The Sun

CELESTIAL CHOIR ON STRIKE.

'TWAS FIVE PER OR NOTHIN' SAID THE DELEGATES.

Doin' But When They Were Heisted Out by the Neck and Trousers There Was a Whole Lot Doing, and the American Theatre Audience Had a Side Show Thrown In.

"The Evil that Men Do" at the American Theatre was changed, without notice, yesterday afternoon into "The Evil that Boys Do," for the forty New York members of "the choir celestial," whom Miss Gertrude Haynes, the organist, had hired, went on strike.

Every boy of that celestial forty resolved himself into a regular Sam Parks entertainment committee and there followed a time which would have compared with an iron-workers' scrap at McNichol's Hall.

Miss Haynes's choir boys, who have been the week's heroes of "The Avenue," do a heap of stunts while the changes and curtains are being rung on the evil that men do. To begin with, Miss Haynes has ten regularly employed curly-haired and pretty little boys whom she takes around with the show from city to city. When she came here she engaged forty more to fill out her choir.

Perhaps all of the forty hadn't learned all there is to learn in the art of choir singing, but they had joined in enough gallery choruses at Miner's to be able to handle their voices in a crowd. Anyway, if they hadn't learned stage manners they could work "barber shop chords" to beat an Eighth avenue car at 2 o'clock in the morning on a clear track. And it didn't take them long to train into the work required of them.

Besides singing they did other things. In the first act they said a tearful farewell to the pastor of a church. In the second act they were the pupils of Dr. Zola's boarding school. There the villain rushes on the stage and tries to capture the fourteen-year-old hero Loretta Grim. The boys, who have been playing football, attack the villain in a flying wedge and overpower him while the hero escapes down a rope-ladder.

But in the fifth act the youngsters are the choir celestial of "St. Mary's Church," or, as one of them put it: "We do de angel tenor act wit' de 'Holy City' and 'de Palms,' while Miss Haynes sits in de limelight an' beats de tar out of de toot bor."

Now as to the financial compensation the youngsters have been gathering in for all these great deeds there is conflicting testimony; but it isn't a heap more than $2.50 to $3 a week. And yesterday afternoon when the New York celestials went around for the Labor Day matinee they held a meeting and formulated demands for a raise. A committee of walking delegates was sent to Miss Haynes to present this ultimatum:

"Five dollars a week or nothin' doin'."

The committee went right in and put it up to Miss Haynes. She called Stage Manager Drew A. Morton, who grabbed the committee by necks and trousers and removed it. His action was greeted with yells fierce and long.

"We'll do youse yet," remarked the leader of the ejected committee. "We'll put bum lamps on all yer pretty kids inside an' we'll make yer show look like a Kansas City cyclone had struck it. Youse wa-a-a-it!"

Trouble began with the second act. The regular choir boys inside the theatre were then gathered at a window in the rear of the theatre. The forty strikers assembled in the back yard and rained volleys of over-ripe peaches and tomatoes upon the ten inside.

A policeman chased the disturbers away, but two of them got into the theatre basement and turned on a water faucet, nearly emptying the water tank on the roof. Another boy cut an electric wire.

The theatre people called for aid from Police Headquarters, but it was slow in coming. Meantime the boys outside yelled and hooted, distracting the attention of the audience from the stage. They also kept the nerves of the ten regulars who had stuck to Miss Haynes on edge shrieking the dire penalties the ten might expect when they got out.

The fifth act arrived and the celestial choir went on the stage. Miss Haynes had meanwhile secured several additions to her choir, but it numbered only about fifteen or twenty. One of these had a black eye. Just as the stage choir was beginning "The Holy City," the strikers ran into the lobby and gave a mighty chorus of cat-calls. Then they ran out, knocking over the sign boards and picture frames.

Miss Haynes had twenty-two boys in her choir at the evening performance. The ten regulars had remained inside for supper rather than run the gantlet of strikers outside.