Frances Homer: brings you the theatre

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FRANCES HOMER BRINGS YOU THE THEATRE



WILLIAM B. FEAKINS, Inc.
500 Fifth Avenue New York
1200 Taylor Street San Francisco




FRANCES HOMER
 has been in the theatre since she was fifteen.  She served a substantial apprenticeship in that fast disappearing University of Drama, the stock company.  She appeared in Shakespearian Repertoire and plays by Tarkington and O'Neill.  Her acting has the rich background of this experience on the American stage.  Her writing, too, has maturity and substance, for only by sound literary craftsmanship could she have attained appearances in character sketches of her own writing at such organizations as The League of Political Education, Town Hall, New York, and many of our outstanding universities and colleges.  Her varied repertoire is both modern and historical.  Her programs include 
MODERN VIGNETTES
 ... 
LADIES OF DESTINY
 ... 
JOAN OF ARC.



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Miss Homer as premiere danseuse from 
Farewell Performance




MODERN VIGNETTES.
  Frances Homer first won her national reputation as a diseuse, presenting a group of character sketches of her own writing.  These were not the usual character sketches of incident or fragmentary plot.  These character sketches had a beginning, a middle, and an end.  They told a complete story.  In short, they were substantial playwriting translated into the monologue so deftly that none of the dramatic action or effect was lost.  Frances Homer sent her audiences away with the feeling they had actually been to the theatre!  This first program included 
The Wedding,
 
Madonna,
 
Sunday School,
 and 
Mayflower
 and these sketches portrayed not only the amusing foibles and characteristics of our contemporaries but touched also on the actuating desires and philosophies of their lives.




Miss Homer is now offering a new program of these character sketches, entitled 
Modern Vignettes.
  It includes 
The King and the Lady,
 the scene being laid in an English country home the day after the abdication, December, 1936.  This sketch unfolds what this household thought about the great event and how their individual lives were affected by it.  The characters portrayed are a sportswoman, a matron, a governess, and a parlor maid.  We Americans read avidly about this king who gave up his throne for a lady ... this discloses what his people thought about it.




Farewell Performance
 is also a featured sketch in this new program, and all five of its scenes are laid in a New York theatre during a performance of the Russian Ballet.  There is a stenographer in line at the box office, a matron arriving at her orchestra seat, a debutante during the intermission, the star of the ballet in her dressing room back stage, and finally a dowager collecting her galoshes during the exit march.  These characters are all woven together in a tremendously dramatic story.




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Out of the Pages of History Frances Homer Brings Her Ladies of Destiny



This is a program of historical characters that explain not only their times but the women in all times.  The past, after all, is only the present in masquerade, and what happened once can and does happen again.  The program presents Queen Isabella of Spain commissioning Columbus; Nell Gwynn cajoling Charles II into the donation of the first hospital for War Veterans; the inside story of how Josephine really managed Napoleon; Lady Emma Hamilton defying convention in her love for Lord Nelson; a certain Dark Lady of Elizabeth's court inspiring the pen of one William Shakespeare.  Ladies of Destiny since they influenced men and the very future of the world!  The success of this program everywhere is due not only to the historic accuracy with which the characters are drawn but also to the examples of human relationships the lives of these characters illustrate.  In fact, this program of glamorous ladies has been so popular that Miss Homer will present a second series.





COMMENTS



The Ladies were marvelous!  Miss Homer made the characters live before our eyes in all their differences of voice, dress, manner and outlook on life.
—
Montreal Women's Club.




In magic fashion she flashed the souls of the women behind historic men.  Miss Homer enthralled her audience.
—
Canada's Bridle and Golfer.




The Junior League enjoyed Miss Homer tremendously and gave her a great ovation.  Her program was considered just the right kind of entertainment for our large dinner.
—
St. Paul, Minn.
 (The occasion was a National Junior League conference.)




Miss Homer's dramatic sketches, written by herself, are bits of life glimpsed through her acute observation.  Each a dramatic whole, a complete playlet, without scenery but given in the true atmosphere of the theatre.—


Washington (D.C.) Times.




Miss Homer is a worthy competitor in the field controlled by Ruth Draper and Cornelia Otis Skinner.—


Philadelphia Evening Ledger.




We are very grateful for a remarkable performance.  It is not often we find combined in one personality a presence so gracious, an intelligence so high and a creative force so original.
—
American Woman's Club, Paris, France.




Frances Homer was more than I had hoped for, and you know that was considerable.  She is a much more mature artist than Cornelia Otis Skinner and has a charm Draper never had.
—
Toledo Town Hall Series, Toledo, Ohio.



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JOAN OF ARC



On behalf of the Summer School of the University of Pennsylvania I want to thank you for the splendid presentation of JOAN OF ARC you gave last night before a large and appreciative audience.




—
George E. Nitzsche.




New York's Town Hall.  George V. Denny, Associate Director, says of it:  
Only words of praise have reached us following her appearance.  She is an excellent artist doing an extremely valuable piece of work.


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Her King
Figure

Joan
Figure

One of Her People



This is the first full-length play that has been presented by a single individual.  It is a cycle of eight character sketches, each a separate monologue, but each contributing to the progressive action of a legitimate drama with a complete pattern of ideas.  Joan is depicted in three stages of her career, as the Peasant with vision, as the Soldier with practical knowledge, and as the Captive with the courage of spiritual conviction.  In addition to Joan the cast includes the mother of Joan, who cannot understand her problem child; Charles VII, the weakling King, whom Joan crowned; a woman of Orleans, whose city Joan rescued from the siege; the Demoiselle of Luxemburg, who became Joan's champion during her captivity at Beaurevoire; the Priest who condemned Joan to death.  These characters stand in the foreground while about them are imagined ones that are equally vivid and equally contributive.  In short, the stirring narrative resurrects the France and England of the Fifteenth Century that were dominated by this girl who saw truth and translated it into epoch making events.

Superbly costumed after the Boutet de Monvel illustrations, Miss Homer appeared as eight characters depicting her three-act drama as vividly as a stage full of characters.  Ruth Draper and Cornelia Otis Skinner in their biggest moments have done nothing more colossal in concept or more brilliant in execution.


TORONTO STAR, TORONTO, CANADA.




Frances Homer clothes her characters and theme in the fundamental raiment of human emotions, on a bare stage and with no supporting cast, only costumes to lend her acting greater credence and yet, withal, the play is rich in feeling and the pertinent emotions.—


EVENING BULLETIN, PHILADELPHIA, PA.




ALLIED PRINTING TRADES UNION LABEL COUNCIL NEW YORK



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