will come to Hamilton next month with the Williamson Comedy Company playing “Let Us Be Gay” and “The First Mrs Fraser,” was last here with the Maurice Moscovitch company in the thriller "The Silent House,” and was also here in “The Ghost Train." 9 4t * ( * “Let Us Be Gay,” which Hamilton enjoyed so much as a talkie, will be seen In New Zealand shortly as a stage production. Ethel Morrison, the New Zealand actress who returns after winning success In New York and other centres, will be Mrs Boucicault, the character which Marie Dressier made such a great success in the film version. Ivor Weir, the Christchurch pianist, who returned to New Zealand some months ago, left by the Remuera last week on his way to London. *'* * * Ethel Morrison, who will head tho new Williamson Comedy Company due at Auckland next week and coming to Hamilton shortly, is a New Zealander. As Ettie Maginnity she started her stage career with the Wellington Amateur Operatic Society. She then took up the work professionally with the Williamson firm, and later won great success, in New York. She retyr 4 ns in the Marie Tempest role in “The First Mrs Fraser," a brilliant comedy which ran for nearly two years in London. • * *• * "Roses of Picardy,” a war comedy, Is the latest production of the Frank Neil company in Melbourne. * » 9 * Amy Evans and Fraser Gange, well remembered here, were singing in New York last month. * * * i* “What’s In a Name?" the work of an Australian playwright, Robert Ogilvie Blackman, was staged in Sydney by the Federation Players this week. This gay farce was preceded by “The Birthmark.” The casts included Ethel Paige, Loris Bingham, Therese Desmond,- Rita Aslin, Edie Sinnotte, George Cross, George Jennings, George Doran, Andrew Hodge, Leu Budrick, O. Wenban, and E. Howell. * # % * Mischa Levitzki, the great pianist who will give a recital in Hamilton on Thursday, June 11, considers that the piano is the king of all solo instruments and that the symphony orchestra is the greatest medium for music, lie has the utmost admiration for the way in which the American cities are showing civic pride by maintaining fine symphony orchestras which are supported partly by generous subcriptions from individual members of the public and partly by concerted action in the form of big “drives” to raise the wherewithal to keep tho orchestras up io concert pitch in every sense of the term.