Theatre of Arts and Letters.

The Theatre of Art and Letters company will give its first production before a Boston audience tonight in Columbia Theatre. The play will be "The Squirrel Inn" a comedy by Frank R Stockton and the performers are all well known artists. The Theatre of Arts and Letters company is distinctly different from the ordinary theatrical company and it may be interesting to Harvard men who have not heard of, to state the purpose of its organization. The ultimate aim of the society is, briefly, to establish a standard theatre, in many respects similar to those in London and Paris. It is to be subsidized by a private club of five hundred active members. These will be chosen mostly from the select literary, theatrical and social circles of New York. It is hoped to build a club house and theatre in that city. Once started, the company will proceed to produce as rapidly as possible plays of real literary merit, written by the prominent literary men of the day. The first night will be for the Club alone. Each succeeding entertainment, however, will be open to the public. In the larger cities there will be lists of honorary members, who are entitled to buy tickets for the private performances. Tours will be taken yearly through these cities in the effort to arouse a wide public interest for a better class of plays of literary merit. It is an attempt to save the stage from being cast out of the field of literature, on the ground that the stage rightfully belongs to Art and Letters alone. Henry B. McDowel of the class of '78 is president of the organization and Barret Wendell, Bliss Carman and other Harvard men are actively interested. The experiment has been tried with success in New York and the company is now on a tour, the express purpose of which is to test whether of not the public and be interested in so called "literary plays". The first performance tonight will, to a great extent, prove the success of the venture in Boston. "The Squirrel Inn" is certainly typical of the style of play in which the company would interest the public of Boston and Cambridge. Mr. McDowel, as a Harvard man, is particularly desirous that his effort to introduce really literary plays on the stage should receive the hearty approval of the University, and it is a pleasure that the performance to-night can be so highly recommended.