I fell down a rabbit hole. While doing the web page on Frances Kennedy’s career on stage I got curious about the musical comedies she had a role in, whether as a principal or in the chorus. This became a “slice” of musical comedies through a specific period, and generally a specific place: Chicago. Some of the shows born in Chicago went to New York. Almost all went on tour around the Midwest bringing in audiences hungry for music and comedy an age before radio and movies.

I’ve gathered the information about the musicals from contemporary newspaper advertisements and reviews, sheet music covers, and in a few cases recordings of the songs in the shows. My favorite is “Sing, Sing, You Tetrazzini, Sing” with which Frances introduced the music in The Red Petticoat playing “Sage Brush” Kate.

These musical comedies were farces by in large, part of a boisterous era of Chicago theatre.(Footnote: Throughout this page I've used the spelling "theatre" which was used indiscriminately during the period covered - as it is today. Some say "theater" is the accepted American spelling as opposed to the British "theatre." A lot of hooey that is as far as I'm concerned. ) They were the sitcoms of the day, but with lots of music and lots of cast. They may be of interest to theatre historians, but whatever the case, this page gives a glimpse into the shows that one actress and singer, however obscure she may be now, was involved in. There were many like her, some who may have done only a few shows, others who went on to vaudeville and their own personal or public fame.

Generally accepted as a big flop although some reviewers liked it. Weak plot evidently but a lavish production of 5 scenes, some 44 speaking roles and a chorus of around a 100 people. A comedy set in 1809 revolves around Napoleon’s favorite actress, Mile. Mars. First scene is set in the dressing room of the Comedie Francaise, then on to Compeigne, Napoleon’s summer residence, the stage representing an island in the middle of the lake in moonlight. The third act is set in the Grand opera House, Paris, and then there is a “Return from Elba” in the final tableau.

The show opened in Philadelphia on October 28, 1903 and ended in Chicago May 7, 1904 after seven months on tour. It was on Broadway for 43 performances before setting out on a western tour that took it as far as Los Angles. They loved it in Missoula. It was an expensive proposition for Ziegfeld and was generally not well received by the reviewers.

There are midi files of some 22 of the numbers with an outline of the acts at The Gilbert and Sullivan Archive of the American Musical Theatre website.

If you search Mam'Selle Napoleon at The Baylor University Libraries Digital Collection you will find nine of the musical scores from the show.

Books on Anna Held and Ziegfeld mention show in terms of their relationship. Portions are on Google Books. These are the Worldcat listings:

• Anna Held and the Birth of Ziegfeld’s Broadway
• Ziegfeld and his follies : a biography of Broadway's greatest producer

Click to see three pages of the program.

Sheet music cover to "MayDee".

Review in the Chicago Inter Ocean

When the musical opened at the LaSalle Theatre on Tuesday, September 13, 1904 the both the Inter Ocean and the Tribune reviewers were amazed at what happened at the end of the first act. When the curtain fell it rose again, the ushers came down the isle with bouquets of flowers which were handed out to the cast members by name, the audience going wild with applause.

The play was The Fisher Maiden with some of the sex and music altered. The Fisher Maiden had played in New York for little under a month in October of 1903 and was unliked, but reworked into The Jolly Baron. The story deals with a young man, Billy Baron, who is in love with a young lady named May whose father wants his daughter to marry a man with title. The efforts of the young couple to make their own marriage arrangements lead to laughable moments.(Footnote: Descriptions of the story are sparse indeed. This one is from the 1905 touring show as described in the Montgomery Times (Alabama), December 23, 1905, page 1 ) While it closed in Chicago on November 20th, a new cast led by Billy Clifford was assembled in the summer of 1905, toured and played in New York in September followed by some extensive touring around the country. (Footnote: Internet Broadway Database listing for the play and cast. The Chicago cast list is from Chicago Tribune, September 14, 1904. )

At the end of act one Frances sang "Maydee," "...a tuneful cross between the prevalent Indian maiden song and the one time popular cake walk jingle, was a favorite, and a lively number, though one suggesting a wholesale theft in melody called ‘Let the Band Play’ will probably be well liked.”(Footnote: The Inter Ocean, September 14, 1904, page 5. ) Open the whole score for "MayDee"

The musical score was by Harry Von Tilzer and five of the scores are in the archives at Kent State University Library.

