published in "The Fundamental Principles of Balaban & Katz Theatre Management", a handbook outlining Balaban's successful principles for running a large theatre. The Chicago The opening of The Tivoli was followed eight months later on October 26, 1921, by the opening of the Rapp and Rapp-designed Chicago, a 3,600-seat theatre on State Street in the heart of the business and shopping district. The theatre featured a 50-piece orchestra, a specially built Wurlitzer organ with percussive effects, and a team of 125 ushers. The successful combining, in palatial surroundings, of an elaborate stage show, created by Balaban, with Hollywood's more sophisticated and popular movies was becoming a staple of the movie-going experience—and a profitable Balaban & Katz signature. Other exhibitors would travel to Chicago in attempts to copy the formula. Eventually the Skouras Bros. and others would select stage shows they wanted for their own theatres. The Uptown By the time the chain opened The Uptown, a 4,300-seat house and the last of its "big three", in 1925, the production of stage-show "units", as they came to be known, served as an elaborate pipeline to the entire B&K circuit; the chain even had its own movie magazine. Frank Cambria, now living in Chicago, had become full-time art director for Balaban & Katz, and he hired a young costume designer, Vincent G. Minnelli (as he was billed in a B&K Production Department ad in Variety), to begin making costumes that the chain had formerly rented. Minnelli eventually would be promoted to a set designer as well. By 1929, Hollywood composer-to-be Victor Young was also a part of the B&K Production Department team, responsible for musical arrangements. In his autobiography, Minnelli wrote that The Chicago's stage presentations were "later copied by Radio City Music Hall. ... The shows ran a week at each theater, opening at the Chicago, then moving on to the Tivoli and the Uptown. A.J. Balaban would tour the theatres with Mr. Cambria and me every Monday, when the shows changed. We'd catch the first show at the Chicago downtown, then to the second show at the Tivoli. We'd have dinner before driving to the North Side and the last show at the Uptown." On a grand scale Stage attractions In refining an entire sector of show business during the explosion of motion pictures, Balaban assisted in elevating and changing the vaudeville business. The type of stage attractions ballyhooed by