Ralph Dunbar Attractions

              RALPH DUNBAR ATTRACTIONS



Available for Chautauquas of 1926 and Lyceum Season of 1926-27





Foreword



THE submitting of this list of attractions and suggestions means I shall again produce Lyceum and Chautauqua companies.  I have contributed a number of successful combinations during the past—perhaps my experience in the production of grand and comic opera, musical comedy and vaudeville during the past years will assist me now in creating some new and progressive ideas for the Chautauqua—at least I shall make a heroic effort in that direction with these attractions, which will be produced at Chicago.




Respectfully submitted. RALPH M. DUNBAR 802 Palace Theater Building
Forty-seventh and Broadway New York City






Dunbar's Pierrettes and Pierrots

FEATURE KEITH AND ORPHEUM ACT FOR PAST YEAR



Five people—a mixed quartet and pianist, three girls and two men.  All sing—all ring bells.  Novelty costumes.  Program to match.  Everything from grand opera to high class vaudeville, with real bell ringing thrown in.





Dunbar's Singing Bell Ringers

NOW PLAYING SWARTHMORE CHAUTAUQUA CIRCUIT



Same kind of organization as 
Pierrettes and Pierrots,
 giving same programs in same Dunbar way—bells and all.  Five people—Three girls; two men.





Dunbar's Broadway Choir

FEATURE KEITH AND ORPHEUM ACT FOR PAST TWO SEASONS



Soprano, contralto, tenor and bass soloists.  Two trumpeters and trombone soloists forming brass trio, also a pianist.  All sing.  A program of light opera and musical comedy song hits and character numbers, with various changes of costume.  Eight people—Six girls and two men.





Dunbar's Nightingales



Owing to extreme popularity of the 
Broadway Choir,
 it was necessary to reproduce the act to supply the booking demand the past season; hence the 
Nightingales
—Six girls; two men.  All singers; several also play brass.  Costume changes, character songs and bits; all dance a little; a combination of real merit, good looks and lots of pep.





The Schubert Octette

AND JOSEPH MENDELSSOHN  



Soprano, contralto, tenor, baritone, violinist, 'cellist, flutist, pianist and an actor impersonating Franz Schubert.  An all-star artists' company of nine, featuring Franz Schubert's music and closing with a musical and dramatic sketch by Ralph Dunbar entitled, 
The Return of the Master
—in which the ensemble, costumes and scenery are of the Schubert period, and the 
shade
 of the great master appears in a most interesting and effective manner, finishing with a great dramatic climax.




A GREAT ATTRACTION






The Choir Invisible

In Conjunction With a Metropolitan Film Presentation of 
FROM THE MANGER TO THE CROSS



A mixed band of eight schooled singers, each of whom is also an experienced performer upon an orchestral instrument.  After an artistic and appropriate 
Prologue,
 with special scenery, costumes and such light effects as might be expected in a city picture theater, the company leaves the platform and from the pit delivers Mr. Ralph Dunbar's own personally arranged accompaniment, consisting of Orchestral Themes—Cantilation—Vocal Solos—Duets and Choruses to this wonderful film picturing the life of 
Jesus of Nazareth.




This splendid, modern film should not be confused with the old 
Passion Play
 film.




Nine people, including operator.  Production rights must be secured from Vitagraph Co.





Dunbar's Opera Follies



An Operatic Revue, in which are introduced 
to each other
 famous characters from the best known comic and grand operas, with appropriate dialogue, costumes, scenery, etc., forming unique situations, together with the introduction of favorite themes from the various works represented.




There is no field in which the step from the sublime to the ridiculous is so short as in grand opera, which step will be taken a sufficient number of times during the program to provide an adequate supply of merriment.  As to the serious part of the program—that's easy, with eight big operatic voices and performers who can act.




Dunbar's Opera Follies
 toured the Mississippi Valley two seasons ago and this Chautauqua ensemble is a condensed version of that famous and most successful production.




Ten people—Double mixed quartet of real opera singers, a pianist conductor and electrician.






Dunbar's Famous White Hussars



The Original Singing Band—The Standard Band of the Chautauqua for a generation.  Time and circumstance have influenced their instrumentation and programs somewhat.  Banjos, Saxophones and the Spirit of Classic Jazz are somewhat dominant in their 
Hussaring
 now, but this is 1925—the Spirit of Irving Berlin has chased the shades of the old masters from even the center poles of the Chautauqua tent, the old folks have fallen for it, the young folks demand it, the 
Hussars
 must be up to date, so 
What'll They Do
 if they don't give the public what they want?




