Chorus Ladies - Chair Girls

Here’s a lovely design for the chorus, with the description “Chair girls - Chorus Ladies”. Caroline Siedle has chosen soft shades of lavender and pinky-purple, with multiple ruffled layers on the skirt, creating a frothy design that would move well for dancers. I haven’t found what specific show this was for, but on the reverse is the notation “Lew Fields Co.”. This helps narrow down the possibilities.

Lew Fields was part of the famous vaudeville duo Weber and Fields. Together with Joe Weber, the comedy double-act performed for years with their popular “Dutch act”, playing a pair of German immigrants.  

 

In 1896 the pair opened their own music hall, showcasing many of the leading talents of the day, and often featuring costumes by Caroline Siedle. In 1904 the pair separated and Weber took over the music hall on his own, teaming up with Florenz Ziegfeld. Fields joined Hamlin & Mitchell and Sam Shubert and went on to produce other musicals at his own theater, starting with It Happened in Nordland. 

Since this drawing only mentions Mr. Fields company, it seems likely that this piece dates sometime after 1904. Then again, perhaps Siedle worked more directly with Fields than Weber which makes this more difficult to date.

This photo, from the Museum of the City of New York, is from Whoop-Dee-Do, produced in 1903 by Weber & Fields and costumed by Siedle, and shows what I think might be a similar set of "chair girls". This doesn’t seem to be the production the drawing was intended for, as the dresses in this photo definitely do not appear to be based on this design. Perhaps there were additional girls in an alternate dress design? Or maybe this concept was used in more than one production? After all this time, it’s difficult to say!