The Theatre: Selling Point

As a theatre town Milwaukee is underweight; its two barnlike theatres just mosey along. No light chore was it, therefore, when Off-and-On-Broadway Myron C. Pagan tackled Milwaukee’s carriage trade last June to back a repertory company. But Fagan got his money, and last month started producing.

Last week came a play of Pagan’s own and with it the clue to how he wangled his cash. Pagan’s To the End of Time proved to be a lashing attack on John L. Lewis. Called John Steele in the play and portrayed as a scoundrel, he dies in Act II, goes to Heaven only long enough to be lambasted, then is booted out.

In turn Milwaukee’s critics booted the play, joked that the town’s anti-labor overlords had backed a walleyed nag. Milwaukee’s C. I. O. leaders merely sat tight. For them it was enough that To the End of Time was playing to half-empty houses.