The dog upstairs has been barking for an hour.
I'm very happy, I just finished my first draft of the "scandalous" part of the report on BABES IN TOYLAND. Here's the draft which I just sent to my editor:
On 10 November 1900, a British musical by Leslie Stuart and Owen Hall, Florodora, opened at New York's Casino Theatre and ran there for eleven months before transferring to the New York Theatre. In the second act, six young men sang to six beautiful young ladies, "Tell me, pretty maiden, are there any more at home like you?" This double sextet became the rage and the chief reason to see the show. Gentlemen lined the streets outside the stage door to shower the beautiful chorus girls, especially the six young ladies in "the number," with expensive dinners, exquisite jewelry, yachts, and automobiles. At a time when a chorus girl's salary, according to a [i[New York Times[/i] article of 8 March 1903, was between $15 and $20 a week, accepting a gentleman's gifts and protection could mean for a young lady financial security, a move from a flophouse to a nice flat with a maid, and other luxuries. The fact that the six young ladies in the Florodora "Sextet" all married millionaires added to the myth of the "cult of the chorus girl," a cult that Julian Mitchell, Florenz Ziegfeld, and other producers were more than eager to cater to.
The second scandal to confront the Babes In Toyland company occurred on 21 July 1903, when the Chicago Board of Review asked ten ladies in the cast, Georgia Baron, Aline Boley, Gladys Earlcott, Grace Field, Virginia Foltz, Mabel Frenyear, Lesbia Grallis, Helen Hilton, Ethel Pennington, and leading lady Mabel Barrison, to provide reasons for not paying taxes on their automobiles and jewelry. Carefully skirting the issue of prostitution, which would have been disastrous publicity for a "family entertainment," the Board of Review ignored the economic realities of a show girl's ability to purchase thousands of dollars worth of jewelry and baubles. While the subject of chorus girls and their beaus certainly gave rise to much speculation, from Dreiser's novel Sister Carrie to Irving Berlin's 1911 song "How Do You Do It, Mabel, On Twenty Dollars A Week?," the press reporting the news on the ladies and their tax problems turned a blind eye as well to the offstage socializing of the young ladies.
Six of the them, including Miss Barrison, claimed they were New York residents and therefore not subject to Chicago taxation. Virginia Foltz claimed her jewels and automobile were "costly gifts from a birthday party," and on 28 July, Grace Fields, one of the four ladies who ended up paying taxes, was forced to pay taxes on $9,900 in personal property. While Miss Barrison's salary as a principal player in Babes In Toyland may have been several hundred dollars a week, in her previous year's Wizard Of Oz experience her salary had fallen from a principal's to a Weber-Fields chorus girl's. Her affectionate notes to Townsend Walsh imply that Miss Barrison may have been faithful to Julian Mitchell in her fashion, but she was keeping her romantic and financial options open to any suitors.
Townsend Walsh, business manager and press agent for Hamlin and Mitchell, arrived in Chicago late in the run to initiate publicity for the tour to New York. Walsh, whose 1902 correspondence with a friend on the Chicago Grand Opera House staff shows the two of them had been competing for the favors of available actresses and chorus girls passing through Chicago, had been very busy in New York preparing the autumn 1903 tours for The Wizard Of Oz, which would vacate New York's Majestic Theatre shortly before Babes In Toyland moved in.
I already see several rewrites that can be done, but I'm happy with the overall text.
