Vaudeville

Vaudeville
From the french word voix-de-ville
(voice of the city, song of the street)                                                                                       

Everyone loves a clown,............a dancer, a singer, a juggler etc. This is why vaudeville in its day was so popular. The American audience enjoyed the variety of acts that vaudeville provided from the 1880's to the1920's. The variety show was the predecessor to vaudeville. Variety shows catered to the working man,in beer halls and honky tonks. These places were no place to take a lady. It was after the civil war that a performer Tony Pastor opened a theater on 14th street in New York City, and banned drinking, smoking, and profanity. This was the start of "clean" entertainment and the beginning of vaudeville's boom. Other producers witnessed the success of Pastor's theater and started their own theaters throughout the United States. Keith and Albee, two partners, started with two theaters they opened in Boston, Massachusetts and  their partnership produced three hundred fifty vaudeville theaters. They were also the proprietors of the "crown jewel" of vaudeville, the Palace. You had made it big in vaudeville if you played the Palace.

The vaudeville stage was home to dancers, singers, acrobats, comedians, pantomimists, animal acts, and actors performing dramatic sketches. The weekly shows averaged nine varied acts. The life of a vaudevillian was not a glamorous one. Some performers had three shows a night, in different theaters. When silent films came along, they shared the stage with the vaudeville acts. Then came radio that let the audience stay at home and be entertained for free. The crushing blow to vaudeville was the start of talking films. some vaudeville acts were able to make the transition from the vaudeville stage to the big screen ie: the Marx Brothers, the Three Stooges, Milton Berle, W.C. Fields, and Judy Garland, just to name a few. 

Vaudeville still lives on. On television we watch shows that have a vaudeville format, the Ed Sullivan Show, Dean Martin Show, Red Skelton Show, Jack Benny Hour and today there is America's Got Talent. Bob Hope entertained the U.S. troops overseas for decades with a traveling variety show.

E.F. Albee summed up the appeal of vaudeville, "In vaudeville there is always something for everybody, just as in every state and city in every county and town in our democratic country, there is opportunity for every body, a chance for all."

Works Cited

Felner, Mira and Claudia Orenstein. The World of Theatre. Boston: Pearson Education, Inc. 2006.

Slide, Anthony. The Encyclopedia of Vaudeville. Westport: Greenwood Publishing Group, Inc. 1994.

Sobel, Bernard. APictorial History of Vaudeville. New York: The Citadel Press. 1961. Print.