The full LaSalle Theatre program is online at the Chicago Public Library digital collections

A decent description of the musical is in Bordman's American Musical Theatre:
"One Chicago musical that never made it to New York was His Highness the Bey. Its failure to reach Broadway belies its importance, for it was the first musical written by the trio who created most of the great Chicago musicals: Will M. Hough, Frank R. Adams, and Joe Howard. Of course, Howard had already made a small name for himself, nationally as well as locally. Hough and Adams were still students at the University of Chicago. On 21 November their classmates packed a La Salle Theatre that had been drastically rebuilt on orders of the Chicago fire department. The story the collegians told began with the announcement that the Bey has fled his country in fear of an enemy attack. An new leader must be found. Who should wander innocently into the crisis but a bandmaster from Kankakee, Louis Wertzelheimer (Al Shean). The world tour he is making with his wife comes to an abrupt halt when he is drafted into the job of Bey. The complications that follow find Louis prepared to arrest his spouse as an enemy spy. Luckily, the war stops because the papers find they haven't any more room for war news. The real Bey returns, and the reconciled Wurtzelheimers are permitted to go on their way."(Footnote: Bordman, op.cit page 238-9. )

The show opened at the La Salle on November 21, 1904 and ran for five months, closing March 12, 1905.

In the week before Christmas Frances introduced the song "Julie Dooley" to the show.(Footnote: Chicago Tribune, December 25, 1904, page 15. "The new song "Julie Dooley," introduced last week by Miss Kennedy, has found favor..." ) Copyrighted by Joe Howard the song was introduced into the stage production of The Wizard of Oz at the September 11, 1905 show at the Brooklyn Majestic theatre, the Wizard opening Act Two singing the Irish dialect song. (Footnote: Swartz, Mark, Oz Before the Rainbow, 2002, JHU Press, page 144.
Copyright renewal: Catalog of Copyright Entries 1933 Musical Compositions New Series, Vol. 28, Pt3 page 107. ) The score for "Julie Dooley" can be downloaded from the UIC Sheet Music Collection and there is a recording of it on a CD of recordings of the 1903 "Wizard of Oz" cast Available at The Hungry Tiger Press. there is an interesting description of that musical and the CD.

Click to read the review in the Chicago Tribune

Bordman describes the play like so: “The Isle of Bong Bong was set on Lord Percy’s hunting estate in the theatrically voguish Philippines. In order to court Marjory Gray, the young American secretary of his uncle, Lord Percy changes places with his valet. At the same time, the Sultan of the floating island of Bong Bong comes ashore to court the thrice widowed Mrs. Rensselaer-Rensselaer. (ed. Frances Kennedy.) A wizard, a bandit, pirates, and a hungry offstage lion place obstacles in the lovers’ way. Everything ends happily, with the Sultan consenting to anchor his island near civilization. The show had fun with other musicals of the era and with local figures, At one point Bong Bong’s ruler speaks kindly of his ‘sometime neighbor, the Sultan of Sulu.(Footnote: The Sulu archipelago is a chain of islands in the Philippines which has been ruled over the centuries by a Sultan, the Sultan of Sulu. There was a 1902 musical comedy by that name. Nothing to do with Star Trek's Commander Hikaru Sulu. ) In the first act Marjory sings lovingly of ‘My Illinois,’ mentioning in passing ‘Clark Street ticket scalpers’ and the White Sox.”(Footnote: Bordman, op.cit. page 243. )

The show ran for three months at the LaSalle and the Powers theatres, from March 14 to June 17th. Perhaps the best review and description of the play in the Inter Ocean; the Tribune reviewer liked the show despite its lack of plot. With a new cast the show began touring with a performance in Detroit in September and would continue that season and again in the 1906-1907 season touring largely in the Midwest.

