leading roles in England at the Shakespeare Memorial Theatre and the Royal Court. Shakespeare was not fashionable in the US at that time, and his plays were rarely presented in live theater. The last had been Hamlet with John Barrymore 12 years earlier. Romeo and Juliet opened in Buffalo on November 29, 1933, and had difficulties. Cornell's friend, modern dance pioneer Martha Graham, choreographed the dance sequences. In Buffalo, Graham thought Juliet's balcony-scene costume was all wrong. She bought some soft white nun's veiling, from which she fashioned a flowing robe shortly before curtain time. The production opened a seven-month transcontinental tour that rotated three plays: Romeo and Juliet, The Barretts of Wimpole Street, and Candida. Many theater experts and actors advised against such an ambitious endeavor, planned during the height of the Great Depression. This was the first time anyone had attempted a national tour with a legitimate Broadway show, let alone a three-play repertory. The company toured to such cities as Milwaukee, Seattle, Portland, Oregon, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Oakland, Sacramento, Salt Lake City, Cheyenne, San Antonio, New Orleans, Houston, Savannah, and up the east coast to New England. As movies had taken over from live theater to a large degree, there were major areas of the U.S. closed off to the tour. Many stops at smaller cities had not seen live theater since the First World War, or ever. But box office records were set in most cities and towns. In New Orleans, women rioted when they found out that tickets had sold out. Variety reported that the tour gave 225 performances and played to 500,000 people. People in less urban areas traveled from two days away to see a performance, and the presenting towns gained a small but welcome swell in revenues from restaurants and hotels as a result. The most famous story to arise out of the tour came when the troupe was to play Barretts on Christmas night in Seattle, McClintic's hometown. They planned to arrive in the morning, and as it normally takes six hours to set up the stage, do lighting and blocking checks and distribute costumes, they figured there would be plenty of time. However, it had been raining for 23 days, and roads and railroads were being washed out. The train moved very slowly, often stopping. The theater management telegraphed that the venue was completely sold out for the evening