Collegiate Alumnae

VOL. X - NO. I

SEPTEMBER, 1916

THE KANSAS CITY BRANCH AND HOW IT GREW

CARO C. T. MARTIN

Through its efforts to raise money the Kansas City Branch of the Association of Collegiate Alumnae has developed itself into a cohesive and effective working body. It may interest other branches to know how this came about.

For several seasons the management of lecture courses yielded a sufficient income. Later, plays were given, usually by the alumnae themselves, to afternoon audiences of women and girls. During these years the members of the branch learned the best methods of advertising and ticket selling, and established the habit of team play. When in the fall of 1913 it was proposed to give an elaborate Elizabethan festival in May, 1914, the Association had no other assets than the implicit confidence of the members in each other's ability to see a thing through, and an established reputation in the city for absolute business responsibility. Nevertheless committees went to work signing contracts with dramatic and music directors, costumers, and electric light firms, untroubled by an empty treasury; and on the afternoon and evening of the 16th of May, an Elizabethan fête involving over four hundred women and children. was given to a total audience of between four and five thousand.

To the music of the Pevensey Pageant, Queen Elizabeth and her court swept down a wooded hill and mounted the royal dais, the King and Queen of the May and swarms of children as May pole dancers and fairies made obeisance before the queen, followed by groups of historical and mythical characters, milkmaids and townspeople, shepherds and shepherdesses, mimes and mummers, and the participants in the two masques and in the play, who wound down the hill and across the stage in an unbroken stream of color and came to rest in a huge semicircle facing the audience.

From the gay May pole dance, through the flowerlike lightness of the dances of Chloridia and the swagger of Robin Hood

I

and his merrymen, to the almost religious dignity of Calidore, the effect was one of varied and harmonious beauty. Much of this beauty was due to the loveliness of the setting, a garden occupying an entire city block; to the genius of the dramatic coach in bringing out the latent ability of amateurs; to the exquisite taste and wide learning of our music director; to the kindness of a distinguished English sculptor, then visiting an alumna, who designed the costumes and supervised the dyeing and making; to the groups of outside women and girls who took part.

Yet while due credit must be given to this outside assistance, the ability to organize resources and the remarkable range of talent displayed by the alumnae must not be lost sight of. One adapted Chloridia from Ben Jonson and with the assistance of a professional, organized and trained eighty girls from the four different high schools who took part; another wrote the Calidore, which was the exclusive work of the private school from which she had graduated, and was directed and costumed by the principals, and danced by the pupils and alumnae of the school; a third arranged the Robin Hood play from Howard Pyle and took charge of rehearsals under the dramatic director.

The Association was greatly enriched by this demonstration of the ability and resourcefulness of its members; the membership grew by leaps and bounds during the five months of preparation; the attendance at the meetings was phenomenal; friendships were formed in committees and at rehearsals of incalculable benefit to the lonely. As a direct result of this general enlightenment, in the fall of the following year, the Vocational Bureau was established and conducted by the volunteer service of women who had learned to work together for the May fête.

Evidence that the city at large was alive to the importance of the occasion was given in the fall of 1915, when the local Drama League, feeling too weak to undertake the leadership of an adequate Shakespearean celebration, asked the Association to do so. Much time was spent in correspondence with Margaret Anglin and the management of the Mackaye masque in the endeavor to bring either the As You Like It or the Caliban to Kansas City. But neither could be secured early enough in the summer to escape the intense heat and for that reason both plans were abandoned. Under these circumstances, it was decided to give an out of door performance of the Tempest with a setting of old English dances. It was also decided to use only women and girls in the production. The same methods of organization were employed that gave

success to the pageant. Committees were appointed, the chairmen forming a central board, which by frequent meetings and constant telephone discussions kept all parts of the work together. This board engaged the dramatic coach who had directed the pageant and with him chose the principal actors and held tryouts open to all members of the Association. From these tryouts three of the principal actors were secured; and in accordance with its custom to borrow talent whenever necessary, the Association asked three clever actors to participate. Telephone and correspondence committees combed the Association, getting from each member an expression of preference for the part she wished to take or the work she wished to do, and asked each one for information about the gifts of those too modest to describe themselves.

This work made everyone realize that she was necessary to the success of the celebration, and further discovered a talented costumer in a teacher of Latin; and, in a member who had just joined the Branch, a most successful instructor of dancing, who had worked with Cecil Sharpe in New York the previous year, and who trained the Morris dances and, with the help of another alumna, composed and drilled the dances of the Masque of the fourth Act.