The complete score of 88 pages is Stanford University Libraries as well as The University of Wisconsin Libraries but not online in either case.

Inter Ocean review and program.

A handsome Chicago barber is made regent of the German principality of Wiener because he is the 32nd cousin, twice removed, of Princess Olive. Olive must choose between the Chicago barber and a prince, or abdicate. She chooses the handsome American and they live happily ever after. (Footnote: Bordman, op.cit. page 247, and reviews in the Tribune and the Inter Ocean. )

The Yankee Regent opened at the La Salle on August 12, 1905 and closed December 1st. In the spring of 1907 it was revived with a new cast and went on the road touring extensively in the Midwest and as far as California, even returning to Chicago to play at the Garrick for two weeks in the summer. The show finally ground to a halt in September of 1908 in Fort Dodge, Kansas when the leading lady got appendicitis, the show was out of money and all but three members of the cast were stranded there. (Footnote: "Yankee Regent' Co. is Stranded," The Courier (Waterloo, Iowa), September 15, 1908, page 2. )

Opening to a packed house in Chicago, the musical offered “uncommonly good entertainment” with songs around a story about “… -two lockets have wandered into strange hands and their recovery by the right people is essential to these two people getting married, a waiter disguises himself as an English knight and with his waitress bride goes to Corsica on his wedding tour.” There is much more description of the story in the Chicago Tribune review by W.L. Hubbard on this website.

Another play born in Chicago that went to New York, but with only a few of the original cast members. It opened at the Whitney in Chicago on March 30, 1907 and ran in Chicago until February 29, 1908 with its 500th performance.(Footnote: Inter Ocean, Feb 17, 1908) ). At least two of the cast went to New York where it ran for 176 performances at Wallack’s Theatre on Broadway, opening December 16th.(Footnote: “Chicago Play in New York,” Chicago Tribune December 19, 1907, page 8;
Also: Internet Broadway Database (IBDB) ) Having taken a year off to have her son, Frances joined the Chicago cast on July 28th, taking Mayme Tayor’s role of Mme. Woodbury who reportedly went on vacation but eventually joined the Broadway bound cast. A revival would open in Australia in July of 1910.(Footnote: Australian Variety Theatre Archive > Works [Legitimate Music Theatre > Works: 1900-1935.] )

In a curious aside, a talented baseball player who some think would have been in the Hall of Fame, quit baseball that year to marry Mabel Hite, who played Tillie Day in the musical both in Chicago and New York. While he did return to baseball, a broken ankle another reason for quitting in 1907, he went on to an acting career following his retirement from baseball.(Footnote: See : Mike Donlin's Wikipedia article )

The play opened on March 7, 1908 at the Whitney with Frances playing the part of Mrs. Dick Winters, a part that she would stay with through its Broadway production. Closing in Chicago in June it moved to New York to the Herald Square Theatre and then to the Majestic after a fire. It ended the next year on March 20, 1909 after 289 performances on Broadway (Footnote: Internet Broadway Database, "Three Twins" ) followed by a fortnight in Brooklyn. The show for that cast was over, but the play would be produced over the next years around the country.

It was a smash hit and produced the popular song, “Cuddle Up a Little Closer,” which would be sung through the years by Doris Day, Bing Crosby, and Dean Martin to name a few. Another favorite song was “Yama Yama Man.” Frances sang the song “Boo Hoo! Tee Hee!” with her co-star Bessie McCoy and a chorus of girls. She was loved in New York, especially her “weeping scene” of which a reviewer in the New York Evening World Daily Magazine wrote, “It is to be hoped that Miss Frances Kennedy will never be cured of crying. As a weeping wife she is a joy. The part may be hard on her face, but her face certainly knows its stage business.”(Footnote: NY Evening World, June 17, 1908, page 15. ) It is likely her in this picture with Bessie McCoy during the "Boo Hoo! Tee Hee!" song.

