t
of the regular program. These Ten-Minute Talks are now given by a good
reader and really worth-while material is presented. Such men as Arthur
Deitrick, Eugene Farnsworth, and C.W. Russel have prepared these talks.
In order to secure good singing, it was made known that one day each
week would be open for all those who wished to try. In this way good
material has been secured and developed within the walls of the house
itself. National songs, appropriately costumed, were made a part of the
program, and recently the idea has been enlarged into a whole series of
folk songs and dances. Mrs. Clement is too clever to force the growth
of any tendency, but lets it develop and strengthen of its own accord.
There is no set policy, rigidly followed, but changes are made whenever
they are needed, and each new development aims to be a real improvement.
There is a spirit of co-operation on the part of all those connected
with the theater which has meant much in its success.

The idea which makes the Bijou especially deserving of notice is the
introduction on Feb. 28, 1910, of a regular policy of producing a
one-act play each week. This, with the occasional introduction of a
short opera, has continued to the present time. As early as June, 1909,
'Shadows,' a mystical tragedy by Evelyn G. Sutherland, was put on, and
in January of the following year a one-act comedy, 'The Red Star,'
by Wm. M. Blatt, was produced. The success of these plays decided the
management to adopt the one-act play as a regular part of the program.
The play first to be acted under the new policy was Hermann Hagedorn's
'The World Too Small for Three.' This is important because the one-act
play has almost no place on the professional stage. Vaudeville houses
put on an occasional one-act piece of the lighter sort. The Bijou now
provides a place where the serious worker in this form may see his
work produced and watch the effect on the audience. That there is
a constantly growing interest in this country in one-act plays as a
separate genre of dramatic composition is proved by the continuing
success of the experiment. This winter the manager opened a prize
contest; one hundred dollars for the best one-act comedy, and fifty
dollars for the second best comedy, to be produced at the Bijou. The
first prize went to George F. Abbott, Rochester, N.Y., for his very
excellent comedy, 'The Man in the Manhole,' and the second prize to
S.F. Austin, of San Antonio, Tex., for a