Savoy Stock Company Actors Sue for Unpaid Wages
Troupe members seek $656.75 in back pay as the theater management faces a separate legal battle over an unpaid lighting fixture bill.
Claiming that they have received no remuneration since January 1, Virginia Thornton, Harry Cleveland, and other members of the Savoy Stock company filed suit yesterday against Mandel Lurie and Noel Travers to recover a judgment for $656.75. J. R. Gray has been assigned the salary claims and will force the matter into the courts. Harry B. Cleveland also filed suit against the Andrus-Cushing Lighting Fixture company and Sheriff Morris for an alleged unlawful attachment. The lighting company was recently granted a judgment of $50.60 against the managers of the theater. It is alleged that when the sheriff's office attached the proceeds of the box office Saturday afternoon, they took as much as $80 away.
“Claiming that they have received no remuneration since January 1... members of the Savoy Stock company filed suit.”
Theater life in the early 1900s was often precarious, with companies frequently struggling to balance box-office receipts against payroll and supplier costs. This legal scuffle illustrates the litigious nature of small-business finance in early Tacoma.
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