Art of Stage Dancing — Chapter 47: Your Opportunities

[Illustration] Those of you who are perfecting yourselves for a stage career are naturally giving consideration to your future as you advance in the courses, and are wondering just how you will go about it to get well placed in your chosen line of work.

I am going to tell you how some have tried to do this, and then tell you the best, surest and safest way.

And do not for a moment think that I am guessing about what I tell you.

I know the theatrical world and theatrical ways and methods, and I know the managers, the producers, and all the principals connected with our profession, and they know me.

So I am not guessing when I say that your personal interests in all matters connected with the stage will be best conserved by entrusting them to me.

In our classes here in the studio there is apt to be one or more dominating spirits who become anxious to go around the booking offices and seek for a tryout and an engagement.

It is true that to go to any office and say that you are a recent or prospective graduate of the Ned Wayburn Studios is a good recommendation, and you may get a hearing and a tryout on the strength of it.

But please be advised by me and let me give you the tryout first when I am sure you are ready for it.

Your teacher should first be given a chance to see what you can do individually.

His advice is invaluable and impartial.

When he reports that you are advanced sufficiently to deserve consideration for a solo role, then come and dance for me.

I am glad to have you do this, and shall always give you my decision honestly and fairly, and let me add, freely--no charge whatever.

If I see that you are deficient in any way, I will be frank and tell you so, and will also suggest what you should do to correct your fault.

In other words, you will get constructive criticism, and kindly advice, in my office, whereas anything short of perfection shown to a booking agent or possible employer would be apt to insure abrupt dismissal.

They would give you no helpful advice, and you would prejudice yourself, for your effrontery, in their eyes for any future engagement you might seek.

So be advised by me.

I respect an ambition that prompts you to go out and hunt an engagement, but, believe me, yours is not the best way.

There are agents and agents.

Some would do right by you, and perhaps some would be unscrupulous.

I am not going on record in this book with any details that would seem to reflect in the least on anyone, so I'll not enlarge upon this subject here.

But I will tell you more about this if you come to my office and ask me to.

Now if any pupil in the school asks you to go around the theatrical agencies, please don't do it, but come and tell me.

Perhaps some day you both will come to me and say "Thank you."

[Illustration: ADA MAY (WEEKS)] Oftentimes we send out groups of our students, two, four, six or eight, to go on the professional stage for something special.

Sometimes they are paid; sometimes it is done gratuitously; but the experience alone is worth money to them.

The regular theatrical season opens about Labor Day and lasts till around Decoration Day.

Summer engagements begin about the first Monday in June and end about the last Saturday in August.

Calls are sent out about the middle of April for summer work, and about the middle of July for the winter or regular season.

If you are able to qualify, you will get the benefit of these calls for dancers, and when you go with my recommendation, it will be only to the best managers.

I will inform you fully as to the best forms of contract for you to sign in every case, and make no charge for this.

You know, when you engage to go with a show, you do not simply take the manager's word for it that he will employ you for so many weeks at so much a week, nor does the manager simply take your "Yes, I'll come," and let it go at that.

This matter of entering his employ is a business affair, a transaction of importance to you both, and calls for a signed agreement that binds him, the manager, as to his responsibility to you, and binds you as to your duties to him.

It is a legal document, binding on both parties, the manager and you--and let me tell you right here, you feel mighty big with your first stage contract duly signed and delivered, and in your pocket, and while you may in future seasons get contracts that specify much larger salaries than your first one does, no contract will ever _seem_ so big and important to you as this first one, the start, the goal of your ambition.

I love to see my pupils with their first professional contracts!

They are so happy and hopeful; the world opens up new delights for them; they have arrived.

The reward of their untiring exertions here in the courses is at hand, and they have earned it and deserved it.

"Good for you!"

I feel like saying; and I am truly happy to think that I have been in some degree instrumental in bringing this about.

My experience has been paid for.

I have learned to profit by my own mistakes, and I can and will save you all the risk in closing deals that involve so much--perhaps your entire future stage career.

I can and will do this, if you let me.

[Illustration] STAGE-CRAFT