SOUTHERN STAGE NOTES.

New Zealand Illustrated Sporting & Dramatic Review, Issue 1424, 9 August 1917, Page 32

SOUTHERN STAGE NOTES.

(By “Lorgnette.” WELLINGTON, August 6. Mr. Scott Colville has been in town during the past week completing arrangements for the ten nights’ season of Messrs. J. and N. Tait’s Musical Comedy Company, which opens on Wednesday with “Very Good Eddie.” Judging from the way the booking has been rushed, the season is an assured success. The last four nights will be devoted to the production of “The White Chrysanthemum.” This company comes to us with a very big reputation. Wellington’s latest picture house, the Paramount Theatre, was opened on Saturday evening with a very fine programme. The “star” film is an adaptation of Laurence Hope’s poem, “Less Than the Dust,” in which Mary Pickford is featured. This new show house is situated at the Courtenay Place tram terminus, and ought to catch all the citizens around that busy and thriving part of the city.

The big attraction in the picture world this week is D. W. Griffith’s mighty spectacle “The Birth of a Nation,” at King’s Theatre. Last Saturday night’s exhibition was witnessed by an audience that occupied all the available seating and standing space. A high-class programme is being presented at His Majesty’s Theatre by the Messrs. Fuller, w’ho are to be congratulated upon the quality of the vaudeville they have recently been offering their Wellington patrons. The Orange Dandies are in the boom all right, and Mr. John Hopkins smiles happily; Since their opening they have been turning people away from every show. A bright, clean, clever organisation that ought to do big business on their South Island tour. At the annual meeting of the Wellington Society of Musicians, the following officers were elected for the ensuing year:—President, Mr. C. W. Kerry; vice-presidents, Messrs. B. F. Page and L. F. Watkins; joint hon. secretaries, Misses K. Simpson and R. Mowatt; hon. treasurer, Mr. Harry H. Tombs; acting librarian, Miss Heinemann; hon. auditor, Mr. J. H. H. Jack; hon. solicitor, Mr. R. Herbert Webb; members of the council, Mrs. Cachemaille, Misses Kennedy, Heinemann and Watkins, Messrs. Robert Parker and H. Temple White. An arrangement having been arrived at, it has been decided that with the exception of Saturday the district of Newtown will in future have only one picture theatre. Our Theatre will be open every evening, whilst the Star Theatre will be open for two sessions every Saturday. Mr. T. Donovan is now managing King’s Theatre.