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DUNEDIN.

(From our Dunedin correspondent). 7 ' June 18. There is very little moving in the local theatrical world this week, but prospects point to a boom later on, when a host of attractions are booked to follow each other hot foot. The first of these is Willoughby’s “Uncle Tom’s Cabin” Dramatic Company, opening for a week’s season at His Majesty’s on Friday. Mr. J. A. Matheson is now advance of this company, having taken the place of Mr. Victor Beck, who is piloting the Smart Set Entertainers. The Smart Set Entertainers, by the way, are due to reach the Bluff from the “other side” on Monday, and the same evening will open the New Zealand tour at Invercargill; Dunedin follows on Saturday, June 27, for a two weeks’ season. This combination has been reorganised since it was in New Zealand last year. The personnel of the Smart Set includes Miss Lalla Knight (late of Auckland), soprano; Misis Gwen Evans, contralto; Miss Georgie Martin, comedienne; Maurice Jones, tenor; Ernest Parkes, baritone; Harry de Robeck, comedian; Edgar Holland, accompanist, and Walter George, comedian. “The Grafters,” William Anderson s American Musical Comedy Company, passed through Dunedin last week and concluded its New Zealand tour at Invercargill on Monday of the present week. The following day the company sailed from the Bluff per the Mokoia for Melbourne. Miss Pearl Smith, of the Willoughby Dramatic Company, who has been playing leading parts on tour, was taken ill in Christchurch, and her doctor advised her to return to Melbourne. Miss Smith was a passenger by the Mokoia, which sailed on Monday for the Victorian capital. Miss Pearl Helmrich will play Miss Smith’s part of Eliza in “Uncle Tom’s Cabin” in the Dunedin production. Dunedin is looking forward to the visit of Miss Ellen Terry, who is due to give two discourses or readings in the first week in July in the Garrison Hall. Miss Terry leaves New Zealand on July 10 for a return season in Sydney. Miss Josephine Gassman and her pics, concluded their term on the Fuller-Brennan New Zealand circuit on Saturday. No greater favourites have been seen in Dunedin for some years. Such has been the success of the coon act on the New Zealand tour that Mis-s Gassman will probably pay the Dominion another visit before she returns to America. By the way, it is not generally known that Miss Gassman, before she took up the vaudeville stage, was in the legitimate in America, and was one of the finest Topsys in “Uncle Tom’s Cabin” in the States. It was after playing Topsy and hearing the song “The Bogie Man” with its weird chorus (introduced in burlesque by Teddy Lonnen, of the London Gaiety Company, in New Zealand) that Miss Gassman conceived the idea of introducing picaninnies on the vaudeville stage. She claims that she was the first to put on such an act. If Miss Gassman succeeds for the next two years in like manner as in the past, she hopes to retire and settle down.

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Permanent link to this item

https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/periodicals/NZISDR19140625.2.47

Bibliographic details

New Zealand Illustrated Sporting & Dramatic Review, Issue 1262, 25 June 1914, Page 37

Word Count
505

DUNEDIN. New Zealand Illustrated Sporting & Dramatic Review, Issue 1262, 25 June 1914, Page 37

DUNEDIN. New Zealand Illustrated Sporting & Dramatic Review, Issue 1262, 25 June 1914, Page 37