Why the Chimes Rang Part 7

26. A pearl necklace.

27. A great sheaf of fresh lilies. These can be made at home of tissue paper or very beautiful ones can be bought from the Dennison Manufacturing Company.

28. A golden crown. Made of cardboard coated with gold paper and set with Christmas tree jewels. A more substantial crown can be made of thin sheet bra.s.s with all the edges turned like a hem, and trimmed with the inexpensive jewels which come for bra.s.s work.

BIG-HEARTED HERBERT

Farce-comedy. 3 acts. By Sophie Kerr & Anna Steese Richardson. 7 males, 6 females. Interior. Modern costumes.

Herbert Kalness, the leading character, is a selfmade man. His success and his belief in himself have unwittingly turned him into a domestic autocrat. Moreover he prides himself on being a plain man and imagines that he lives plainly, though his devoted and charming wife has modernized and decorated their home quite successfully. The day arrives when the daughter of the house becomes engaged, and at a dinner to celebrate the event, Herbert, who has been upset and worried all day about business, has a great big tantrum which even his wife can't excuse. So, the next day, when he proposes to bring his best customer and wife home to dinner--a.s.suring them that he is a plain man--his wife turns the house plain to the nth degree and serves them a plain dinner in the plainest of ways. In a final riotous scene Herbert realizes that he is not so plain, and that his life will be happier if he is more of a father and less of a tyrant.

FLY AWAY HOME

Comedy. 3 acts. By Dorothy Bennett & Irving White. 7 males, 6 females.

Interior. Modern costumes.

A comedy hit on Broadway. The four Masters children, ranging in age from 14 to 19, are enjoying their usual summer sojourn at Provincetown.

Without much enthusiasm they are looking forward to the imminent marriage of their mother to the professor who has summered next door.

Then word comes that their mother, who is just completing the last two weeks of her contract as dress designer in a Hollywood motion picture studio, has invited their own father to visit them and make arrangements for a divorce. They haven't seen him for twelve years and they are determined he shan't treat them like children. James Masters, the father, comes. Although he has a sense of humor and would sincerely like to make friends with his children, he antagonizes them at once. For a week the father struggles against the professor and his influence. After the various problems have been more or less solved the children suddenly decide that they prefer their own father as a member of the family and set to work in a businesslike way to help him win their mother back.

ANNE OF GREEN GABLES

L.M. Montgomery's most popular novel, dramatized into a tender and amusing play in 3 acts by Alice Chadwicke. 4 males, 10 females, 1 interior set. Modern costumes.

Mark Twain, the celebrated humorist, was so taken with the quaint charm of L.M. Montgomery's tremendously popular novel that upon reading it for the first time he said: "In 'Anne of Green Gables' you will find the dearest and most moving and delightful girl since the immortal Alice."

[Anne is played by a girl in her middle teens.] And for years this fascinating book has headed the list of best sellers. It has been made twice as a movie, once a silent picture and only recently as a talkie, but it has remained for the distinguished dramatist, Alice Chadwicke, to make the first and only dramatization of this magically beautiful story.

Green Gables is the home of lovable Matthew Cuthbert and his stern sister, Marilla Cuthbert. n.o.body suspects that beneath her hard exterior there lurks a soft and tender heart. When Matthew, after a great deal of reflection, finally decides to adopt an orphan boy to help with his farm work, Marilla grudgingly consents. Through a rattlebrained friend of theirs, one Nancy Spencer, they agree to take a boy from the Hopeton Orphanage. Marilla makes ready to receive the boy and Matthew drives to the station to get him. Fancy his consternation when he finds little Anne s.h.i.+rley waiting for him! There has been a mistake and Anne has been sent to Green Gables in lieu of a boy whom the Cuthberts plan to adopt.

From the instant Anne and Matthew meet a strong attachment grows up between the little orphan and the man who has been starving for affection without realizing it. Anne, with her vivid imagination, her charitable viewpoint, her refres.h.i.+ng simplicity, touches the old bachelor's heart. But not so with Marilla. She determines to send Anne back to the orphanage the following day. But she reckons without Anne who is so enchanted by everything at Green Gables and who cries and begs and pleads so hard to remain that even Marilla finally gives in and consents. Anne is the sort of part that every young girl will adore playing, and the other parts offer splendid opportunities to the various members of the cast. The play breathes of youth, is thoroughly modern in spirit, very simple to prepare and present and Miss Chadwicke has written into it such an abundance of warmth, wit, and motion that it becomes an endless delight.