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New Zealand Illustrated Sporting & Dramatic Review, Issue 1489, 7 November 1918, Page 33

Scenes in “Hello, Everybody” include: Somewhere in Neutraiia, The Builders, Venus, The Bet, The Wheat Scene, Letting the Flat, Maid of the Mist, The Falls of Niagara, A Modern Revue, Arrest Me, Arizona, The Stone Age, Eagle Rock, Oriental Nights, The Patent Office, The Gathering of the Clans, and “Scotland for Ever.”

Miss Harris, the Feilding pianist, travelling with the “Peg o’ My Heart” Company, who met with a severe accident at Reefton, is now quite recovered, and is again with the company.

Fred Bluett, comedian, is at present in Dunedin at the Fuller house, repeating his old successes with up-to-the-moment songs and business.

May Yohe, the well-known American actress, was married in August to Lord Hope.

The only professional comedy company now in New Zealand is J. and N. Tait’s company playing “Peg o’ My Heart.” This company has now been touring New Zealand for over two months, and is still going strong. It is due in Auckland in December.

The two young soldiers, Hampden Booth and John Patrick, who are responsible for “Kitty Nobody,” the play included in “Honi Soit” at the Tivoli, will be gratified at the success of their venture, says Sydney “Sun.” Although soldiers, however, they do not bring a prentice hand to stage business. John Patrick had considerable acting experience to guide him, and Hampden Booth handles the pen as readily and effectively as the bayonet. Still, it is something of an achievement for two New Zealanders to write convincingly of New York art life.

A prominent Aucklander who has nearly reached the allotted span of three score years and ten was tempted to attend a theatre the other evening for the first time in 44 years. Vaudeville was the lure that induced him to depart from his anchoritic ways, and the Opera House, had the pleasure of unfolding to him the jollier aspect of life.

Miss Muriel Starr is at present appearing in “The Great Divide” at the Criterion, Sydney. The story is of a dreaming, high-spirited girl, left alone

for a night in a cabin in Arizona. Three ruffians force their way into the cabin, and she offers herself perforce in marriage to the strongest but least repellant of them. The union takes place, with the consequence of the husband developing all that is good in him, while the wife loathes the bargain she involuntarily made. Although presently there .is a child, she keeps aloof from her husband,

who grows to love her more every day; but in the end love conquers all.

Signor Lucien Cesaroni, the handsome basso recently with the Cappelli Concert Company, is staying in Wellington until the end of the year, when he will go to Tasmania to take part in ten classical concerts.

How she nearly sang for the Kaiser and was prevented from filling the engagement on account of a great tragedy in her life (the death of her mother) is told by Alice Nielsen, the American opera and concert singer. Just before the world at large began to fight for democracy, and when it was the vogue and ambition of American prima donnas to sing at the royal courts, a series of such engagements had been arranged for Miss Nielsen in the courts of Europe. The date of her appearance at Kiel, the summer palace of Emperor Wilhelm, had been set and her gown ordered from Paris for the occasion. It was at the time when tight skirts were the vogue, but that style of dress was tabooed by the Empress. The American singer was in distress, for she vowed she would not wear anything that did not look smart. As is usual with Miss Nielsen, her sense of the fitness of things solved the problem and she ordered her gown made after the fashion of the Empress Maria Louise period, in compliment to the sovereigns for whom she was to sing. On the day her gown was delivered to her, she received a cable from New York telling her of her mother’s death. This changed all Miss Nielsen’s plans. She immediately notified the administrator of functions at Kiel that it would be impossible for her to appear at the royal court as scheduled, explaining the cause, but in reply she received word that in spite of her bereavement she was still expected to sing as arranged. Did she do it? Not Alice Nielsen. No command through the house of the Hohenzollerns could dissuade Miss Nielsen from her desire to respect her mother’s memory by cancelling all her appearances. “Now that Germany has proved herself such a monster,” says Miss Nielsen to an American interviewer, “I feel I was blessed to have been spared the memory of that event in my musical career.”