Wallace Bruce Amsbary and the Wagner Ladies Quartette

              1902

WALLACE BRUCE AMSBARY


 1902
HOLLISTER CHICAGO

Here comes the bearer of a story—accompanied by a quartette of beautiful voices


Wallace Bruce Amsbary
AND THE
Wagner Ladies Quartette
Exclusive Management
Slayton Lyceum Bureau


H. L. SLAYTON, President
CHAS. L. WAGNER, Secretary
WENDELL SLAYTON, Treasurer

STEINWAY HALL, CHICAGO


Miss Nelle Porter



Miss Bess Blackburn



Miss Lulu Johnson



Miss Helen Tinker





AN EVENING OF SONG AND STORY
SUCH an evening is frequently advertised, and seldom successfully given.  In presenting Mr. Wallace Bruce Amsbary and the Wagner Ladies Quartette, the Slayton Bureau feels they are offering one of the most delightful combinations ever on the Lyceum platform.  Either would be an attraction worthy of a place on any course.  The combination really makes a double number.  Mr. Amsbary comes to you as the delightful bearer of a story, and holds a unique place among entertainers.  He excels in the poetry and romance which is found among the simpler folk, living plain honest lives away from the madding crowd.  In the interpretation of the more homely phases of life and literature, which hitherto have been left unsung, he stands absolutely alone.  He always pleases, he always satisfies for the time and always gets a return date.

The Wagner Ladies are not new to the platform.  They organized some four years ago, took the name of the great composer, Richard Wagner, and have not changed a member since the start.  This alone promises success, for harmony is the success of every quartette, and that can only be secured by constant rehearsal of the same voices.  The company consists of Miss Nelle Porter, first soprano, Miss Bess Blackburn, second soprano, Miss Lulu Johnson, first alto, and Miss Helen Tinker, second alto.  Their long southern trip the past season was one continued round of musical success, and a part of their season will again be devoted to the southland.

The program given by Mr. Amsbary and the Wagner Ladies will be new, novel and varied.  They will leave the old beaten path of the quartette-reader combination, and introduce some work so beautiful and original as to appeal to every audience.  Mr. Amsbary will also read some of his verse, which has appeared so successfully the past year in The Century.



PRESS AND PERSONAL ENCOMIUMS

Danville (Ill.) News
—Last year Mr. Wallace Bruce Amsbary endeared himself to all who heard him; he is a reader of exceptional merit; all who hear him are well pleased and many are delighted.  His manner is so natural that whatever his subject it seems to be original and spontaneous—impromptu; in his mouth old pieces take on such new meaning that you hear them for the first time; at least a new interpretation for them.  This is real histrionic genius; it is the personal equation that gives perennial freshness to the best literature; it is the personal presence and manner that says so much more than the mere words of a writer can express.  We hope that there will be a good Chautauqua here next year and that Bruce Amsbary may be here with it, improved by time as much as he has been the past year.  All will give him a hearty welcome, and laugh and cry as he reads as they have done before.  Then his friends want the pleasure of meeting him personally, for he is as genial as talented.


Beardstown (Ill.) News
—Mr. Amsbary filled the next number and last night he essayed a new role, that of a monologist, and he did himself proud in his first effort.  During the half hour occupied in the delivery of the difficult though interesting story there was not a moment when the audience was not all attention.  The title of the story rendered was, He was a Bronson, a tale of one of the southern feuds, and was written especially for Mr. Amsbary by Opie Read.


Cumberland (Md.) Daily News
—The crowd was greatly pleased with Wallace Bruce Amsbary and encored both his humorous and serious work repeatedly.


The Binghamton (N. Y.) Republican
—The readings of Mr. Amsbary were especially good and his interpretation of the selections kept the audience in laughter.


Opie Read says:
Amsbary is a man with the soul of poetry—a veritist, and his work is a truth accented on the platform.


The Matinee Girl in New York Dramatic Mirror
—The Matinee Girl listened the other evening to Wallace Bruce Amsbary, who has deserted the role of actor for the platform.  Mr. Amsbary shows daring in selecting some of the less popular but not less interesting of authors.  And his readings take on a new charm from this.  The poem which he gives so well, Evolution, by Langdon Smith, a young journalist of New York, is a specimen of entertaining, amusing verse-writing that has the charm of music in its ringing rhythm as well as wit in its lines.  The Story of Passion, by Irving Batcheller who has recently won additional laurels by his famous Eben Holden, is one of Mr. Amsbary's readings, and once heard it can never be forgotten.  Neither of these have I ever heard given before, although the Chariot Race from Ben Hur, and other noisy elocutionary things equally well known have grown common and tiresome from constant repetition.  What a delightful prospect it would be to look forward to—an era in which our entertainers would really entertain!  And not only entertain, but teach!  If we could, for instance, have our Ibsen, Tolstoi and the German problem jugglers intelligently interpreted to us, what a different view it would give us of the situation.  As it is, too many of us, when we take up one of these authors, are literally up against it.  We need some prophet to do with these writers as Kaltenborn did with Wagner.  After all, the kindergarten system is the very essence of the science of education.


