The number of women stage performers now ex ceeds that of men. Until 1060 they were for bidden upon the English stage, the female parts in Shakespeare's day being taken by boys or young men, which was also the custom in France and Germany. Women so soon became popular as actors that one of Dryden's comedies was pro duced in 1668 in London with all the parts, both male and female, played by women. With the employment of women greater attention was paid to costuming. A Parisian dancer, Mlle. Salle, raised a storm in 1740 by appearing in the ballet of Pygmalion in Greek costume. Paris audiences objected to the innovation, but London accepted it. It was not, however, until Tatum insisted• in 1800 upon playing Brutus at the Theatre Francais in Roman costume and without a powdered wig that classical plays were costumed according to the epoch represented. It may also be supposed that the appearance of women as actors led to a more natural style of acting. So far as may be inferred from the books of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, acting in England and France was then as stilted and artificial as the manners of the time. Talma, Rachel, and Lemattre in France, Garriek, Kean, and Macready in England. instituted more natu ral methods. In more recent years what is known as 'realism' has made itself felt in acting as well as in literature. The old-time actor underwent a long training in the traditions and technicalities of the art ; he Was expected to play many parts. The actor of to-day has usually a narrower range.
Whether to trust to study and calculation or to Inspiration when on the stage is a question on which experts differ. The noted French comedian Coquelin teaches that all acting is a distortion of nature so regulated by study and experience that it will seem to be nature when seen by an audience. The actor, says Bronson Howard, the American playwright, must make the people in the audience, some of them a hundred feet away, think that he is moving, appearing, and speaking like the character he assumes, and to do so he must do something that he would never think of doing in real life in the same circumstances. His talk and gesture must he as false as his complexion in order that they may seem real. Such exagger ation is an art, that must he learned like any other. The foremost dramatic school of Europe has been that of the Paris Conservatoire. whose prize winners are engaged by the Paris Theatre Francais and the Odeon. In the United States the stage is now partly recruited from schools in New York, Boston, and Chicago, which gradu ate yearly several hundred pupils who have studied elocution, acting, make-up, costuming, etc., and have taken part in constant rehearsals of standard plays. Of these schols the oldest is the American Academy of Dramatic Arts (q.v.), founded in New York in 1884 by Franklin H. Sargent. Many actors who have retired from the stage also make a business of teaching.
A prosperous theatre in the city of New York may in a favorable season do 0 business of about $400,000 and keep in employment 150 persons. Only a few theatres, and those in large cities, now maintain stock companies of their own; local managers accept the performance given by an American ,or English company which comes for a shorter or longer period, taking as its pay a cer tain share of the receipts. As a rule the dramatic author receives from five to ten per cent. of the gross receipts in return for the use of his play. There is also an arrangement called the 'sliding scale,' by which the author's royalties are in a changing ratio to the gross re ceipts. The employees of the theatre consist of actors, stage hands, or men who move the scenery, manage the lights, etc., musicians, door-keepers, ticket-sellers, and ushers. Where stock compa nies are maintained there are also a number of scene-painters and costumers employed. Cos tumes are sometimes provided by the manager and sometimes by the actor. In costume plays— those in which scenery and elaborate costumes of another age are used—the manager provides them; where modern plays are the rule, the male members of the company generally provide their own clothes.
The salaries paid vary according to the standing of the company. In a first-class New York theatre the leading four or five people in the company may receive from $100 to $250 a week. From these figures, which are five times what actors were paid half a century ago, there is a gradual drop to $20 or $25 a week for the people who have but a line or two to say. In companies playing burlesque or light opera, the chorus girls receive from $12 to $20 a week, while the male chorus singers average $20. The star, as the leading actor of the com pany, male or female, is called, usually makes a special arrangement to take a share of the re ceipts in lieu of salary. All companies include a stage manager, who often plays one of the parts; for elaborate productions a special stage manager at a salary of from $75 to $100 a week is engaged to arrange the stage pictures. The cost of mounting a new play may vary from $2000 to $20,000, according to the number of people employed upon the stage. their costumes, the scenery, and properties. It is not unusual for the three or four• costumes used by a chorus singer in one play to cost $100; the costumes for the dozen or more important char acters may cost $500 for each player. The ex pense of putting on a big London Christmas pan tomime, which sometimes employs 250 people on the stage, seldom falls short of $40,000. If a play proves to be a great success a second, third, and even fourth company may be organized to give it on 'the road,' one company going south, another north, thus covering the country before the fame of the original performance has died out.