The Theatre: Coming Productions

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The finger of the future moving down the menu of the coming theatrical season points particularly to the following productions:

Mary, Mary, Quite Contrary. Three notable names combine to give this play preliminary prestige before the curtain, rises. David Belasco, foremost American producer for many years, will sponsor it; St. John Ervine, Irish novelist and playwright, is the author; Mrs. Fiske, Mother Superior of the order of American actresses, will be the star. Mr. Belasco will import an English leading man. The play is a modern comedy.

Casanova. A. H. Woods, bedroom man, will combine with the Charles Frohman company in the unveiling ceremonies of a drama based on certain aspects of the life of the greatest Don Juan. Little is known in this country of Casanova, owing to the attitude which the censors assume toward his extensive memoirs. Lowell Sherman, venomous villain of many a movie and play, will have the lead. Playing oposite him will be Katherine Cornell, whose brilliant beauty was the feature of Clemence Dane's A Bill of Divorcement and Will Shakespeare and Pinero's The Enchanted Cottage.

Children of the Moon. Martin A. Flavin, a new author, has contributed this study of abnormal psychology to the season's serious drama. Henrietta Crosman will venture out of a long retirement to play the lead. Her support will include Beatrice Terry, niece of Ellen Terry.

The Changeling. Henry Miller will lend his suave charm to a comedy by Lee Wilson Dodd, based, as the name suggests, on the mutability of human identity. During Mr. Miller's Summer season in San Francisco, Blanche Bates and Ruth Chatterton were numbered among the cast. One, possibly both, will come to Broadway.

Poor Richard. Philip Barry, youngest of authors, who graduated from George Pierce Baker's Cambridge workshop to Broadway success with You and I, has written his second comedy of American life. The theme deals, not, as the title suggests, with Benjamin Franklin and his loaves of bread, but with the aristocracy of the American suburb.

The Fountain and Welded. Eugene O'Neil, greatest of our playwrights, will have these two productions in the season's show window. Details are known of the first only. It is a drama of Ponce De Leon and his pilgrimage to the fancied Fountain of Eternal Youth. Lionel Barrymore will probably play the visionary Spaniard with Irene Fenwick, his lately acquired spouse, as the lady with whom the eternal youth was to be spent.

Grand Guignol. The players of this famous French company will pack up a sheaf of their most gruesome horrors and transport them to America. They appeal, as every Paris tourist knows, directly to the backbone and deal exclusively in blood and shudders. They will play in French.

The Swan. Many Americans consider Liliom the greatest play to reach our shores in many years. The Swan is by the same author, Franz Molnar. In Europe it is almost sacrilege to mention them in the same breath. The latter is considered incomparably his masterpiece. Eva Le Gallienne will play the lead.