1933-34 Tour across US with Katharine Cornell acting group

[DrG]

Hello,
i am trying to compile an as complete as possible list of OW's 1933-34 tour across US with Katharine Cornell acting group.

Alexander Woollcott writes in his hymnic piece about the tour "Miss Kitty Takes to the Road, August 1934": http://www.thescreamonline.com/essays/e ... lcott.html
"...Of the younger stars now shining brightest in the theatrical firmament only one is entitled to be called by that name. That one is Katharine Cornell.
When, at the end of June, she sailed to take her well-earned ease beside the Mediterranean and brood over the prompt book of Rosmersholm, with which darkling tragedy she will make her first excursion into the leafy and beckoning depths of Henrik Ibsen, she had just completed an extraordinary season. With her repertory of three fine plays, her company of sixty persons—to say nothing of Flush [her cocker spaniel]—and her special car presided over by the only bearded porter in the entire personnel of the Pullman Company, that season had taken her on a journey of more than sixteen thousand miles and had involved her appearance in more than seventy-four cities. From Waco, Texas, to Portland, Maine, from Tacoma, Washington, to Montgomery, Alabama, she had taken to the road with such plays as the Romeo and Juliet, of Shakespeare, the Candida, of Mr. Bernard Shaw, and—most popular item in her bag of tricks—The Barretts of Wimpole Street, by Mr. Rudolf Besier. She had taken along as fine a troupe as she could assemble, offering the country at large considerably better entertainment than had been offered it in twenty years. She had moved through sandstorms and blizzards and cloudbursts, and never failed to keep an engagement. She had come to towns where a large percentage of her eager audience had never seen a play before and were entirely unfamiliar with the idiom of the theater. She had opened up mildewed and cobwebby opera houses which had stood dark so long that the guy ropes broke as they swung the scenery into place, the only surviving stage hands were so ancient that their palsied hands faltered at their tasks, and outraged rats ran startled along the footlight troughs during the performance. She had, incidentally, played to such huge and enthusiastic audiences that, by her unprecedented venture, she came home with a very considerable fortune. ..."

This is what i could verify to date, but considering what numerous sources mention and what Woollcott states, there must have been many more places:
19331129 - 19331202 Erlanger Theatre, Buffalo, New York
19331225 - one week Metropolitan Theatre, Seattle, Washington
19340108 - two weeks Columbia Theatre, San Francisco, California
??? 193402?? Salt Lake City, Utah
19340219 - 19340220 Melba Theatre, Dallas, Texas
19340221 - one night Paramount Theatre, Austin, Texas
19340226 - one night Baylor University, Waco, Texas
19340300 Omaha, Nebraska
19340319 - one week American Theatre, St. Louis, Missouri
19340329 - 19340331 Indianapolis [FR1:43]
19340402 - one week Shubert Theatre, Cincinnati, Ohio
19340505 - one night McCarter Theatre, Princeton, New Jersey
19340510 - one night Strand Theatre, Ithaca, New York
19340511 - 19340512 Lyceum Theatre, Rochester (?), New York
19340604 - 19340605 Court Square Theatre, Springfield, Illinois
19340607 - three nights Boston Opera House, Boston, Massachusettes
19340618 - 19340620 Academy of Music, Brooklyn, New York
tour closed on 20.06.1934

I've tried to verify via all known usual sources and numerous playbills seen online etc. I will have to invest more time to compile and document the sources of the above in detail.

One special note about the Dallas engagement (19340219 - 19340220: Melba Theatre, Dallas, Texas):
I could verify this via this great source (Orson Welles In Dallas — 1934-1940 by Paula Bosse): http://flashbackdallas.com/2015/05/06/o ... s-1934-40/
The website chronicles more of OW's Dallas visits including a quite detailed account about the circumstances of OW's meeting with H.G Wells in 1940!

I would so much appreciate if anyone would be able to help extend the above list and have any sources of proof (to share).

[Jeff Wilson]

This Wikipedia page has some dates (with citations) that you don't have.

[RayKelly]

The June 4-5, 1934 performances took place in my hometown of Springfield, MASSACHUSETTS, not Illinois.
http://www.wellesnet.com/when-orson-wel ... e-cornell/
If you are interested, I have a PDF of a newspaper article announcing his role in the tour. It is very self-promoting and was obviously submitted by his camp to a wire service.

[DrG]

This Wikipedia page has some dates (with citations) that you don't have.

Thanks Jeff,
i had included those already from this great WIKI page, but in my original post i'm referring to the 1933-34 tour.
I guess the additional ones which you mean are from the 1934 Romeo and Juliet re-run at end 1934.

Thanks anyways, any comment is appreciated.

[DrG]

The June 4-5, 1934 performances took place in my hometown of Springfield, MASSACHUSETTS, not Illinois.
http://www.wellesnet.com/when-orson-wel ... e-cornell/
If you are interested, I have a PDF of a newspaper article announcing his role in the tour. It is very self-promoting and was obviously submitted by his camp to a wire service.

Thanks Ray, i'll take over your correction, and it will be included when i re-post an updated refresh (incl. the proper references etc.)

