When was vaudeville popular

They were headquartered in New York City and from there they sent bands of entertainers across America. Families were guaranteed that when they went to a Keith-Albee vaudeville house that they would see performers who offered respectable acts and led respectable lives. Albee was the ultimate manager, and he took over the theatrical operations, and also, around the turn of the century, he opened the United Bookings Office in NYC.

Albee booked most of the major vaudeville circuits in the U. Some of the biggest names of the midth century got their start in vaudeville. Judy Garland, left, in Chicago, playing vaudeville. The Palace Theatre, which is now a Broadway theatre, was originally a vaudeville house. It meant you had made it. In the s, vaudeville began a steady decline and by the end of the decade it was dead.

He wrote popular songs, some say drinking songs, which he named chansons du vau-de-Vire , after his native valley. At agricultural fairs, around the close of the seventeenth century, these songs, refreshed with topical lyrics, were put together with sketches and called vaudevilles.

To say that vaudeville originated in Normandy or Paris does little to explain American vaudeville. These men were street-smart promoters, not cultural anthropologists, and they were persuaded to call their offerings vaudeville because it sounded French, and if something were French, it was presumed classy, fancy and lively.

Variety and vaudeville were unlike plays and opera because they brought together a series of unrelated acts on a single bill. There was no unifying theme or scheme, as was found in classic drama, melodrama, comic opera, operetta, and burettes burlesque. The bills were a mixture of recitations, ballets and hornpipes, songs from the concert repertoire as well as lighter melodies, and dramatic and comedy sketches. Ed: Many of these acts featured performers, both black and white, appearing in blackface, as well as comedy and dance based in cruel and exaggerated ethnic stereotypes.

Throughout the s and 60s, variety entertainment became popular among the frontier settlements and urban centers. These shows, intended for all-male audiences, were often obscenely comical. In Tony Pastor, a ballad and minstrel singer, created a variety show for families.

Other managers recognized that a wider audience meant more money and followed his lead. With an influx of recent immigrants and quickly growing urban populations, vaudeville soon became a central point for American cultural life. There was usually a dozen or more acts in every vaudeville performance.

Starting and ending with the weakest, the shows went on for hours. The performances ranged from the truly talented to the simply quirky. Some of the most famous vaudeville performers began at an early age. Like the Yiddish theater and the circus, vaudeville was a family affair — singing sisters, dancing brothers, and flying families. For many of these families, the traveling lifestyle was simply a continuation of the adventures that brought them to America.

Their acts were a form of assimilation, in which they could become active parts of popular culture through representations of their heritage. Many made acts from the confusions of being a foreigner, while others displayed skills they had learned back in the old country. Once an act worked, performers repeated it in front of audience after audience. Many performers became known simply by their signature act. With the advent of the radio, however, America found a free and easy way to tap into that variety of entertainment they had looked for in vaudeville.

With such specialized skills, the performers continued to perform to smaller and smaller crowds. In time, theaters began to show films, and the few vaudevillians left took what work they could get performing between reels. Ironically, it is through the movie and TV industry that vaudeville eventually left its greatest mark. Nearly every actor in the beginning of the century either performed or visited vaudeville.

The silent movies, with former vaudevillians such as Burt Williams, Buster Keaton and Charlie Chaplin, incorporated the animated physical comedy of the vaudeville stage. Even today, shows such as Late Night with David Letterman and Saturday Night Live continue the traditions of popular variety entertainment.

Vaudeville acts included acrobats, animal trainers, comedians, dancers, musician, plate-spinners, silent movies, singer, sketches, variety entertainment, vaudeville, ventriloquists and more. A promotional poster for the Sandow Trocadero Vaudevilles , showing dancers, clowns, trapeze artists and costumed dogs.