sister performing to "Illustrated Songs". Balaban would mingle with the audience and urge everyone to sing together. In addition to performing, Balaban also greeted incoming customers, beginning a lifelong commitment to hospitality and personal attention. His first innovation was to celebrate a holiday with a related film and entertainment. According to Balaban, his St. Patrick's Day screening of "The Irish Blacksmith" with his singing of "She's the Daughter of an A.P.A." and "Tipperary", was "the talk of the neighborhood". A violinist was hired whose job was to accompany the films and participate in the entertainment. At first the musician, preoccupied with watching the picture, played incompatible passages. Balaban suggested the application of faster and slower music to correspond with the action. "So began the first music-cuing of our films", he recalled. By spring, with competitors looking for locations on the same street, Balaban told his older brother that they needed to build a bigger theatre. In September 1908, the brothers announced that they would not renew their lease on the Kedzie, but would build a $25,000 theatre on a lot at Sawyer and 12th Street, one block away. Though they concluded their relationship with the Kedzie in January 1909, the new theatre—to be called the Circle—would not open until Labor Day. Debts piled up, but Balaban relayed that "I loved every minute of the terrific wrestling of planning shows and house-management policies. New ideas seemed to pop like fire-crackers in my mind." The Circle With The Circle featuring 700 seats and a four-piece orchestra, Balaban instigated a two-show-nightly policy, with matinees on Saturday and Sunday. With those responsibilities, Balaban left his steady employment and spent most of his days at the offices of the Western Vaudeville Agency. Having studied talent wherever he sang, he had learned to assess the entertainment value of performers. And he began to consider how to routine the Circle's shows, alternating between short films like "Aesop's Fables" and "Pathe Weeklies" and live acts, creating terms like "openers", "fillers" and "chasers". Israel Balaban, his father, carried films to and from the theatre each day. A scant two months after its opening, the show business trade paper Variety called The Circle "a neat little house" that for an admission of 10 cents provided "four vaudeville acts and several reels of pictures. The house changes shows every Thursday and Monday, splitting with S. Chicago." Still, a Variety review published