Bellville (Can.) Daily Ontario
—Mr. Wallace Bruce Amsbary is one of the best humorists that has ever visited the city.  He was recalled four times and each time responded in a gracious manner.


Aberdeen (S. D.) News
—Mr. Amsbary is the best reader that Aberdeen people have listened to in years.


Cleveland Press
—Wallace Bruce Amsbary, with his humorous dialect stories and poems, responded to repeated encores 




PRESS AND PERSONAL ENCOMIUMS

Miss Nelle Porter



Seattle (Wash.) Post-Intelligencer
—Mr. Amsbary, whose given names have a Scottish flavor, is an artist in French dialect work.  He recites his own poems, and his shoulders are as eloquent as those of any Gaston when he gets to going on one of his poems.  He is most dramatic and his rendition of the Mountain Drama was a really clever bit of work.  He is a finished elocutionist, and showed his versatility by drifting from home-made poems to descriptive work and winding up with French dialect sketches.  The audience liked his work so well that they kept calling him back as long as he would respond.


Fullerton Avenue Presbyterian Church, Chicago
—Wallace Bruce Amsbary gave a series of readings from the works of current authors at the Fullerton Avenue Presbyterian Church last evening to a large and critical audience.


Miss Bess Blackburn



Kenosha (Wis.) Evening News
—The entertainment by Wallace Bruce Amsbary proved one of the best numbers on the course, and a delightful surprise to most of the patrons, who were not aware of Mr. Amsbary's high ability.  As a humorist and comedian, Mr. Amsbary will rank with the best that have appeared in the Star course in a long time.  His rendering of The Turkey Bath, When Melindy Sings and the French dialect numbers were features of the program that took splendidly with the audience.  The concluding number, Knee Deep in June, by Riley, was a fine bit of acting and impersonation.  Mr. Amsbary is a versatile artist, his numbers included French dialect, negro, Irish, German and farmer sketches, and other specialties, in each of which he made splendid presentations.


Wallace Bruce Amsbary



Peoria (Ill.) Star
—Wallace Bruce Amsbary as an entertainer is superb.  His original and selected pieces rendered at the Y. M. C. A. auditorium last night were hugely enjoyed by a large audience.  Cable, Riley, Field and Dunbar were interpreted as they have never been before.  The lecturer's rendition of short poems in the French - Canadian dialect was inimitable.


The Utica (N. Y.) Press
—* * * Amsbary is nature itself, fitted and refined by careful study.  He is the very embodiment of reality in every selection he gives.


Oshkosh (Wis.) Times
—Mr. Amsbary was strong and dramatic as well as humorous and pathetic.  The opinion of the audience was that he is a very versatile man as well as a remarkable dialect interpreter.


Miss Helen Tinker



Tacoma (Wash.) Ledger
—Mr. Amsbary has made quite a hit in the newspapers and magazines with his poems in French dialect, and he recites them with the characteristic shrug and gesture that make the dialect doubly expressive.  In these he is decidedly funny, but he comes out strong in dramatic force in his narrative sketches.  The story of the Mountain Drama was told with fine elecutionary ability, holding the attention with an intense interest.


Abilene (Kan.) Daily Reflector
—Wallace Bruce Amsbary, the reader, brings to the platform something new in manner, and in variety of subject his work is wonderful; tears and laughter follow close upon each other.


Burlington (Vt.) Free Press
—Mr. Amsbary recited several laughable dialect stories, including some of his own composition.  These were well rendered and called forth much applause


Miss Lulu Johnson





WAGNER LADIES QUARTETTE

Houston (Tex.) Daily Post
—Every number on the program given by the Wagner Quartette at the Auditorium last night was encored—a compliment seldom received by any company.  The voices of the ladies blended beautifully, and the solo numbers were all most happily rendered and enthusiastically received.  It is rare that so thoroughly satisfactory a program is given to a Houston audience, and our musical people are to be congratulated on having an opportunity to hear them again tonight.


Galveston News
—The first entertainment of the series of seven of the lyceum course to be given at the Scottish Rite Cathedral this season took place last night and was a pronounced success, both in point of audience and as an entertainment.  The attraction of the evening was the Wagner Quartette, and it is fair to say that the efforts of the ladies were greatly appreciated.  Voices of greater range and more volume have often been heard in Galveston, and soloists have captivated audiences, but voices with sweeter melody which blended more perfectly are seldom heard than was the pleasure of many people to listen to last night.  Judging from the expressions given by the audience, Miss Helen Tinker, contralto, was the favorite of the evening, but other members of the quartette showed ability to sing, and received a fair portion of the applause.


