An Explosion of Entertainments

(The following is an excerpt from a new illustrated history of Chandler Music Hall that is being prepared as part of this year’s Centennial celebration. The book will be available later in the year.)

By M. D. Drysdale

To say that residents of Randolph welcomed the opening of Chandler Music Hall on August 20, 1907 would be an understatement. During the four months of September through December, 1907 the music hall was host to program after program, at least 14 in all, greeted by audiences that frequently sold out the house.

And what offerings they were! Regional and even national touring companies brought plays, musicals, opera, orations, a "Ladies Orchestra," movies aplenty, and even a visit from The Honolulu Students, said to be a "genuine novelty"—as indeed they must have been in an era long before air or popular automobile travel. That first season also served up Chandler’s first touch of controversy, involving the scanty costumes worn by a ballet troupe from the city. This, remember, was a music hall managed by a church.

Under Rev. Fraser Metzger, the new owners, Bethany Church, had not been idle during the year it took to build the Music Hall. Even before it opened, its directors were preparing to put a large staff to work, as would befit the most complete cultural facility for miles around. (Claremont, Barre and Burlington were the only competition.)

Rev. Metzger was one of a group of three directors of the new hall, along with M. M. Wilson and E. T. Salisbury, the furniture manufacturer, who was the manager. J. W. Raymond was appointed treasurer and George E. Hutchinson stage manager, and arrangements were made to select a checkroom attendant, two doorkeepers, nine ushers and eight stage hands. All together, that was a staff of 25, though how many were paid is not clear. In addition, the Music Hall from the beginning had its own orchestra of seven local musicians playing a variety of instruments.

In setting ticket prices, the directors decided on a two-tier system. For "the more expensive class" of entertainments, prices ranged from $1 for the best seats (including the first row in the balcony) down to 50 cents. For "ordinary attractions," the prices were generally lower by about 25 cents. Second balcony seats sold for a quarter, regardless of the "class" of entertainments.

A Play with Songs

The professional season opened on September 5, 1907, just two weeks after the dedication of the hall, with "The Choir Singer." Written before the term "musical" had been coined, "The Choir Singer" was described by its author, Carroll Fleming, as "a play with songs."

This was no small production. It involved "a big company" of actors, and the specially-designed scenery filled an entire railroad car, which must have been unloaded at the depot and transferred to the hall by horse and wagon. The company no doubt brought its own musicians, but the seven-piece Music Hall orchestra played "excellent music" before the play and between the acts. The hall at that time held about 700 regular seats, and all but 20 were sold.

Even better was to come, in the form of the play "Way Down East,"which was sweeping theaters all over the world. (This play was to have an exciting impact on the White River Valley a few years later, when it was made into one of the most popular silent movies of all time by the film director D. W. Griffiths. This was the movie that stopped hearts all over the country when actress Lillian Gish had to be rescued from an ice floe in the lower White River, a scene which had to be photographed some 20 times.)

The play itself was excitement enough for Randolph, as it attracted "the largest audience ever gathered under a roof in Randolph," according to The Herald and News. All the regular seats were sold, 80 extra chairs were brought in, and still 30 standing admissions were sold, to a total of 801 bodies swelling the fledgling hall. (This occurred, obviously, at a time before the authority of fire marshals held sway).

The crowd must have been a great comfort to the hall directors, showing that people would travel considerable distances to attend events at Chandler.

Alas, the benefactor of the Music Hall, Col. Chandler, could not share in the delights of the play or the success of his Music Hall. He was at the bedside of his beloved wife Marilla at Mari-Castle on South Main Street.

For several weeks, she had been seriously ill, and on Sept. 14, the day after "Way Down East" was performed, she died at home at the age of 64. The funeral was held two days later at Mari-Castle, performed by Rev. Metzger and Rev. Homer White. Bearers were some of the most substantial citizens of the town, including editor L. B. Johnson and Dr. J. P. Gifford. Flowers and wreaths were received from Brooklyn and New York, including one from Charles A. Tinker, the one-time Chelsea lad who had served with Chandler in Lincoln’s War Office.

Vivid Writing

One thing that Chandler Music Hall had going for it during those first few months was the enthusiastic support of the local newspaper. The opening of one of the finest halls in northern New England was real news, big news, and every event was preceded by lengthy write-ups full of flowing phrases—perhaps provided by the publicist, perhaps penned by editor Johnson or by the Randolph "local editor," Georgia White.

A performance on Oct. 24 of the Commonwealth Ladies’ Orchestra—nine of them in all, plus a soprano. The latter, Miss Evangeline Hiltz, drove the critic to an ecstasy of description, cooing over her "natural sweetness and purity of tone developed to a flute-like clearness. Her trills were an easy bubble of notes and, in response to an appreciative encore, she dropped from high vocal trapeze performance to the simple ballad of ‘Annie Laurie.’"

