1. The Successful Writer's Attitude toward Scenery

The highest praise a vaudevillian can conjure up out of his vast
reservoir of enthusiastic adjectives to apply to any act is, "It
can be played in the alley and knock 'em cold." In plain English
he means, the STORY is so good that it doesn't require scenery.

Scenery, in the business of vaudeville--please note the word
"business"--has no artistic meaning. If the owner of a dwelling
house could rent his property with the rooms unpapered and the
woodwork unpainted, he would gladly do so and pocket the saving,
wouldn't he? In precisely the same spirit the vaudeville-act owner
would sell his act without going to the expense of buying and
transporting scenery, if he could get the same price for it. To
the vaudevillian scenery is a business investment.

Because he can get more money for his act if it is properly mounted
in a pleasing picture, the vaudeville producer invests in scenery.
But he has to figure closely, just as every other business man is
compelled to scheme and contrive in dollars and cents, or the
business asset of scenery will turn into a white elephant and eat
up all his profits.

Jesse L. Lasky, whose many pleasing musical acts will be remembered,
had many a near-failure at the beginning of his vaudeville-producing
career because of his artistic leaning toward the beautiful in
stage setting. His subsequent successes were no less pleasing
because he learned the magic of the scenery mystery. Lasky is but
one example, and were it not that the names of vaudeville acts are
but fleeting memories, dimmed and eclipsed by the crowded impressions