Sunday Herald (Sydney, NSW : 1949 - 1953), Sunday 24 April 1949, page 10


I MUSICANOTHETHEATHE!

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"Rusty; Bugles"

Ran In

Two Cities

Cft/MiVER LOCKE-ELLIOTT'S contentious play ^ "Rusty Bugles" probably has the distinction of being the first Australian play to run in two

'Slates at the same time.

While one company was opening the show at the King's Theatre, Melbourne, another company was still playing at Killara as guests « of the Kuring-gai Theatre

Guild.

'"THE Melbourne company is

substantially the one seen in the original Sydney production at the Independent Theatre. The Killara group hopes to stick to-gether and take the show on another country tour in New

South Wales.

The Independent seems to have missed a trick or two in com-pleting arrangements for the Mel-

bourne season.

Instead of negotiating directly with Melbourne theatre principals, it gave the production to an inter-mediary, so that the actors in the show only get a proportion of the earnings they are quite capable of taking by themselves.

. ' . .

SOME of the principals agreed

to accept £10 a week, plus £4 a week expenses-not the most generous salaries we have heard of for members of a highly successful show-and some of the bit-part actors were told that they could be in the Melbourne show if they paid their own fares there and back. It's more profitable to swing a pick.

Negotiations have begun for

seasons in Hobart, Adelaide, and Perth, and there are hopes of a

New Zealand tour.

The players-several of whom have given up good radio con-tracts to stick with the showthink it may stay on the road for another couple of years.

In London, Australian actorproducer John Wood is investi-gating the possibilities of forming a company of Australian actors resident in London to put on "Rusty Bugles" there.

ELIZABETH SCHWARTZKOPF, famous operatic soprano, who will tour Aus-tralia for the A.B.C. later

this year.