This etext was produced by Steve Bonner.
Can you be taught how to write for vaudeville? If you have thenative gift, what experienced writers say about its problems, whatthey themselves have accomplished, and the means by which it hasbeen wrought, will be of help to you. So much this book offers,and more I would not claim for it.
Although this volume is the first treatise on the subject of whichI know, it is less an original offering than a compilation. Growingout of a series of articles written in collaboration with Mr.William C. Lengel for The Green Book Magazine, the subject assumedsuch bigness in my eyes that when I began the writing of this book,I spent months harvesting the knowledge of others to add to my ownexperience. With the warm-heartedness for which vaudevillians arefamous, nearly everyone whose aid I asked lent assistance gladly."It is vaudeville's first book," said more than one, deprecatingthe value of his own suggestions, "and we want it right in eachslightest particular."
To the following kindly gentlemen I wish to express my especialthanks: Aaron Hoffman, Edwin Hopkins, James Madison, Edgar AllanWoolf, Richard Harding Davis—the foremost example of a writer whomade a famous name first in literature and afterward invaudeville—Arthur Hopkins, Taylor Granville, Junie McCree, ArthurDenvir, Frank Fogarty, Irving Berlin, Charles K. Harris, L. WolfeGilbert, Ballard MacDonald, Louis Bernstein, Joe McCarthy, JosephHart, Joseph Maxwell, George A. Gottlieb, Daniel F. Hennessy,Sime Silverman, Thomas J. Gray, William C. Lengel, Miss NellieRevell, the "big sister of vaudeville," and a host of others whosenames space does not permit my naming again here, but whose workis evidenced in the following pages. To Alexander Black, the manwho made the first picture play twenty-one years ago, I owe thanksfor points in the discussion of dramatic values. And for manyhelpful suggestions, and his kindly editing, I wish to express mygratitude to Dr. J. Berg Esenwein. To these "friends indeed"belongs whatever merit this book possesses.
BRETT PAGE
BROOKLYN, NEW YORK
August 25, 1915
It falls to the lot of few men in these days to blaze a new trailin Bookland. This Mr. Brett Page has done, with firmness andprecision, and with a joy in every stroke that will beget incountless readers that answering joy which is the reward of bothhim who guides and him who follows. There is but one word for awork so penetrating, so eductive, so clear—and that word ismasterly. Let no one believe the modest assertion that "Writingfor Vaudeville" is "less an original offering than a compilation."I have seen it grow and re-grow, section by section, and neverhave I known an author give more care to the development of histheme in an original way. Mr. Page has worked with fidelity tothe convictions gained while himself writing professionally, yetwith deference for the opinions of past masters in this field.The result is a book quite unexcelled among manuals of instruction,for auth