Kelly and Leon’s Minstrels

“Every seat in this house was filled last evening on the rising of the curtain. The bill of the evening’s entertainment was finely made up of novelties calculated to display to the best advantage the artistic abilities of the performers. In the first part ‘The German Flageolet,’ by Allen, and ‘Something New,’ by Seymour, were especially well rendered. In the olio portion a new operetta, written by Leon, was very successfully introduced. The performance concluded with the burlesque on ‘Cendrillon,’ in which Kelly, Seymour and Allen appeared in undress uniform, and won the usual meed of applause accorded their burlesque antics.”

“Crowded audiences nightly listen to the plaintive ballads, the comic singing and funnyisms of Kelly & Leon’s Minstrels. Every night last week the house was crowded, and camp stools were placed in the aisles, and it must have put some of the performers in mind of old times, to have the pleasure of playing to not only so large crowds, but to such enthusiastic ones. In the olio business, Nelse Seymour and Johnny Allen appeared in a ‘Boxing Act,’ and the way they did knock one another around was a caution. It created a deal of fun, keeping the audience roaring with laughter. The new song and dance of ‘She is as Lovely as a Rose,’ written by Eddy Fox, and performed by Johnny Allen, is a very good thing, and Allen does it up in good style. He was encored every night, and did ‘Nicodemus Johnson,’ another good song and dance. The prima donna act, by Leon and Kelly, was very amusing, as was Seymour and Price’s ‘Odds and Ends,’ ‘Cinder-Leon’ continues on the bills, and is a screaming burlesque, sending the audience away every night delighted.”