The Robbins work came directly from Broadway, or the Avenue of the Americas, to be precise. It was called _Interplay_, and had originally been done for a variety show at the Ziegfeld Theatre. It was Robbins’s second work. It was merely a piece of athletic fun. It was a genuine hit. For music it had Morton Gould’s _Interplay Between Piano and Orchestra_, which he had originally written for a commercial radio programme as a brief concert piece for José Iturbi, with orchestra. The “interplay” in the dance was that between classical dance and “jive.” Actually what emerged was a group of kids having a lot of fun. For once, in a long while, I could relax and smile when I saw it, for this was a period when I had little time for relaxation and even less cause to smile. The production of Stravinsky’s _Firebird_ is something with which I shall deal separately. There was still another season to tour and a spring season at the Metropolitan Opera House, in 1946. In outlining the productions and chronology of Ballet Theatre during this period, I have tried to be as objective as possible so that the organization’s public history may be a matter of record. Its private history, in so far as my relations are concerned, is quite another matter. The troubles, the differences, the discussions, the intrigues of de Basil and his group, of Universal Art were, for the most part, all of a piece. I cannot say I ever got used to them, but I was prepared for them. I knew pretty much the pattern they would follow, pretty much what to expect. Being forewarned, I was forearmed. With Ballet Theatre I had expected something different. Here I was not dealing with the involutions and convolutions of the Cossack and the Slavic mind. Here, I felt, would be an American approach. If, as a long-time American, I felt I knew anything about the American people, one of their most distinctive and noteworthy characteristics was their honesty of approach, their straightforwardness, directness, frankness. Alas, I was filled with disillusionment on this point. Ballet Theatre, in its approach to any problem where I was concerned, had a style very much its own: full of queer tricks, evasions, omissions, and unexpected twists of mind and character, as each day disclosed them. There were two chief bones of contention. One was the billing. I have pointed out the lack of public interest in Ballet Theatre when I took it over and how the very title worked to its disadvantage. If ballet is to remain a great, universal entertainment in this country, and is, by the purchase of tickets at the box-office, to help pay its own way, at least in part, we must have a great mass audience as well as “devotees.”