Camp Shows

The 186 theaters belonging to the Army & Navy, long virtually unused, will soon begin putting on shows for service men.

To settle the jealous squabbles of the United Service Organizations and the Citizens Committee in charge of camp shows, a pious compromise has been temporarily worked out: an outfit called Camp Shows Inc. will foster plays; the Citizens Committee, vaudeville and musicals. Results: U.S.O. will give Camp Shows Inc. energetic Eddie Dowling and a $645,000 budget. Buzzing around the Caribbean bases last week was an Army planeload of Camp Shows talent: Funnymen Laurel & Hardy, Singer Jane Pickens, Actor John Garfield, Dancers Mitzi Mayfair and Ray Bolger. Producer Dowling expects to send Broadway hits, cast by George Abbott, Vinton Freedley, other Broadway producers. Most ambitious Camp Shows idea: sending a stock company to Iceland for an eight-to ten-week stay.

This month, the Citizens Committee plans to send the first two of seven musicals around the military circuit, playing them in the Army & Navy's bigger theaters, putting on two shows a night.

All shows for the service men are to be "clean but humorous." Before they can go on, the Army's Morale Division has to okay them. In the promotion for Camp Shows, the word "sex" is archly avoided. As a makeshift for it, Camp Showmen have coined a yoo-hoo substitute--"woodle."

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