An article in an August edition of the Chicago Sunday Tribune commented on the season of plays at Elitch Theatre:
While the rest of the country has been in the theatrical dumps, the city of Denver has been the bright spot on the map. Much of the best of the fare given during the winter and spring to the East and Middle West has been served to Denver theatergoers since June 1st. And served, too, under conditions nearly ideal from the popular standpoint.
The approach to the Theatre and the medley of outdoor entertainments is between rows of cherry and apple trees, under boughs that interlink, and beside flowering beds of every color and fragrance.
The Gardens ceased long ago to be merely an amusement park. Its function is more that of a public resort catering to all kinds of pleasure-loving people, and conducted with a rigorous standard of cleanliness…
The Theatre, however, is the magnet for grown people, whether they are residents of Denver or visitors from the East; and that East, from the standpoint of Denver, includes Chicago as well as New York.
Walter Clarke Bellows continued as director. The resident company included Bruce McRae, Henry Woodruff, Helen Tracy, Frederick Perry, Edward Mackay, Theodore Roberts and others. Maude Fealy, Amelia Bingham, Edwin Arden and May Buckley were among the featured players in several plays. Ernest Truex appeared in a few plays.
Play Royalties
A Japanese Nightingale had never been given by any stock company in the United States before the Elitch presentation. The play required 125 players. It took several ) weeks of hard work to orient the chorus and dancers, let alone the other members of the play. The costumes used in the play were those used in the New York production. However, the New York owners of the costumes refused to allow them to be used without security being established for their safe return, for which the Elitch management provided a $10,000 cash bond. Pending their use, the costumes were placed on exhibit in a window of a downtown department store. In all, there were 219 costumes.
To secure the play, the management had to pay the largest royalty fee ever given for a play by a stock company. The management also paid an express charge of $100 for delivery of the costumes. Notwithstanding the expenses of production, the Elitch management did not increase the price of admission to the play. Every regularly scheduled performance brought a crowded house, with the result that many patrons did not get to see it. Accordingly, the management scheduled three extra performances.
[Borrillo, T. A. (2012). Denver’s historic Elitch Theatre: A nostalgic journey (a history of its times). Colorado. p. 58, 61-62]
Theatre Staff:
- Mrs. Mary Elitch Long, Proprietor and Manager
- T. D. Long, Business Manager
- Walter Clarke Bellows, Stage Director
Resident Company:
- May Buckley
- Agnes Ardeck
- Julia Stuart
- Nelette Reed
- Helen Tracy
- Katherine Field
- Virginia Tracy
- Henry Woodruff
- Theodore Roberts
- Bruce McRae
- Frederick Perry
- Thomas MacLarnie
- Edward Mackay
- J. H. Gilmour
- Grant Stewart
- Emmet Shackelford
- Arthur T. Hoyt
- Harry Willard
- Bertram Talbot
- F. C. Underwood
- Charles Hallock
Productions:
- Week of May 28: Parsifal, by Richard Wagner, adapted by Fitzgerald Murphy.
- Week of June 5: The Climbers, by Clyde Fitch, featuring Amelia Bingham.
- Week of June 12: Olympe, by Pierre Decourcelle, featuring Amelia Bingham, Antoinette Perry appeared as the Fifth Actress
- Week of June 19: The Frisky Mrs. Johnson, by Clyde Fitch, featuring Amelia Bingham.
- Week of June 26: A Modern Magdalen, by Haddon Chambers, featuring Amelia Bingham
- Week of July 3: The Cavalier, by Paul Kester and George Middleton, featuring Maude Fealy. Eugene O’Brien appeared as Richard Thorndyke Smith.
- Week of July 10: Janice Meredith, by Paul L. Ford and Edward E. Rose, featuring Maude Fealy.
- Week of July 17: When Knighthood Was in Flower, by Charles Major, dramatized by Paul Kester, featuring Maude Fealy. Ernest Truex and Eugene O’Brien played supporting roles.
- Week of July 24: Soldiers of Fortune, by Augustus Thomas, featuring Edwin Arden.
- Week of July 31: The Prince and the Pauper, adapted from Mark Twain by Mrs. Abby Sage Richardson, featuring Maude Fealy.
- Week of Aug. 7: The Middleman, by Henry Arthur Jones.
- Week of Aug. 14: The Wilderness, by H. V. Esmond, featuring Orrin Johnson.
- Week of Aug. 21: A Japanese Nightingale, adapted from Onoto Wotanna’s novel by william Young, featuring May Buckley and Orrin Johnson.
- Week of Aug. 28: A Japanese Nightingale
- Week of Aug. 31: The Girl and the Judge by Clyde Fitch, featuring May Buckley and Orrin Johnson. Ernest Truex appeared as Ikey Ikenstein in the latter play.
