Chorus, Are imbued with virtue stern,
Pass the buck! (Repeat)'.
"This anthem is written in the style of the Gilbert and Sullivan operettas and sounds very similar to one of their songs.
'Jezebel' Is Wrecked
"The only serious accident of the tour occurred on the Storm King Highway near West Point, New York. I was driving 'Jezebel', the supply truck, down a very steep hill. With me were J. L. Shute and Edgar Barrier, a Columbia graduate. The roadway was wet and I applied all the brakes we had to slow us up a bit. Naturally, 'Jezebel's' brakes burned out and we dashed down at terrific speed. At the bottom, we hit another car, demolishing it, and then flattened five concrete posts before, turning over in a ditch. Shute and I went out through the roof at the first collision, but Barrier was pinned down and had his arm broken.
Nowithstanding the injury, Barrier played his part successfully at the evening's performance in Woodstock, New York, without anyone suspecting that his arm was in splints.
Yard Performance a Success
"Our largest audience of the season was in Harvard Yard August 9. The Summer school students rallied for the performance in crowds. Our poorest audience numbered seven people and convened in spite of a slight drizzle and fog in Saco, Maine. Needless to say, we postponed the performance--the only one that was called off during the summer.
"Our repertoire consisted of one three-act play, 'The Dragon' by Lady Gregory, and three one-act plays, 'Love is the Best Doctor' by Moliere, 'Paolo and Francesca' by Stephen Phillips, and 'The Gentleman in Black' by W. S. Gilbert. We gave these performances on successive nights.
"The company, despite newspaper sentiment to the contrary, is purely professional. It supplies the dramatic needs of a large section of New England that is not generally visited by theatrical companies. The work is very interesting and full of enjoyable, though unexpected incidents."
Mr. R. H. L. Skinner '22, a member of the late Jitney Players, stated in regard to the troupe:
"The renaissance of the travelling theatre is due to the invention of the automobile. Once that invention was an assured fact, the time was bound to come when groups of actors would take to the road again, offering theatrical wares un- der desirable conditions of time and place. However, Bushnell Cheney was the first to have the foresight, the initiative, and the mechanical gifts to design the truck with its equipment, and to organize the actors and put them on the road."
The Jitney Players were first organized in 1923, and since then have toured regularly from Connecticut to Maine and back to New York playing wherever an audience had been located by R. C. Burrell '24, their advance agent. They use a collapsible stage, designed by Mr. Cheney, the owner of the company. This stage is fitted on a specially constructed Ford chassis, and can be unfolded quickly at each stopping place. A very elaborate lighting plant is built on another truck.
The Harvard men who have been connected with the organization are: R. S. Aldrich '25, H. W. Bragdon '28, H. C. Burrell '26, R. C. Burrell '24, J. J. Collier '24, William Force '26, D. W. Hallett '24, R. H. L. Skinner '22, Joaquim Souther '12, Ross Wilkins Jr '26, and A. R. Weed '25