While first night reviews are often critical because the performance is, well, first night, at least they give some description of the story, which is likely missing in subsequent months. The story is an ancient farcical theme of mistaken identity when, in act one set on the beach at “Sea View,” a young man, denied pursuing the girl of his dreams, disguises himself with a wig and whiskers from a picture he picks up from the grounds around a hotel. When the owner of the photograph, a weak brained and excitable husband, is expected by his wife, and a third young man, the husband’s twin brother, puts in an appearance, making for three identical men, all hell breaks loose with wives and sweethearts not being able to tell who was who and always embracing the wrong man. The complications are noisy and all three men wind up in an insane asylum for act two set in the reception room of the sanitarium. Act two suffers from a long, boring monologue after the fun of the first act according to both reviewers.(Footnote: Chicago Tribune, March 9, 1908, page 8 and Chicago Inter Ocean, March 8, 1908, page 8. ) Ten numbers are featured in the musical, and, as mentioned, one becomes very popular in the decades following.

Review in the New York Evening World.

This musical had a long, long touring run from when it opened in Chicago on August 13, 1910 until it ended in Pennsylvania in April of 1912, appearing on Broadway for 24 performances in March of 1911. Frances, however, left the cast on October 11 to join the cast of The Chocolate Soldier. An interesting take on the show is a blog about Helen Broderick (1891-1959) who was on the cast in New York, and likely in Chicago as well.

Reviewers, always intent on judging performances and the musical, rarely describe the action,(Footnote: A good example being "Jumping Jupiter Amuses," The Sun New York, March 7, 1911 ) but here are two for Jumping Jupiter. One is a contemporary description, the other from a recent chronicle of musicals:

• "The piece was about a young artist who deserted the Purple Lady, his model, to marry the daughter of a retired army officer. Of course, the Purple Lady arrived at an inopportune moment and was introduced as the wife of an accommodating friend. The complications were increased when the real wife arrives upon the scene and has to take the place of a servant.
       In the end everything turns out right and the young lovers marry, and, we hope, live happily ever after. However, judging by the reception that the piece received last night, they are not destined to remain very long at the New York theatre. It is a pity, for Ricard Carle and Edna Wallace Hopper are two exceptionally popular stars, who worked hard to bring the piece into the golden fields of popularity."(Footnote: Brooklyn Daily Eagle, March 7, 1911, page 12. )

• “Robert Winthrop tires of his wife, Connie, and offers her a large check if she will leave. She tears up the check. But unknown to Winthrop, Connie has been posing as Professor Goodwillie’s wife. When the real Mrs. Goodwillie and the professor (Carle) arrive, Winthrop sees another way out.”(Footnote: Bordman, op.cit., pages 307-308. )

Sheet music appears in various places on the internet, and in this case, the actual piano accompaniment:The piano to two songs, “Kiss Me My Honey, Kiss Me” and “’Thank You, Kind Sir!’ Said She” can be heard at musicnotes.com

The sheet music for "Little Girl, I Love You" can be had at The Library of Congress.

Click above to see the program for September 10, 1910

Producer Fred C. Whitney (1865-1930) had perhaps his greatest hit with The Chocolate Soldier. The New York cast, which opened at the Lyric on Broadway on September 13, 1909, ran for 295 performances in three different houses on Broadway, ending on May 28, 1910.(Footnote: IBDB, Internet Broadway Database. ] ) The Chicago cast opened at the Garrick Theatre on September 25, 1910 and ran there until January 7, 1911 when it went on tour, with occasional out-of-town performances during the Chicago run. (Footnote: Played one performance in Davenport’s Burtis Theatre on November 7 – Quad cities newspapers. ) Frances, who left Jumping Jupiter, joined the cast on October 11th playing Aurelia Popoff, the mother in the play,(Footnote: Chicago Inter Ocean, Dec.4, 1910 ) and left in April when it was in Ottawa, Canada when she was about seven months pregnant. There was a production in Boston during this period as well as England. It was revived in 1912 in Chicago at the American Music Hall and had numerous revivals on Broadway.(Footnote: IBDB, Internet Broadway Database list of performances and revivals. )

