rday in August. Your work and
progress is being watched unknown to you at every performance. The
manager back home finally knows all about your work through "reports"
which are kept in the main booking office and to which he and all
other managers on his particular circuit have access.

Now you are ready to try for something bigger and better, ready for
"big time" vaudeville, perhaps in your own act; if not that, then in
someone else's act. Your second year's advancement is based on the
weekly report that has been sent to headquarters regarding your
reception by the public and the way in which your act has got over.
Big time may mean Chicago, Boston, Philadelphia, and any or all the
larger cities on the various "circuits." It may include the
Keith-Albee Palace Theatre in New York, the Mecca of all vaudeville
artists. It is at the Palace that you know you and your act are seen
by every revue, musical comedy, or dramatic manager, casting director
whose business it is to pick and engage artists.

There is no school like vaudeville for the dancer, singer, actor or
actress in any line of musical work. Most of the brightest stars in
the theatrical firmament have graduated from vaudeville into greater
things, and many of them return to the vaudeville stage for a flier
now and then. It is there that you come in contact with different wise
audiences in different cities and learn how to handle them. You watch
your fellows in their various acts, note the bills as they change
every week, or usually twice weekly, and your audience with them. You
are in two, three or four shows a day in your short time, and learning
how to get over better at every show. The vaudeville audience knows
what's what. You can't fool them. You've got to do your best for them
all the time--and you will, or you will not remain in vaudeville,
where you have to "make good" every performance. It is an invaluable
experience, your first stage years, and you will gather lasting
benefit from your active vaudeville appearances. You must not complain
of the number of shows you are required to give daily--the more you
give the more practice you get before a paid audience, and remember
you are gaining experience while being paid for it.

You may follow a season of this with a road show over your former
territory another year, and you will find your old friends in the
audience ready to boost you. You are on the right road to the "making
of a name," which after all is