On November 27, the Music Hall scheduled the Melville B. Raymond English Grand Opera Company, bringing a full production of Gounoud’s opera "Faust," for a one-night stand—"real grand opera at our very doors."

The enterprise was on such a scale that it now can scarcely be conceived of in a rural hall. The company arrived in its own train. It numbered more than 70 people, including its own orchestra, its own scenery, and its own equipment to produce "electrical effects" that were in such novel demand at the time. The scenery was said to be made in New York and Paris. The chorus, it was claimed, had been brought from Europe that very month on a new steamship called the Lusitania, which had just made her maiden voyage on September 7.

Controversy Rears Its Head

December 1907 at Chandler Music Hall was not without controversy. With the advent of a comic opera from New York, the hall’s managers found themselves struggling with cultural differences. The problem was, it appears, the costumes. Were legs to be visible above the knee? Might there even be a glimpse (gasp) of cleavage? The organizers, of course, might have been warned by the name of the show, which was "Coming thro’ the Rye." It is just possible that the opera hinted at the sexual delights that are implied in the Robert Burns poem of the same name.

E. T. Salisbury, the music hall manager, was apparently tipped off that a ballet scene in the opera might be a bit scandalous, and he wrote to the producer, the Rork company inquiring as to "the nature of the costumes" that audiences might expect to see. The reply, by one F. M. McCoy, director of publicity, was a classic, dripping with the condescension of a city man toward his country inferiors, while denying that there was anything about the show that "could in any wise be construed as vulgar or unseemly." (The letter will be reproduced in its entirety in the book.)

Apparently, Mr. Salisbury’s fears were warranted—at least as far as the audience was concerned. The audience, the Herald and News said, was large but "more-or-less critical." The criticism, as expected, was directed at the dance scenes and the costumes.

"Comic opera is rather of a novelty in Randolph, and a ballet is a considerable departure from the old Puritan standards in which we have been educated to shudder at a shuffling of feet to the scraping of a wicked fiddle," the reviewer reflected.

The review ends with a sniff: "Rye was not a predominating element in the mixture of the piece and seemed merely to provide an attractive title for a light and airy composition."

Blockbuster

The final Music Hall event of 1907 was also planned to be the grandest yet—J. M. Barrie’s whimsical new drama called "Peter Pan,".

The Herald and News chipped in with promotional features for three weeks running, apparently printing everything that the overwrought publicist could send. It was a "wonderful" play, an "irresistible" play, "phenomenal"—"You simply will be compelled to believe in fairies, whether you want to or not."

Two baggage cars, it was said, would be required to bring all the scenery and effects.

The publicity had its effect. Tickets went on sale Dec. 20 at the store of F. H. Joslyn, and nearly 800 seats were sold the very first day, as the management scurried to find 150 extra chairs. Meanwhile, an exciting plan was underway to bring a special train to Randolph from surrounding towns. Thirty folks were coming from Sharon on the Central Vermont Railroad, which would connect with a Peavine Railway train bringing guests from Rochester. In all, 300 people were expected by train. Perhaps never had an event been so breathlessly anticipated.

It would be nice to report that "Peter Pan" entirely lived up to its billing, but it was not to be. The special train stalled for an hour in Royalton with a broken engine, and it dragged into the station not far from 10 o’clock. As soon as they arrived, the tardy travelers burst into a chorus of "We’re here because we’re here, because we’re here …" The train was also delayed an hour and a half on its return voyage "through some sleepy-headed carelessness," so that the 125 people from Rochester returned home at about 4 a.m., just in time for a morning milking attended by visions of fairies and pirates.

To make matters worse, the famed "flying machine" did not work because of the lack of a gridwork above the stage, so Peter Pan remained grounded.

The whole experience apparently left the Herald and News editor in a poor mood indeed. In fact, after the expenditure of gallons of ink and hours of typesetting time in promoting the great event, his review was positively grumpy. The play was no more than a Mother Goose fable, he complained: "Why it should be a favorite with anyone past the fairy and hobgoblin book age is a mystery. Its plot and characters appear like the nightmare of some little greedy who has dined not wisely but too well and gets all mixed up with lions and crocodiles, pirates and Indians …"

Despite the problems, however, it was clear by year’s end that questions about whether a church could manage a music hall in a rural Vermont town had been laid to rest. In four months the directors had presented 14 events—three operas, six plays (some with music), three concerts, one lecture, and an ambitious Christmas Eve service. It was an auspicious beginning for Randolph’s beautiful new Music Hall.