Taggart and his fiddlers: the old country fiddler adds two and now it's "the fiddlers three"

              1928
The Lyceum Magazine
February, 1928


Taggart and His Fiddlers
The Old Country Fiddler Adds Two, and Now It's The Fiddlers Three

Every reader of this magazine knows Charles Ross Taggart.  For years he has been one of the popular Lyceum and Chautauqua entertainers.  Also he has gained wide repute through his Victor and Edison phonograph records and the DeForest phonofilms.  Everyone took it for granted that he was established for keeps as a solo entertainer.

And now his name appears on the new Redpath list as the head of a company—a company entitled Charles Ross Taggart and His Old-Time Country Fiddlers.

To Crawford A. Peffer, eastern manager of the Redpath Bureau, belongs the credit of the first idea of this organization.  Last spring he wrote to Mr. Taggart and asked the latter if he could include two more fiddlers in his entertainment to add to the jollity for the summer Chautauqua work.

Mr. Taggart organized the company, and it has met with extraordinary success.

Here is an entertainment that is entirely unique.  It is not like any you ever attended.  You hear the fiddlers in old-time jigs, reels and hornpipes, and jolly laugh follows jolly laugh all the time.  There is a wealth of eccentric comedy and uproarious fun.

These fiddler-comedians have a program that is decidedly different.  Besides Mr. Taggart, there are two other members of the company, Daniel Ross and Perley Klark.  Daniel Ross is a Scotchman, and he adds variety to the program by a Scotch fiddler act in costume.  Perley Klark is a Vermonter.  He is an orchestra leader of note, and Klark's Orchestra is known all over northern New England.  Mr. Klark fiddles and plays the piano.

Besides featuring with the fiddle, Mr. Taggart introduces ventriloquial acts and also plays the fife and cornet.


CHARLES ROSS TAGGART





February, 1928



The Lyceum Magazine

Drinkwater's Abraham Lincoln
An Immediate Success,—Redpath Offering It a Second Season to Meet Overwhelming Demand of Committees

Abraham Lincoln, John Drinkwater's tremendous drama of the Great Emancipator, is again a feature attraction on the Redpath list.

First presented to Redpath audiences in the season 1927–28, it proved an immediate and overwhelming success.  Many committees spoke for it too late and were unable to obtain the company.  At the end of the season so many requests had come in that the Bureau decided to offer the play for a second season.

So the Redpath managers are offering Abraham Lincoln again—for the season 1928–29.  Early reports from the field show that it is as much in demand as ever.

Many people think that Abraham Lincoln is the most important drama written in our times, and that its author, John Drinkwater, will have a permanent place in English literature.  Arnold Bennett, the great English novelist, analyzed the success of the play in the following way: Why is 'Abraham Lincoln' a success?  Here are a few answers to this question: Because the author has a deep practical knowledge of the subject; because he had the wit to select for his hero one of the world's greatest and finest characters; because he had the audacity to select a gigantic theme, and to handle it with simplicity; because he had the courage of his artistic and moral convictions, and also because he has a genuine dramatic gift.

North and South have responded to the Redpath Abraham Lincoln with equal enthusiasm.

Says the Chattan actually see that famed American statesman, through faultless impersonation, was the special privilege of the many Oshkoshians who witnessed the play 'Abraham Lincoln' Friday evening at the new recreational auditorium.

The play, written by John Drinkwater, was described as being a production in which 'Abraham Lincoln lives again, and the epoch-making chapters of American history through which he moved are reenacted with tremendous and touching vitality.'  Those attending the production here Friday agreed the play did all that, and even more.  The applause following the dramatic moments of the play was prolonged.


A SCENE FROM ABRAHAM LINCOLN