That the drama of our language has been born again in the last three or four decades is proof positive that the organization of the theater has not been wholly inefficient. It cannot be as defective as has been shrilly proclaimed by juvenile enthusiasts who are in a hurry for the millennium and who are disappointed that it does not arrive over night. It is to be put to its credit that in one city at least, in the city of New York, the persistent playgoer has a very wide range of opportunity—probably unrivaled anywhere else in the world. He has his choice of a hundred new American plays every season, plays good, bad and indifferent. He has a chance to see the most important plays by contemporary foreign dramatists. He is likely to have occasion in the course of a single season to renew his acquaintance with half-a-dozen or half-a-score of Shakspere’s comedies or tragedies. He may wander at will to playhouses where the performances are given in French or in German, in Chinese or in Yiddish. He can feast his eyes on the puppet-shows of the Italians and on the ballet-pantomimes of the Russians. He can adventure himself in any one of half-a-dozen Little Theaters devoted to the very latest effusions of the most idealistic idealists and the most realistic realists, native and foreign. In short, he will find on the annual bill of fare a heterogeny of tempting dishes, lacking, it is true, more than one delicacy which he may desire to taste. The other side of the ledger, however, tells another story. While New York has a plethora and while a few of the largest cities may find a sufficiency, the smaller cities suffer from painful penury, and the less important towns are starving to death. Many an interesting play lacks breadth of popular appeal; and the managers shrink from taking it on the road; and if they are bold enough to run this risk it is only to a few of the larger centers of population that they dare to go. In the smaller cities possessing only one important playhouse, this may be occupied week after week by mere shows. It is true that in not a few of the smaller towns there are stock-companies making a brave struggle, putting on the more successful pieces as soon as these are released for stock but producing them in haste as best they can with a small company, the members of which are sadly overworked, playing in one piece six nights, and four, five or six matinees while they are scrambling through rehearsals and learning their parts in the play in preparation for the following week.