The show, with music by Oscar Strauss, was based on George Bernard Shaw’s play “Arms and the Man,” produced first in Germany. There is a very detailed description of the play at The Guide to Musical Theatre from which this synopsis is copied: “When Lieutenant Bummerli, a Swiss mercenary in the Serbian army, takes refuge from his Bulgarian enemies in the house of a Bulgarian general - to be precise, in the daughter's bedroom - he sets hearts a-flutter, almost compromises three ladies and then ruins the daughter's wedding to a Bulgarian soldier-hero by being recognized as the fugitive! This is just as well because he and Nadina, the daughter, were destined for each other anyway.”

Small flyer for the Boston performance.

The Red Petticoat, Jerome Kern’s first full score, book by Rida Johnson Young who became famous for her Naughty Marietta, opened at Daly’s Theatre on Broadway on November 13, 1912 and closed at the Broadway Theatre on the 4th of January, 1913 after 61 performances. The musical was a lyric version of Ms. Young’s flop of the previous year, Next.
    Frances, in the role of “Sage Brush” Kate, opened the show singing “Sing, Sing, You Tetrazzini, Sing” with the chorus.(Footnote: Program - Musical Numbers in the Shubert Theatre program. "Sing, Sing, You Tetrarzzini, Sing".....Regan, Kate, and Chorus. And Program - Cast. ) Two months on Broadway the show hit the road to Brooklyn, Boston and then west to Chicago in the American Music hall in March, ending in Buffalo at the end of March. The Chicago Tribune reviewer called it “Fetching and Funny” and provided a description:

"Sing, Sing, You Tetrazzini, Sing"

“The story centers around Sophie Brush, a spinster and lady barber, who comes to Lost River, Nev., with eight young manicurists and regenerates things in general. After she has been there a few days all the boys are wearing fussy neckties, shaving twice a day, and getting their fingernails polished every idle moment.
    The gaming hero becomes unpopular with the citizens, who allow they are going to string him up. Sophie knows, after a certain girl has told her, that the gallant young exponent of chance is not getting a square deal, so she hides him in the kitchen. The stage coach driver intrusts (sic) a box of gold to Sophie, which she also puts in the kitchen. The Mexican lifts it. Naturally the majority of the people think, when they drag Jack Warner, the gamester, from his hiding place, that he took it. But Sophie’s parrot (Mary Garden) has seen the foul deed done and right before everybody pipes out the words that put Bad Jake “in Dutch.”
     Jack Warner goes back to the kitchen, not yet wholly freed from suspicion. He digs a tunnel to freedom, and in so doing strikes the biggest vein ever known in them there parts. So everybody cashes in with the final curtain.”(Footnote: Chicago Tribune, March 4, 1913. )

Once again Frances would work with that icon of musical comedy and vaudeville, Joe Howard, in what was pretty much a flop. Joe Howard had leased the Whitney Theatre at Van Buren and Wabash and renamed it Joe Howard's Comedy Theatre. The show opened October 3, 1913 and ran until Thanksgiving when it went on the road for a few performances to the south. Sophie Tucker wanted to do the show but withdrew during the early rehersals over her prominence in the show.(Footnote: Chicago Tribune, August 26, 1913, page 10. )

I discovered little as to what this show was about except a brief description that Joe Howard's character gets married in New Jersey but returns to Broadway where his ex-wife still is around. A "theatro-legal shark" assures him he could have a second wife in Jersey but not in New York. "Thus do man's laws add to the gayety (sic) of musical comedy."(Footnote: Chicago Tribune, October 4, 1913. )

Reviewers in Chicago and on the road were generally kind only to the singing and gayety of the cast, but otherwise it was a "hodge-podge of every old thing..." (Footnote: Kansas City Globe, December 1, 1913. ) The problem evidently was with the libretto for, while the songs were not to become popular, they were many and evidently enthusiastic. The show had an out-of-town premiere in Gary, Indiana on October 1st. The press around the country was more interested in the Paris designed hat that Emma Carus wore in the production than in the musical itself.

