But the company was slipping. It had no policy, no one capable of formulating or maintaining one. It was losing valuable members of its personnel, some of whom could no longer tolerate the whims and capriciousness of “Dearie,” as Chase was dubbed by many in the company. Jerome Robbins had gone his way. Dorati, who gave the organization the only musical integrity and authority it had, had departed. Others, I knew, were soon to be on their way. Dry rot was setting in. As matters stood, with the direction as it was, I had no assurance of any permanent survival for it. The company continued from day to day subject to the whims of Lucia Chase. The result was insecurity for the dancers, with all of them working with a weather-eye peeled for another job. One more season of this company, I felt, and I would be responsible for dragging a corpse about the country, unless, of course, I should myself become a corpse. Ballet Theatre’s lawyers and my trusted counsel of many years’ standing, Elias Lieberman, arranged a settlement of our contract. Among its clauses was a proviso that the properties for _Firebird_ remained my property, together with a cash payment to me of $12,000. When the final papers were signed, we all shook hands. The parting between us may be described as “friendly.” * * * * * What the future of Ballet Theatre may be, I have no way of knowing. I am not a prophet; I am a manager. Ballet Theatre’s subsequent career has not been particularly eloquent; not especially fortunate. There has been a period when there was no ballet season, with the decision to spend a “sabbatical” coming so late that many artists were left with no employment at a time of the year when all other possibilities for work with other companies had been exhausted. My own feeling, while wishing them well, is that, so long as Ballet Theatre continues to have no categorical policy or practice, and so long as it attempts to continue with expediency dictating its equivocal programme, its future is circumscribed. It is an axiom that a ballet company’s character is determined by the personality of its director. However many collaborators Miss Chase may have on paper, Ballet Theatre is and will remain her baby. Co-directors, advisory boards, even the tax-exempt, non-profit organization called Ballet Theatre Foundation, formed in 1947, as a “sponsoring” group, do not alter the fact that Miss Chase is its sponsor. She pays the piper and the organization will dance to his melody. Sponsoring groups of the type I have mentioned have little value or meaning today. Ballet will not achieve health by dripping economic security down from the top. The theory that propping can be done by this method of dripping props from the top, does not mean from the top of ballet, but, hopefully, from the top of the social and financial worlds.