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Theater coming to town
347 members of the
Mr. Bluebeard theater
company arrived by two Wabash railway trains from
St. Louis on November 15, 1903, in time for a
special abbreviated performance the following day.
The train carrying scenery, costumes, and property
arrived at 2:00, and three hours later, the
cast and crew arrived in a private train of five coaches and
a Pullman car.
That tidbit of information placed in newspapers was
the kind of detail used in the late 1800s by advance
men to drum up excitement in rural towns when the
arrival of the circus or theater company drew a
crowd. In both size and sophistication, 1903 Chicago
was well past that stage, but for sixty-year-old
Iroquois Theater manager Will J. Davis, who had spent
his first two decades in the theater industry as an
advance man for theatrical companies, such schemes were part
of a properly done promotion.
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1903 newspapers would have indulged the old style gambit because Davis and his fellow
Syndicate representative in Chicago,
Harry Powers, controlled
the advertising budget for two Chicago theaters and influenced other theater advertising buyers.
Ticket auction
Davis next staged a ticket auction for seats at the
Premiere, presumably to suggest that seats would be
in hot demand. Iroquois Theater lighting supplier
Joseph Dimmery served as auctioneer and
Eddie Foy and the
Pony Ballet entertained the audience - probably beefed up with theater
employees, cast members, and whatever newspaper
reporters appeared to collect a press packet that
included a list of the bidders and particulars of an
auction that was much theater as the performance on
stage.
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