Excerpt from The Witmark Amateur Minstrel Guide and Burnt Cork Encyclopedia Instruct the leader of orchestra to lay out all his music in the rotation in which the songs will be rendered, and also mark the en cores in each orchestral part from where such encore is to be taken. This saves delay and dangerous mistakes. Be sure to rehearse each encore as you would your solos and other musical numbers, and thereby insure a smooth and perfect performance. Where the Wit mark Minstrel Overture is used, the middle man's cues are already marked and opening speeches incorporated. Such as: The chorus before rise of curtain - Introduction of end men - Gentlemen be seated, etc. All these features are arranged in this overture, which is replete with novel features, chorus selections, and innovations, making it one of the big successes of the famous minstrel companies of America. Now, where this overture is not used, the interlocutor will 'exclaim, Gentlemen, be seated, and when seated announce Overture. After overture. And to give the musicians time to change instruments, or turn pages of music, the end men and middle man indulge in a few squibs. These will be found in Section VI. A few conundrums may also be added after the overture. Then the middle man announces the first ballad somewhat after this style T lie popular tenor, Mr. Blank, will refiner Ford and Bratton's ballad success, 'don't Ask Me to Forget.' (future ballad announcements are delivered in about the same manner, changing the style of language to avoid monotony). Then may follow a gag from one of the inside end men. (the out side end men have. As a rule, the last gags and songs). By a careful perusal of Sections V. And VI., the comedians may each be able to select a line of good gags which they can easily dove-tail by introducing a little original patter relative to the gags. It is advisable to have only a little patter - a very little. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.