      A bit of an aside on Joe Howard:

Frances Kennedy must have known him fairly well having worked with him earlier in The Isle of Bong, Bong and The Umpire.

Of the cast listing in the ad for A Broadway Honeymoon three of the people have Wikipedia articles: Emma Carus, Nan Halperin, and of course, Joe Howard. Nan Halperin was the wife of songwriter William Friedlander who would write some songs for Frances when she went out on the vaudeville circuits in 1916. It was Joe Howard who became sort of an icon of the era and in later life even had a very early TV show celebrating the "Gay 90s" in which he performs. One episode of that survives and you can watch it at The Internet Archive. It's kind of a hoot. Joe, the troubadour to the end, died on the Civic Opera house stage in 1961 while singing an encore of "Let Me Call You Sweetheart" which unfortunately for the drama involved, was not a song he wrote. He was the subject of the 1947 George Jessel film production of "I Wonder Who's Kissing Her Now" the title of song of which Joe is associated with(Footnote: After the movie was released Joe lost a lawsuit to Harold Orlob who claimed that he wrote the song but settled with only having his name put on the song. (Harry Golden, Chicago Tribune, July 23, 1961, and LA Times, May 20, 1948, page 14.) ) and my mother-in-law can still sing with all the lyrics. He was also famous for "Hello My Baby" and "Goodbye, My Lady Love."

Howard, other than being a troubadour, was not a faithful husband, reportedly married nine times.(Footnote: Frank Cullen, Florence Hackman, Donald McNeilly, Vaudeville Old & New page 534, accessed online at books.google.com Feb 8, 2019. ) His third wife, Irma Kilgallen Howard, committed suicide after a month of marriage when she found him, if one reads between the lines of the newspaper article, messing around with another woman in the Hotel Foutenelle in Omaha, Nebraska in 1916. Nonplussed, Joe went on with his act that evening saying, "It is the will of God. I must go on with my work for the public." A complete review of his tempestuous affairs to that time is in pages 1 and 3 of the Chicago Tribune, April 11, 1916.

Joe, evidently always stretching himself thin, filed for bankruptcy in the summer of 1917 owing Mabel McCane 5 grand, Sophie Tucker a grand, and the Shuberts another 5 thousand. He would be back though.

The photo is of Mabel McCane and Joe Howard from 1915. They were so close the public assumed they were married. Looks like a wedding photo to me, but...

Sheet music cover to the song "Ev'ry Road is the Right Road."

Another play that lasted about three months opened at the Comedy Theatre at 64 E. Van Buren on June 27, 1914, moved to the La Salle on July 19th at the same time Frances replaced the lead, Clara Palmer. (Footnote: Cullen, op.cit.says the 17th but he is wrong. – The ad in the Chicago Tribune on the 27th says “Starts Tonight.” ) In his review of the opening in the Chicago Tribune Percy Hammond wrote, “Among the few facts that are to be here recorded about ‘The Elopers’ is that it is of the Chicago type of musical comedy, containing more jig than jest, with plenty of pretty and alert girls in tights and tunes easy enough for any one to whistle…In is first act four couples plan to get married, and in its last act that plan succeeds.(Footnote: Percy Hammond, “Singing and Dancing at the Comedy Theater,” Chicago Tribune, June 29, 1914, page 16.(Unfortunately the Chicago Inter Ocean, which generally had great coverage of Chicago theatre, went out of business in 1914.) )

That’s about all I’ve been able to glean as to what the play was about, but Hammond does paraphrase one joke from the play that’s funny as well as likely typical: “Was George Washington an honest man?” queries the soubrette. “They say he was,” Mr. Phillips answers, “but they always close the banks on his birthday.”

