Primary need of the theatre business is crowds with money. Consequently, the theatre has always been an urban institution. About ten years ago, a variety of circumstances, including talking pictures and U. S. vacation habits, gave impetus to that paradoxical phenomenon: the summer theatre in the country.
In 1930, Billboard reported that out of 119 towns, 114 were closed to the professional stock companies which had once played them. Owners of cinema theatres not previously averse to renting their properties to stock companies, had decided the competition was dangerous.
However, heterogeneous repertory theatres in popular resorts like...
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