All alumnae who were willing to take part became Morris dancers, or heralds and Elizabethan ladies to serve as ushers; while children, girls, and young matrons from different social groups, and the juniors and seniors from a nearby high school were asked to take part in the Masque, in order to give as wide a community interest as possible to the production. Each unit was placed under a separate committee, which managed rehearsals, reported all difficulties to the central board, and all matters pertaining to costumes to the costume committee.

The selection and placing of the participants was done by the central board and was one of the most difficult of its labors. The execution of details was entrusted to separate committees whose work it may be profitable to describe somewhat fully.

The ticket committee grouped all the alumnae by colleges under captains, who telephoned constantly to their brigades to speed up the sale of tickets and made weekly reports to their chairmen. Four days before the first performance, tickets and charts were placed on sale downtown, but the alumnae continued to sell vouchers until the last night.

Of the various suggestions for the enhancement of community interest made by the Drama League of America, it was found pos

sible to use but one-that of a poster contest. The poster committee, offering a small prize, announced the terms of the contest in the newspapers and by dodgers distributed through the public and private schools, in the classes of the Art Institute and in various stores; chose judges from artists and critics outside the Association; and arranged for the exhibition at the Art Institute of all the posters submitted.

Much interest was aroused. The prize was awarded to an alumna whose poster was so charming that it was not only displayed in hotels, clubs, schools and street cars, and in the nearby towns, but was reproduced by the program committee as the cover of the souvenir booklet which was given to the audience and which has won widespread commendation, not only for its attractive appearance but for the charm of its literary material.

Except for a brief preliminary announcement of dates and a general write-up in the Sunday papers on April 26th, for the purpose of placing the production of the Tempest among the other civic tercentenary celebrations, the publicity committee did nothing until about three weeks before the date set for the performance, when efforts were made to have daily notices in every paper. The committee contended with Billy Sunday for space, but was eminently successful; and in addition to the usual pictures, notices, and write-ups, secured the public endorsement of the undertaking from the mayor and the president of the Commercial Club, and an unusual concession from the street railway company-the privilege of placing large bills on the fenders, and the Tercentenary posters on the inside of many of the street cars.

A country club directly on the car line gave us the use of its grounds and clubhouse. Here, shaded by wonderful oaks and elms, a natural stage was slightly modified by the stage committee according to the specifications of the dramatic director. A change of elevation was secured by the building of a narrow platform at the back, completely concealed by stones and branches; a cave for Prospero was built of logs and secured by a fence of chicken-netting; tall trees covered the actors when off the stage, and protected from view the platform on which sat the fourteen members of the orchestra.

To assure everyone in the audience equal opportunities for seeing and hearing, a stadium seating eight hundred people and facing the stage, was built from specifications of the Wellesley stadium, and chairs were placed in double rows on the grass in front of it.

The costume committee was not only eminently successful in its costumes but also incidentally added largely to the feeling of good fellowship which prevailed in the Association. Under the direction of a local artist who most generously helped us by designing the costumes, they bought and cut out the costumes, and, gathering the alumnae in small groups in various houses, supervised the work of fitting and making.

The chairman of the music committee was tireless, flying from place to place to play for rehearsals daily both morning and afternoon, copying scores, and finally playing with the orchestra at the performances. The chairman of the ushers trained her ladies and heralds to more than professional speed. The property woman added to her regular duties the care of lost and found articles and helped the professional "maker-up." The flower girls decorated the boxes. But from first to last concerted unity of action was due to the chairman of finance to whom, as ex-officio member of all committees, every matter involving expenditures was referred. Her work prevented leaks and reduced expenses to a minimum.

Though actors, dancers and workers had toiled for weeks to bring play and dances to perfection, it was with no small trepidation that all awaited the verdict of an audience, unused to such innovations, upon an all-woman production of a Shakespearean play. Moreover, it had been generally said that one performance might go but that it would be impossible to hold together an amateur cast of over one hundred amateurs for three nights' performances. An unexpected element entered and saved the day—a first night audience, which by its sympathetic and intelligent appreciation of every point made by the actors, enabled them to "put across" the illusion of Prospero's world, and out of an inchoate assemblage of amateurs, created an organic group of serious minded women, conscious that they were paying a fitting tribute to the master. Actors, director, and workers were none of them quite prepared for the enthusiasm of this audience nor will they ever forget the effect of that enthusiasm upon themselves.

Fortunately all had arrived early enough to be seated in time to look out into a dim stage, mysterious under overhanging trees, Prospero's cave on the right dimly visible against faraway hills. A burst of applause greeted the turning on of the lights and continued while the Morris dancers dashed into position. Gathering Peascod and Old Black Nag were followed without break by a pastoral by high school children, which in turn gave place to two more old English dances. Darkness again, and the wonderful