The libretto was the posthumous work of Arthur Gillespie, who had done September Morn, and G.F. Stoddard. The music was by Hugo Frey, lyrics by Frederick Herendeen. Among the songs were “Kuck-oo Clock,” “Over the Seas,” “Ev’ry Road is the Right Road, When the Right Girl is Along,”[Recording are in the UC Santa Barbara library and the Libraries of Canada in Ottawa but not online.] “Oh, You Tango Band,” “Twilight,” “You Just You,” “Whistle It.” The sheet music for these are at the Baylor University’s Frances G. Spencer Collection of Popular Music.

Curiously, during the run the theatre manager, Harry Cort, eloped with one of the cast members. And then G.F. Stoddard, a co-author of the play, eloped with Peggy Pendleton, a member of the chorus. (Footnote: Variety, July 31, 1914, page 10. )

One of the only sheet music covers I've been able to discover.

Once again working with Dave Lewis Frances was a headliner when this show opened for the first time in Buffalo at the Teck on November 22 in what was billed as a revue with two acts, eight scenes, and 125 players.(Footnote: Ad. Buffalo Commercial, November 20,1915: "Opens Here Monday Night" "First Time on Any Stage of the New Musical Review of 125 Players" "Entire Company Going to The American Music Hall, Chicago." ) The New York Evening World reported on November 2nd that the Shubert brothers production had been in rehearsal for nine weeks and was almost ready to open at the Lyric in Philadelphia but the theatre evidently wasn’t finished with renovations so it opened in Buffalo. Following Buffalo it had performances in Detroit and Pittsburg before it landed in Chicago in the refurbished, and renamed, Chicago Theatre, formerly the American Music Hall, on December 29th. It played there until the 22 of January then on to St. Louis, Indianapolis, Muncie, Indiana, Cincinnati, Dayton, Ohio closing there the second week in February.

Once again, a thin plot, but one which was evidently a big hit in Buffalo. After extolling the "...the bewildering beauty to the show. The many scenes furnish abundant opportunity for sprightly acts and specialties, some catchy songs and a wealth of entertaining music," the Buffalo reviewer mentions that the play is about a wild-living, youthful millionaire who spends his last dollar seeing Broadway. Someone then tells him he's been left a legacy of ten million dollars and he starts spending all over again only to discover that the it isn't true. (Footnote: "'Within the Loop' A Great Show," Buffalo Enquirer, November 24, 1915, page 3. ) A long review, again without much of a description, appears in Variety calling the show a disappointment. Variety also reported later in that issue that although the revue was being treated nicely in the papers, it wasn’t drawing the audiences expected.

Songwriter Harry Carroll and wife Anna Wheaton

Songs, of which there were reportedly 34 or so depending on which newspaper you read, include "Drip, Drip Went the Waterfall,” "Irish Heart,” "I'll Cling to You," “On the Lake Shore Limited,” ”The Automat Cabaret,” “I’ll be True to the Red, White and Blue,” “That’s the Why We’re in the Play,” and “My Lady of the Lake.”

Songwriter Hall of Fame member Harry Carroll wrote the music and would marry cast member Anna Wheaton, the two of them going in to vaudeville eventually. With all the songs in the show I expected to find more sheet music.

While the show is set in New York and Chicago it had a definite Chicago flavor: Frances plays “Mrs. Lincoln Boulevard.” Others, besides her and Dave Lewis, are Mercedes Lorenze, Anna Wheaton, Eddie Coe (in black-face per the review in the Buffalo Courier), Harry Coote, Luella Gear, Muriel Window, and Robert Keane. (Footnote: Buffalo Enquirer review, op.cit. )Lucille Todd, Bobby Watson, Mary Spellmeyer, William Reynolds, James T. Duffy, Gilbert Gregory. The vaudeville team of Burt Green and Irene Franklin, husband and wife, joined the cast in Chicago as a headliner having deserted their vaudeville tour.(Footnote: “After the Performance,” Indianapolis Star, December 26, 1915, page 15; Obituary, Burton Green, New York Herald November 18, 1922, page 9. )