I would love to receive the PDF you mention, which IS my reference for the Springfield piece, which i found on your Wellesnet post. But the full PDF would be great to see!
Thanks.

[Jesse Reiswig]

Dear DrG et al.,

I found your post recently and got excited about researching this tour, so over the last week I've been doing a lot of research through newspapers.com, tracking tour dates as best as could be done. Combining this with a basic itinerary outlined in Patrick McGilligan's Young Orson, I've been able to track down most of the dates through New Year's 1934 and will continue working on it. I will post what I have so far soon.

Jesse

[Jesse Reiswig]

Here's what I have so far. Sources appear in brackets after the text. As I mentioned, I've only thoroughly researched through around New Year's 1934 so far, but will continue to fill in more info. and primary sources as I get to it and will post an updated version at some point. Apologies if this is not the easiest to read in terms of formatting.



9/25/33--The Chicago Tribune has an article announcing Welles’s joining of the Cornell repertory tour. [Chicago Tribune, 9/25/33, p. 15]

10/30/33--Rehearsals begin in New York on Romeo and Juliet, The Barretts of Wimpole Street and Candida. [Brooklyn Daily Eagle, 10/30/33, p. 11] The Woodstock Daily Sentinel notes that Welles took speech lessons in New York with a Miss Carrington. [Woodstock Daily Sentinel, 11/28/33, p. 2]

11/25/33--The Katharine Cornell tour is scheduled to leave New York City for Buffalo for final dress rehearsals of Romeo and Juliet and its first performances. [Brooklyn Citizen, 11/22/33, p. 14]

11/29/33--Opening night of the Katharine Cornell tour, at the Erlanger Theatre in Buffalo, a performance of Romeo and Juliet. Dr. Bernstein is at opening night. [Young Orson, 264]

12/2/33--First performance of The Barretts of Wimpole Street on the Cornell tour, in Buffalo. [Young Orson, 264]

12/4/33--The Cornell company opens a week’s engagement at the Davidson Theatre in Milwaukee [Woodstock Daily Sentinel, 11/28/33, p. 2, Kenosha News, 12/4/33, p. 7]

12/11–12/12/33--The tour performs Barretts at the Parkway Theatre in Madison, WI [The Capital Times, Madison, 12/10/33, p. 15, The Capital Times, 12/12/33, p. 7, Young Orson, 265]

12/13/33--The tour goes to the Metropolitan theater in Minneapolis, where it plays through the 16th, opening with Barretts on the 13th. The first performance of Romeo there is on the 15th and the Cornell troupe spends most of its spare time rehearsing Candida for its first performance on the 30th in Seattle (Cornell herself takes charge of the rehearsals at this point, as McClintic has not yet joined the tour). [Minneapolis Star Tribune, 12/14/33, p. 4, Minneapolis Star, 12/16/33, p. 4, Minneapolis Star, 12/23/33, p. 20, Spokesman-Review of Spokane, Washington, 12/31/33, p. 22, Young Orson, 265]

12/18/33--At a performance in St. Paul, a bat gets into the theater during the last scene of Barretts. [Minneapolis Star, 12/23/33, p. 20]

Third week of Dec. 1933--After Minneapolis, the tour goes to St. Paul and Duluth for shorter stints, arriving at Duluth the week before Christmas. It is also around this time, about a week before the premiere in Seattle on the 30th, that McClintic joins up with the tour. [Minneapolis Star, 12/23/33, p. 20, Young Orson, 265]

12/24/33--Fairly in-depth article on Orson appears in the Chicago Tribune, “Wonder Boy of Acting. [Chicago Tribune, 12/24/33, p. 53 (part 7, p. 3)]

12/25/33--A week’s engagement of the tour at Metropolitan Theatre in Seattle begins. They open with The Barretts of Wimpole Street in the evening on Christmas Day. Due to train delays (they are delayed by floods and mudslides in the vicinity of Butte, Montana), they don’t arrive in Seattle until around 10:30, more than two hours past the scheduled curtain time, to find out that a sold-out audience is still waiting for them. At 10:40, the management was able to inform the theatregoers that the troupe had arrived and that, if they were willing to wait until 1:00, Barretts would be performed. The performance finally started at 1:04 AM and ended at 3:48 AM. (Some sources say the performance started at 11:45--my bet is that this is the time they began installing the set on the stage, which Cornell allowed to be viewed by the audience, with curtain going up on the performance itself at 1:04.) [Detroit Free Press, 12/27/33, p. 1, Minneapolis Star, 12/30/33, p. 4, San Francisco Examiner, 12/27/33, p. 13, Chicago Tribune, 12/30/33, p. 9, Detroit Free Press, 12/31/33, p. 21, https://wellesnet.com/phpbb2/viewtopic.php?f=13&t=2729 and Young Orson, 266]

12/30/33--The debut performance of Candida on the tour, in Seattle [Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, 12/27/33, p. 9, Los Angeles Daily News, 12/29/33, p. 11]

c. 1/1/34--After the Seattle engagement, the tour plays 5 days in Portland. [San Francisco Examiner, 12/27/33, p. 13]

