HERE TO MANAGE THE SHUBERT.
Thomas H. Davis Knew Kansas City
When Men Carried Arms.
Thomas H. Davis is here from New York to take active management of the Shubert theater. He recently purchased stock in the American Amusement Company of the Oppenheimers and will make his home in Kansas City. Davis comes from White Plains, a New York suburb where millionaires are as common as actors in Broadway. He has grown gray in the theatrical business and says he is here to make a few changes and start the Shubert out under real theater management.
Mr. Davis has been here before. He was a frequent Kansas City visitor in the '70s and early '80s when men carried guns and traveling men "made" the town on pack mules. Later he became foreign agent for the Barnum shows, and then he put "In Old Kentucky" on the road to an interrupted run of good business that is still being demonstrated at a local theater this week. David tried to get Alfred Henry Lewis, the writer, into the show business in the early days. Lewis was timid, the theatrical manager said last night, and feared to go out "ahead" of a show. So he flipped a coin to see whether he would go out with Davis's show or go to Washington and become a great newspaper correspondent.
"The newspaper won him," said Davis last night. "It has only been a few years since I tried to hire him to write a play for me. He declined, but finally arranged the plot of a story, and I had another finish it."
Mr. Davis has not been active as a manager for several years. He has a number of plays, but has them farmed out to stock actors and has devoted his time to the monthly publication of "Stage Folks" and "Rome Folks," both of New York.
S. N. Oppenheimer stated last night that since he has found a live manager for the Shubert he will return to St. Louis. He stated that the American Amusement Company will build more houses and extend its business generally, and that he can not afford to stay at any one point of the circuit that is being opened. He will turn the management of the house over to Mr. Davis Saturday.
