A Capital Socialist

Producer Maurice Evans, who dropped $49,000 trying to transplant The Linden Tree to Broadway, couldn't-say he hadn't been warned. "Why on earth are you in management?" Bernard Shaw once asked Evans. "It is the ruination of actors. Instead of putting money into the theater you should be taking money out of it."

Elsewhere on Broadway, Actor Evans was taking money out of the theater with both hands--and shipping a pocketful of royalties every week to Playwright Shaw. , By last week, Evans' hit production of Shaw's Man and Superman had grossed $760,000 from 195 performances; Shaw's royalties added up to $114,000 (before U.S. and British taxes)--the most he had ever made from one run.

Even by June, when Evans plans to close Man and Superman on Broadway after the longest run (some 270 performances) a Shaw play ever enjoyed, the royalties will not stop rolling in: Evans will take the play on a 57-city road tour. And this week on Broadway, the Theatre Guild will present Shaw's You Never Can Tell.

The world's most eminent Socialist author was enchanted. "My plays are now classics open to all managements," he sniffed, "like Shakespeare's except for the royalties. First come, first served."

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