1/8/34--The Cornell tour opens with Romeo at Erlanger’s Columbia Theatre in San Francisco [Oakland per Young Orson, 266, which is incorrect] and plays there through the 20th [San Francisco Examiner, 12/28/33, p. 11, Oakland Tribune, Oakland, CA, 12/21/33, p. 12, San Francisco Examiner, 12/31/33, p. 20 and per Columbia Theatre playbill found at https://www.amazon.com/WELLES-Katharine ... B010C7QSEW and per https://wellesnet.com/phpbb2/viewtopic.php?f=13&t=2729]

c. 1/22/34--After San Francisco, the tour goes to the Biltmore Theatre in Los Angeles, where it stays for two weeks. At the end of the LA stint, there is a car crash involving some of the younger members of the company, sending several to the hospital. [Young Orson, 266–267]

2/5–2/6/34--After the San Francisco and Los Angeles engagements, the Cornell Tour is booked to play three performances (one of each play) over these two days at the Auditorium Theater in Oakland, CA. [Oakland Tribune, 12/29/33, p. 13]

First–second week of Feb. 1934--After LA, the tour loops through the mountain states, to Salt Lake City and then through Colorado and on to Texas. [Oakland Tribune, 12/29/33, p. 13, Young Orson, 270]

2/19–2/20/34--The Cornell tour plays at the Melba Theatre in Dallas [https://wellesnet.com/phpbb2/viewtopic.php?f=13&t=2729]

2/21/34--One-nighter at the Paramount Theatre in Austin [https://wellesnet.com/phpbb2/viewtopic.php?f=13&t=2729]

2/26/34--One-nighter at Baylor University in Waco, TX. However, the tour may have originally been scheduled to appear at the Majestic Theatre in Fort Worth on this night. [https://wellesnet.com/phpbb2/viewtopic.php?f=13&t=2729, Fort Worth Star-Telegram, 12/17/33, p. 14]

c. end of Feb.–early March--the tour is in Oklahoma [Young Orson, 270]

c. first week of March 1934--After Oklahoma, the tour is in Kansas [Young Orson, 270]

c. second week of March 1934--After Kansas, the tour is in Nebraska [Young Orson, 270]

3/10/34--The tour is scheduled to play at the Shrine auditorium in Des Moines, Iowa, performing Barretts [Des Moines Tribune, 12/15/33, p. 1]

Sometime in March--the tour is scheduled to be in Sioux Falls, South Dakota [Argus-Leader of Sioux Falls, South Dakota, 12/31/33, p. 3]

3/19/34--The tour begins a one-week engagement at the American Theatre in St. Louis [https://wellesnet.com/phpbb2/viewtopic.php?f=13&t=2729]

3/29–3/31/34--The tour is engaged at English’s theatre in Indianapolis [Indianapolis Star, 12/2/33, p. 11, https://wellesnet.com/phpbb2/viewtopic.php?f=13&t=2729]

4/2/34--The tour begins a one-week engagement at the Shubert Theatre in Cincinnati. It is at this point that McClintic rejoins the tour and he and Cornell decide to retire Romeo and Juliet, not open it on Broadway in the first half of the year and rework it for the fall. Shortly after this, now knowing he will not be spending the summer on Broadway, Orson reaches out to Roger Hill and tries to convince him to organize a summer theater operation using Todd School facilities. [Young Orson, 272 and https://wellesnet.com/phpbb2/viewtopic.php?f=13&t=2729]

April 1934--the tour is in the Deep South. Specifically, the next stop after Cincinnati may have been Louisville. Sounds like Charleston and New Orleans were also on the itinerary. In New Orleans one night, according to Brenda Forbes in her 1994 autobiography Five Minutes, Miss Forbes, Orson drunkenly comes back to where they are staying and “plunks himself down on top of me.” [Young Orson, 270]

Late April 1934--the tour heads to the Northeast [Young Orson, 270]

5/5/34--The tour does a one-nighter at the McCarter Theatre in Princeton, NJ [https://wellesnet.com/phpbb2/viewtopic.php?f=13&t=2729]

5/10/34—One-nighter at the Strand Theatre in Ithaca, NY [https://wellesnet.com/phpbb2/viewtopic.php?f=13&t=2729]

5/11–5/12/34--The tour is at the Lyceum Theatre, possibly in Rochester, NY [https://wellesnet.com/phpbb2/viewtopic.php?f=13&t=2729]

6/4–6/5/34--The Cornell tour stops at the Court Square Theatre in Springfield, MA. By this point, Romeo and Juliet has been dropped from the tour and Springfield was the last stop for Candida. After this point, only The Barretts of Wimpole Street continued. [https://www.wellesnet.com/when-orson-welles-came-to-town-recalling-his-tour-with-katharine-cornell/]

6/7-6/8/34--The tour begins a three-night stint at the Boston Opera House in Boston [https://wellesnet.com/phpbb2/viewtopic.php?f=13&t=2729]

6/18-6/20--In the final stop of the tour, the Cornell company plays at the Academy of Music in Brooklyn [https://wellesnet.com/phpbb2/viewtopic.php?f=13&t=2729]