One of the most important duties of the manager
for a traveling performer was to provide publicity through
the newspapers. An excerpt from a satirical article titled
"The Model [Newspaper] Editor" reveals, in a behind-the-scenes
account, how such publicity might be arranged while on tour:
Musical director calls to know if the
editor will transfer a puff of six columns, and accept a
ticket at half price. Editor obligingly tells him he shall
be happy to do so. Musical director wants to know if he
will write a puff before-hand; editor intimates that he
will be happy to do so. Musical director would like him
to furnish one hundred and sixty copies of the paper; editor
says he shall be happy to do so. Musical director wishes
to know if he will loan him his desk, pen, ink and paper,
and a post office stamp; polite editor intimates that he
shall be happy to do so (by standing up three quarters of
an hour, while musical director writes six letters, and
endeavoring to read a paper up side down). Musical director
takes his leave with three bows, the last one nearly overturning
a lady who is entering the door.
When the Chicago critic George P. Upton
first met the conductor Theodore Thomas, he was pleasantly
shocked when Thomas explained that he never went into newspaper
offices to "cultivate the critics." Upton recounted
that he had been "so persistently visited by advance
agents, business agents, artists, and even impresarios of
concert and opera troupes, that it was refreshing to meet
a musician who did not care to see the interior of a newspaper
office." |
