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Image provided by: New York State Military History Museum
GAS ATTACK 3 WITH THE CHORUS GIRLS OF CAMP Daily Rehearsals for a Month Have Prepared the Division Show, “You Know Me, Al,” for Its Premier on March 19th The ' actors and actresses are from Broadway, the plot Is about Broadway, and the lyrics will probably sing of that same thoroughfare that used to be gay and white before we left. And yet Broadway has never seen anything like it, this show of the Twenty- seventh Division. “You Know Me, Al,” is the name of it, a comedy-farce in three acts, with music. The actors and actresses of this show, which will have its opening at the Harris Theater in Spartanburg on March 18th, are soldiers who have temporarily left off doing squads North, East, and South, in order to kick an alluring toe over the footlights to make this production the most remarkable of its kind. All Professionals. All of the principal men concerned in the show are professionals. It was in a Y. M. C. A. shack the other day that the soldiers who are to take part in it were discovered singing, dancing, and kicking. At one side of the stage stood Lieut. W. A. Halloran, Jr., of the 106th Machine Gun Battalion, direct ing a critical eye at the rehearsal. He is the producer, besides having w ritten several of the lyrics. For years Lieut. Halloran has been connected with minstrel shows and other productions. When we were on the border—familiar phrase—he put over a min strel show that knocked ’em off their seats in San Antonio and MacAllen. His more re cent success in producing “Cavalry Days” at Converse College led Major-General O’Ryan to appoint him director of the Twenty-seventh Division Theater, a project sanctioned by The W ar Department. Lieut. 0. P. Pranchot, the Intelligence Officer of camp, is the treasurer of the com mittee that looks after the finances of the division theater. At the chorus rehearsal in the afore-men tioned shack, Pvt. Stanley Hughes, Co. A, 104th Machine Gun Battalion, was putting the dancers through their paces. Hughes is a member of the famous dancing family which turned out J. J. Hughes of Adelaide Sc Hughes, Frank Hughes of Stone & Hughes and Mazie Hughes, formerly the partner of Stanley Hughes. (This begins to look like a Hughes Who?) P e was in the Passing Show at the W inter Garden in 1912, and re turned, more recently, from an extended dancing tour of South. America. Chorines Will Be Pippins! There was a cloud if dust hovering over that end of the room io which Hughes was rehearsing the chorus. Through the cloud burst the lifted toes and feet of the chorines, wearing army shoes and army shirts and army breeches. It’s a Gong step from the regulation uniform to the stage clothes they will wrear in the actual performance, but the accuracy of their dancing and the po tential witchery of their postures betokened their full-bloomed pulchritude when the glare of the spotlight hits them. In other words, they’ll be pippins! “Come us, come up, closer! ” shouted Hughes, beckoning the dancers up-stage. From one corner, music came thumping and banging from a piano and cymbals. “That’s it. Now hold out your skirts, hold ’em out.” And the khaki-clad soldiers wrenched the seams of their trousers. Later, of course, there will be real cos tumes and grease-paint—gifts from persons and firms well known in New York: Lady Duff Gordon, George M. Cohan, Mrs. H. H. Harris, Yantine, and others. The music that was zipping and zinging through the rehearsal hall was by Pvt. Bur ton Hamilton, 106th M. G. Battalion, who tickles the ivories by countless numbers. Sgt. Leon de Costa, Hdqtrs. Co. of the 106th Infantry, wrote some of the lyrics and music, too. While all this singing and dancing was going on, there was a rehearsal of the prin cipals of “You Know Me, Al,” taking place in a mess shack further down the road. The Authors. Here were Pvt. Hugh Standislaus Stange, Hdqtrs. Troop, Overseeing the child of his brain, for Stange and another soldier, Pvt. W. Anson Hallahan, Co. M, 107th Inf., wrote “You Know Me, Al.” Stange dramatized “Seventeen,” and he is the son of the man who dramatized “The Chocolate Soldier” and “The Girl in the Taxi.” Hallahan has been a successful stage doctor to many Broadway successes, writing a scene here and an act there and patching up many a bruised play. With Stange and Hallahan at the rehear sal of the all-professional cast, was Pvt. Harry Gxibble, Sanitary Detachment of the 108th Infantry, the stage manager. Gribble was the stage director for Mrs. Patrick Campbell, and not long ago he directed the staging of “Mice and Men” at Converse Col lege. The assistant stage manager is Pvt, Jack Garvery, Hdqtrs. Troop. The scenic artist is Pvt. C. C. Beall, Co. G, 107th Inf., who has had the expert advice of Belasco in getting his settings ready. Pvt. Carl Mc Cormick, Sanitary Detachment of the 107th Inf., is the business manager. He also hap pens to be the business manager of the French Opera Company, now playing in San Francisco with such singers as Castellanos Varillat, Clementine de Vere, and Carrie Bridwell. The Principals Rehearse. But to the rehearsal. The members of the all-professional cast are scattered around the mess shack when Stange says: “Let’s go! Zing, there goes the curtain.” This isn’t the place to reveal the plot, but it can be said that Russel Brown, Co. A, 104th M. G. Batn., as the leading man, Al, makes an announce ment early in the first act of the great scheme that is set afoot: “This deal is going to be bigger than anything Wallingford ever attempted. And we’re going to get away with it.” It is necessary, in order to put the scheme through, to bring professional entertainers on the scene. This includes girls, or, as one of the leading characters describes them: “They’re from the Midnight Frolic. Twelve prize beauties.” The plot thickens. “The old man and his daughter will arrive any minute.” This speech comes from either Russell Brown, who was the juvenile lead of “Have a Heart,” or Sidney Marian, who plays the part of Bright-lights. Marian has played with the Gertrude Hoffman Company and at the Palace Theatre in New York. Sally la Bergere. Then, who should enter upon the scene but Sally la Bergere. That is her stage name. His real name is Pvt. E. Albert Crawford, of London show fame. Sally is a cabaret who explains that she has been a star in “all the best places.” She mentions Churchill’s, Rector’s, Kennedy’s Marshall, the Pekin, and the Tub of Blood. Bright-lights raises the question as to whether or not Sally will fit the bill. To which Sally retorts, sidling up to him roguishly: “Listen, kid, I taught Theda Bara how to vamp.” That sounds convincing, especially to Pvt. Curt Karpe, who plays the part of Reddy- eash. He is known along the Rialto as the Colonel, late of “The Song of Songs,” with Irene Fenwick at the Etttinge Theater. Pvt. Stanley Wood, who played with Tay lor Holmes in “Bunker Bean,” impersonates an old-timer who can play Shakespeare to farce. Prvt. Walter Roberts, Leading Lady. The leading lady comes on the stage with her asthmatic father. She is Miss Bronson; in army life she is Pvt. W alter Robertson, of Ambulance Company 108. Roberts is a graduate of Syracuse University,- where he played in “The College Widows.” In the division show he is a charming young so ciety debutante. (Continued on page 35)