Carlsbad (New Mex.) Argus
—The Wagner Ladies opened the lyceum course at the opera house Wednesday night, having a big audience in attendance.  The aggregation is by far the highest class in point of talent and training ever in Carlsbad.  The music was simply exquisite, each number on the program being encored once, and some twice, and it was the best pleased audience that ever filled the opera house.  This splendid attraction will give another performance tonight, stopping here on its way south.  It is safe to predict a crowded house for them.


Indianapolis Sentinel
—The Wagner Quartette captivated the audience.  These young ladies have well balanced voices and show much training.


Woodford County Republican
—The Wagner Ladies Quartette held forth at the Christian Church last night to a large and thoroughly appreciative audience, proof of appreciation being shown by the fact that every number was most heartily encored.  The young ladies composing the quartette have sweet, well trained voices and merited the hearty greeting accorded them.


Steubenville (Ohio) Herald Star
—The Wagner Quartette came in for a large share of the applause and generously responded to the demands of the audience.


Omaha (Neb.) World Herald
—Their voices are sweet, strong, and blend harmoniously, being heard in all parts of the big tent.


Madison (S. D.) Sentinel
—The Wagner Quartette is making a good impression on the assembly audiences.  The music is first class in melody and perfect in harmony, and the young ladies who compose the organization are so affable and obliging in their work that they have won great favor with the Chautauquans.


Galesburg (Ill.) Republican Register
—The spirit and manner of the Wagner Quartette was such as to bring them at once into warm sympathy with the audience.


Omaha Bee
—The Wagner Quartette, composed of young ladies, has added greatly to the pleasure and interest of the programs during the past week.  The blending of their voices is harmonious, their work is very artistic, and they have presented a pleasing number of songs, which have made for them many friends in Omaha.


Chicago Inter Ocean
—Just after noon today a pleasant diversion was occasioned at the National Headquarters of the National Teachers' Association at Milwaukee, Wis., by the singing of the Wagner Quartette.  They posted themselves on the second balcony in the rotunda and sang Illinois.  The crowd thickened, and at the conclusion of the song broke into loud applause.  Cries of Come down to the first balcony rose from the floor, amid the hand clapping.  The quartette again sang and responded to encores.


El Reno (Okla.) American
—Last night at the opera house occurred the second number in the lecture course of this city.  The house was packed. and the music furnished by the quartette of ladies was highly appreciated by the audience, if applause is a criterion to judge by.  The voices of all blended so well that that particular part of their music was very noticeable.  The rendition of the solos and duets was indeed very good, and deserved hearty applause, which they received.  El Reno is glad of the opportunity of hearing such musicians as we heard last night and fully appreciated the manner in which the entire program was rendered.


Beaver Falls (Pa.) Star
—The Wagner Quartette sang choice selections in a very enchanting manner.


Aberdeen (S. D.) Daily News
—The young ladies forming the Wagner Quartette, which has been one of the greatest attractions at Tacomah Park, are cultured musicians, and are possessed of fine voices.  Their singing has given great pleasure to Aberdeen people, and their charming personality has made many friends for them here.

Floyd J. Campbell, Secretary Musical Festival, Omaha, Neb.—It is with pleasure that we can say that the two days' engagement of the Wagner Quartette with us during our Musical Festival was so thoroughly appreciated that our committee has been upheld from every source for inducing them to stay the balance of the week, during which time our audiences were indicative of the public's good impression.


Monmouth (Ill.) Daily Review
—There is no doubt of the Wagner Quartette's ability to entertain.  As individuals they have splendid voices, which have been well trained.  These voices blend in pleasing harmony, and they will please the most critical audiences.


Cannonsburg (Pa.) Daily Notes
—The singing of the quartette could not be improved upon.


Omaha (Neb.) World Herald
—The Quartette made their second appearance, and, with their beautiful and sympathetic ensemble work, won enthusiastic and prolonged applause.  It is very evident that they have become great favorites from the warm reception given them.


Springfield (Ill.) Daily State Register
—So acceptably did the Wagner Quartette render their selections that the audience would not be satisfied without responses to the encores, and in one instance at least they were called back three times by the delighted listeners.


Omaha Bee
—The management has re-engaged the Wagner Quartette, which made such a splendid hit Monday night, and the four young women will sing at every matinee this week.


Pittsburg (Pa.) Dispatch
—The singing by the Wagner Quartette was delightful.


Cambridge (Ohio) Times
—The Wagner Quartette are beautiful singers.

HOLLISTER BROTHERS
HB
PRINTERS ENGRAWERS
CHICAGO