A singing band of nine young men, who sing and play and entertain in the genuine 
Dunbar Way,
 with several changes of costume.




Every vaudeville theater in the United States and every Chautauqua of importance has played the 
Hussars
—some of them several times.  Maybe they would be welcomed on a return date about now?  Think it over, Mr. Chautauqua Manager.  
Dunbar's Hussars!
  Sure Fire Yesterday!  Today!  and Forever
!





Dunbar's Mississippi Misses

AND CHARLES FRINK



A Keith and Orpheum feature act for a number of seasons, played one season at independent Chautauquas, two and three days in a place, as well as several Chautauqua circuits.  A quartet of beautiful Southern girls who sing and entertain with Charles Frink, a good looking young juvenile, the peer of American Banjoists, also a Raconteur—




Come gather round me girlies


And with music let's be gay—


You sing the old-time melodies


While I the banjo play,


Recalling happy memories


Of a land of Yesterday.




Mr. Frink, a student for many years of Chicago Art Institute, adds variety and contrast to the program with artistic paintings in oil, and also leads the young ladies in various character stunts and popular songs of the hour.




The 
Mississippi Misses
 do not wear the old-fashioned hoop skirts all through their program, but appear in several other costumes right up to the minute.  They can delve into the classics or draw on their vaudeville repertoire just as heavily as may be desired.




Five people—That's all, and that's a plenty of their kind.  Only one 
Mississippi Misses
 Company—no chance of duplicating either the girls or Frink.  I tried it once—I'm wiser now.






Going Up

A Farce Comedy With Music by OTTO HARBACH AND LOUIS A. HIRSH



Would be a fine farce comedy without the musical interpolations and 
with
 the splendid song hits such as 
Going Up,

If You Look in Her Eyes,

Kiss Me,

The Touch of a Woman's Hand,

I Want a Boy With a Strong, Strong Will,

Everybody Ought to Know How to Do the Tickle Toe,
 etc., it provides a wonderful evening's entertainment.




The plot concerns the difficult situations and perplexities of an author who has never been in an aeroplane, but who has written a book on aviation in which he describes the sensations of flying.




The scene is a summer hotel with the usual summer hotel characters and guests, who have read the author's book and who, when a real, honest-to-goodness French aviator arrives on the scene with two real flying machines, insist on a race in the air between the Frenchman and the author.  A bountiful supply of comedy is inevitable from such a ludicrous situation.  It is 
Genuine Humor!
  And the intensity of the last scene (during the race when the planes are in the air) is developed to a most exciting stage.  Of course there is a romance—two of them, in fact, which add to the heart interest of the piece.




Fifteen actors can deliver 
Going Up
 most effectively on the Chautauqua platform.  Piano accompaniment is ample.




A practical areoplane could be utilized and might also be employed as an advertising medium by flying from town to town, distributing advertising matter, etc.




I have produced 
Going Up
 repeatedly during the past three years and believe several performers from the original New York production might be secured reasonably to play important roles on a Chautauqua tour.




Production rights on 
Going Up
 must be secured from Witmark-Tams Music Library, Inc., 318-320 West Forty-sixth Street, New York City.






Sweethearts

A Modern Comic Opera in Two Acts, by VICTOR HERBERT AND HARRY B. SMITH



The music is Victor Herbert at his very best, the comedy excruciatingly funny, the costumes most picturesque, including soldier uniforms, Dutch suits, hunting suits and full dress for the men and for the girls, Dutch costumes, afternoon frocks and evening gowns.




The comedy characters include a modern nut comedian, an eccentric Englishman, a Dutchman and a Frenchman.  Among the female characters we have a petite, vivacious French milliner, a character woman who, after being a laundress all her life attempts to break into aristocratic society, and the heroine, an adorable ingenue, who rises from the position of a laundry girl to that of a princess and marries the Prince Charming.




Among the song hits are:  
The Magic of a Smile,
 
Jeannette and Her Wooden Shoes,
 
Mother Goose,
 
The Angelus,
 
Cricket on the Hearth,
 etc., the finales rising to grand opera heights.




