is to fill the room with just about the amount of light desired, and then to bring enough through the window to give the proper natural effect. The same process should be followed in all other circumstances. If there is a lamp, or a lantern, or a fireplace, which would be a source of light naturally, that source should be utilized. A circle of light may be thrown by a spotlight from overhead around a table on which a lamp is standing. A spotlight from over the proscenium arch may reënforce the light from a fireplace. In lighting an outdoor scene, more light should be cast from one side than the other; only when the sun is directly overhead is outdoor light even, and it is then most uninteresting. Sometimes an excellent effect is secured by throwing a green or blue light from one side; this helps to make faint but interesting shadows. Black, heavy shadows are usually to be avoided, but faint shadows, which will be hardly noticed by the unobserving, are essential. Scene designers should do their part to secure good lighting, by providing in their designs apparent sources for light. 2. The scene should not be flooded with white garish light, but it should not be so dark that the audience is obliged to strain in order to see what is happening. Overlighting is a common fault, but underlighting is probably more generally annoying to an average audience. Dark scenes should be of very short duration, as they are very tiring, to the ear as well as to the eye. Often the effect of darkness can be maintained by starting with the scene dimly lighted, and then by bringing on more light so slowly that the change is impercepti ble to the eyes of the audience. This gives the psychological effect of the eye growing accustomed to the darkness so that it sees better. 3. When possible, unity of control should be established. All lights, even those that light up the auditorium, should be under the control of one switchboard. If unity of control is impossible, as is too often the case in school auditoriums where lights are so often on different switch boxes, some system of signals may be devised so that the several persons operating lights are brought together under one leader. 4. The color wheel is a useful tool in lighting as in the other arts dealing with color (see page 98). Complementary colors tend to kill each other, because they tend to produce a grayness. Warm colors in lighting reënforce warm colors in the costumes or scenery, while they dull cool colors; of course, the reverse is also true. Every color is brightest under a light of the same color; that is, a red light makes a red costume still more brilliant. Gelatines of light color, as straw, lemon, steel blue, and so forth, usually produce less color changes in the scenery, costumes, and makeups, than do more brilliant and vivid gelatines. The lighter colors are, therefore, more generally useful. 5. Finally, some of the cleverest lighting effects are those of which the audience may be entirely unaware. If a character has to make an important speech from a certain position, it may be that his face would be indistinct and uninteresting under the normal lighting of the scene. A baby spot, properly directed, and brought up slowly at the correct time, may give this character just the proper lighting without any one in the audience being aware that there has been any change in the lights. If a ghost is to appear, as in "Julius Cæsar," the normal lights may be dimmed out and green light run in so gradually that the audience does not notice the change; but this lighting trick will intensify the entrance of the ghost and make it many times more effective than it would otherwise be. Nothing has changed more in the theater of recent years than lighting. Devices and ideas have multiplied. There have been schemes for indirect and reflected light, for refracted light, for synthetic light, and for many other varieties. These are described in many of the recent books on the new movement in the theater. A study of these books, and, better yet, careful experimentation in lighting, should convince the nonprofessional producer of the wonderful, unfulfilled possibilities of this glorious element-light! CHAPTER XIV THE BUSINESS DEPARTMENT Importance of a Budget The business department requires skillful management and systematic planning.1 (See pages 19-20). The first duty of the business manager and his assistants is to make out a budget for each and every performance. A careful manager will know what the probable income will be, and he will figure a sufficient margin so that if his income is not what he expects it to be, he will nevertheless clear his expenses. If he expects to sell so many tickets at such a price, he will see that his budget of probable expenses is only a certain proportion of this sum he hopes to collect. Some of the items that will probably appear on his budget will be expenses of the theater, scenery, costumes, make-up, printing of tickets and programs, advertising, and royalty on the plays to be given. After the performance, he should make a careful and complete report of his actual expenses, his income, and the profit; and this report should be permanently recorded in some way for the 1 For further discussion of the business department see Oliver Hinsdale, Making The Little Theater Pay, (Samuel French, New York, 1925). Alexander Dean, Little Theater Organization and Management (D. Appleton & Co., New York, 1926). benefit of future managers. In management, as in all the other departments of amateur play production, it is important that the experience of one performance be passed on for the next. Other duties that the business department must perform fall into obvious classifications: Tickets The business manager, or his assistant who has charge of the tickets, must be certain that the tickets contain all the necessary information: the time, date, place of performance, and the price. It is very disconcerting to find, after the tickets have been distributed for sale, that some important fact has been omitted. In general, it is probably more satisfactory to number the seats, so that persons may know in advance just where they are to sit, than to sell admission only. This means that the tickets must be numbered to correspond with the seats. The numbers on the seats should be so arranged that a glance shows in what section the seat is. Rows are usually designated by letters, starting with the row nearest the stage. If there is a middle aisle, so that there are two sections of seats, numbering usually starts in the middle and goes out, with the odd numbers on the left, and the even numbers on the right. Thus, seat C6 will be the third seat from the middle aisle to the right in the third row from the front. Seats C1, C3, C5, etc., will be adjacent to one another in the left section. If there are three aisles, the left section may be number 1, 3, 5, etc., the middle section 101, 102, 103, etc., and the right section 2, 4, |