Evening Republican, Volume 15, Number 176, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 27 July 1911 — LAUGHTER AND TEARS. [ARTICLE]

LAUGHTER AND TEARS.

A Comedy Sen, In Which Grief «ayt' ed « Leading Part “Stage fright is not one of the emoHons which get across the footlights.’’ writes Mbs Alice Crawford. “Audiences sre for the most part aa serenely unconscious of It as they ate of other individual sentiments in the actors having no relation to the incidents of the play. “I shall never forget an instance of this curiobe Insensibility of the crowd. Once when I was tonring one of the most charming and popular girls of the company died after only a few days* illness. She was one of those sweet, tranquil natures and had endeared herself po us aU. Her death la lodgings in the small provincial town had an element of real tragedy ia it. L :;:w. 2 -The news that she was dead reached the theater In the evening Just as two of the actors and 1 were about to go on for a scene of broad comedy. We went on the stage with tears in oar eyes, and 1 can still see the face of one of those comedians with the great tears glistening on the paint He was dreadfully affected. Try as he would, be could not control his voice, and the tears kept choking him as be rattled off bis lines. “The audience were convulsed every time bis voice broke, and it made me cry more than ever to see the grief shaking him as be grinned and chaffed through bis tears. Yet that comedy scene never went so well before. The audience never guessed.’’—Exchange.