I have produced this comic opera with six different casts, all made up of New York actors, and the interpretation I give the work is a culmination of these experiences, including the most effective bits of action and interpolated dialogue these six casts have introduced.




For opening eight and ten weeks' seasons of repertoire at such towns as Grand Rapids, Louisville, Cincinnati and Oklahoma City, I have invariably chosen 
Sweethearts.
  It is outliving all of Victor Herbert's other works and if put on with good people and by a producer thoroughly familiar with its finer points, it will prove as great a success as 
Robin Hood,
 
The Mikado
 or 
The Chocolate Soldier,
 and 
Sweethearts
 can be produced effectively for the Chautauqua platform with fifteen performers.  A cast of nine—four chorus girls and two chorus men.  An orchestra would of course add, but 
Sweethearts
 would be effective with only piano accompaniment and I doubt if many in the audience would feel the absence of the other instruments.




The Dutch atmosphere and scenic effect need not be confined to the stage, but can be carried entirely across the end of the tent with a display of windmills—panorama and set pieces, suggesting tulip fields, canals, etc., upon which special light effects can play during entire performance.




There Is Only One 
Sweethearts!




Production rights on 
Sweethearts
 must be secured from Witmark-Tams Music Library, Inc., 318-320 West Forty-sixth Street, New York City.






The Music Shop

A ONE-ACT CHAUTAUQUA MUSICAL COMEDY BY RALPH DUNBAR



Scene—A music shop.  Double doors center at back with transparent show windows on each side of same, containing various musical instruments.  On stage right is a counter behind which is seen a wall case with boxes for music labeled Beethoven, Wagner, Verdi, Schubert, Liszt, etc., above which in frames are hung pictures of the old masters.




On stage left is a piano and a large stand displaying title pages of the popular songs and jazz music of the hour.  Other various instruments about, phonograph, records, etc., to create the usual atmosphere of a music store.




CAST OF CHARACTERS



Karl Schmidt
—Proprietor of shop.  Music master of the old school and father of Annamerle.  A white-haired old man, lovable, but a hater of jazz music.


Aunt Sophia
—Housekeeper for Karl.  A sentimental spinster of uncertain vintage whose hobby is her belief in reincarnation.


Annamerle
—A modern flapper who plays and sells the popular music in her father's store and a hater of classic music.


Jack Middleton
—A leader of a jazz band and in love with Annamerle.


Hulda
—An eccentric maid-of-all-work, with a passion for detective stories and the stage.


Silas Slick
—A traveling salesman.


Florence Nightingale
—An operatic prima donna.


The Musical Browns
—A musical act of two juveniles who perform on all sorts of novelty instruments.


Time
—The present.  
Place
—New Rochelle, N. Y.





A personnel of nine experienced actors, singers, instrumentalists and a dancer or two, each presenting a high class individual specialty in this vehicle containing the usual amount of Chautauqua program material, both serious and humorous, and appropriately introduced in the atmosphere of a delightful Musical Comedy with a real plot and various changes of costumes, unique light effects, etc.  Length of performance, one hour and thirty minutes.




As the various Chautauqua productions of farce comedies have proven so popular with Chautauqua audiences, is it not high time that more musical attractions on the Chautauqua circuits embody their offerings in play formation?  I think so, and believe 
The Music Shop
 a splendid effort in that direction, designed strictly for the Chautauqua platform and Chautauqua audiences.






NEGRO COMPANIES



The Epic of the Negro


 By DUNBAR'S DIXIE CHORUS


SCENES—The Primitive Negro in Africa.


The Negro of the Alabama Cotton Fields.


The Negro of the Ante-Bellum Prayer Meeting.


The Negro of Today.



This unusual production has appeared with great success on many of the oldest Chautauqua and Lyceum platforms, including appearances at several of the larger universities.




Ten people.  Double mixed quartet; pianist director and electrician.  Special scenery and costumes.





Dunbar's Tennessee Ten



In Keith vaudeville, the colored sensation of a decade!  A jazz band in character 
make-up,
 with special scenery, a number of comedians, several solo voices, and choral effects ranging from the 
Wail of the Plantation
 to Broadway's latest syncopation.




Four girls; six men.






Revivals



DUNBAR'S CATHEDRAL CHOIR




Double Mixed Quartet and Pianist The Original!




THE DUNBAR SINGING ORCHESTRA




Six Pretty Girls—All Sing—All Play—Costume Changes Hard to Beat!