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Most money in america is spent on one thing besides food and gasoline, and that is entertainment, I have always wondered about what entertainment was like before my time, and have spent many hours looking into the most different forms of entertainment in the beginnings of America, and toady I am here to educate you about a very different form of entertainment most parents and grandparents cannot inform their children and grandchildren about. This form entertainment sitcks out in my mind so much because they are so long forgotten and its so sad that they are, because each deserves so much recognision because each helped not only form the world of entertainment toady, but they helped form America. Today you can walk into any movie theater or turn on the radio and go see a movie, in 1920 you couldn't yes they had movies but it wasn't as simple as that. They had such different types of entertainment. These forms of entertainment were so different from anything we have to day they were brilliant,Vaudevilles were one of the top ways to stay entertained, before you could just simpily waste your life away by sitting down on the couch and turning on a movie or stuffing yourself with popcorn leaving your wallet empty because that movie just cost you an arm and a leg/
The word Vaudeville really doesn’t have an exact origin, it is said to have been taken from the expression for voice of the city, or “vox de ville”. Another possibility for the term comes from a valley in Normandy called; ‘Vud de Vire’ the valley was noted for its songs with tropical themes. Thought the Vaudevilles had been used in the united states since around 1830 it was adopted by the well known Vaudevilles for a few reasons: first for seeking Rowdy lower middle class crowds, and second for the French term for Air of sophistication and perhaps made the institution feel more like it was consistent with the Progressive era's interests in education and self-betterment. Some, however, preferred the earlier term, "variety," to what manager Tony Pastor Said it was its "sissy and Frenchified" successor. With this We often find records of vaudeville being marketed as "variety" well into the twentieth century.
Vaudevilles were a variety show, which started in the early 1840’s in Great Brittan, and It took a while for Americans to catch on to this very different form of entertainment. Vaudevilles really revolutionized the entertainment world, because they were really the first form of traveling entertainment. Vaudeville was a mashed up circus, medicine wagon and variety show all rolled into one amazingly wonderful show.
There was one very prominent figure in the beginning of the Vaudeville cirques, Benjamin Franklin Keith or B.F. Keith, who was considered the "Father of Vaudevilles. Keith began his career as a baker, or a grifter In traveling circuses, and Dime museums in New York in the 1870's.In 1883 He opened his own museum in his home state of Massachusetts. He was so successful that he built the Bijou Theatre; It was a lavish and state of the art theater that set the standards for the shape of theaters to come. The one this that Set B.F apart from other ringmasters was the fact that he had a strict set of rules in which his performers had to operate. He made all of his acts dress and act appropriate for the Family settings of vaudevilles, because at the beginning of vaudevilles, they were set as a form of adult entertainment this amazing form of entertainment was never supposed to be a family affair, thank god Keith changed so much.
In the years following the civil war bridging the gap between “high” and “low” entertainment, showing his triumph as a showman. He reinforced his sense of class that won him not only the love of women and children to the Vaudeville scene. He hired acts that attracted the legitimate audience, while simultaneously he maintained a number of acts whose forms would have been familiar to fans of the earlier variety stage without alienating either constituency. His partner was a man named, Edward F. Albee who started writing the programs for his shows that helped show the public that his shows were really built to attract people of all ages, and not only did these two attract families, but they attracted the roman catholic church. The church funded the cirques if the promised to keep the entertainment clean and family friendly. Keith and Albee built more and more elaborate theaters in Boston with the finds from the churches. That helped them transfer their success to cities more to the north of where they had previously worked.
Like all good things in the next few years Keith and Albee’s vaudevilles found imitators, Managers like S. Z. Poli, Klaw and Erlanger, F.F. Proctor, Marcus Loew, and Martin Beck began their own profitable enterprises. Around 1980 Cirques had spanned the country, needing a network of booking agents to promote and take care of the whole production aspect of the Vaudevilles. Keith and Albee consolidated their control of vaudeville, first through the United Booking Artists and later through the establishment of the Vaudeville Manager's Association, establishing a virtual monopoly that lasted well past Keith's death in 1914.
Keith invented a policy in Boston that stated that you preformed continually, meaning as soon as the theater emptied, you quickly filled the theater again and preformed and repeated the process many more times that day, for nearly two decades the vaudevilles worked like this until the big time theater returned it to its two-a-day regimen. A continuous performance would run for up to 12 hours at a time, and the performers were scheduled to perform two to three times in a night. There was little change between the two and most people found it that since the two-a-day rule was tradition that Vaudevilles should operate like most plain stage plays. Keith went with the continues performances because it gave him assurance by numbers and provided the illusion of a thriving business. Twelve hour shows also opened up vaudevilles for a wider audience than previously possible.
Tony Pastors hoped that Vaudevilles would catch on in metropolises such as New York because of the overflow traffic and it catered to the middle class people and those who worked shifts. Keith always said it didn’t matter what time of day you visited the theater because you would always be greeted by happy and smiling people and performers, his quotes are attributed to him knowledge that they had to attract urban audiences and recognizing the importance of managed spectacles.
By the 1980 vaudevilles had gained large audiences and were preformed on stages all over the world, they had booking agents and multiple acts, and a pretty notable following all a crossed not only Brittan and America but most of the world. There were three different ways vaudevilles were classified, there was ‘small time’ where a Vaudeville was performed in a small theater, “medium time’ where the theaters were bigger and they would perform two of three times a day and finally there was the ‘big time’ where Vaudevilles were preformed in large theaters of the middle and upper class, in ‘big time’ performances the pay was a lot more than any other classification.
The most coveted place of vaudevilles to be preformed was in a ‘big time’ theater in New York, At the Palace Theater. It was built in 1913 by a man called Martin Beck. This theater was run by B.F Keith. The performances here were performed by only the most knowledge in the Vaudeville Cirque circuit, with novelty acts and National celebrities. The Palace provided what many vaudevillians would consider the apotheoses of already remarkable careers.
In the late 1920 Vaudevilles started declining. A severe blow was dealt to the Vaudevilles in 1910 with the uprising of low-cost cinemas, just like Television has lead to the decline of Cinema, and as Television did in the early stages of production with its free broadcasting .Many vaudevillians such as The Three Stooges, Kate Smith, Bob Hope, Judy Garland, and Abbot and Costello made the change to by using their vaudeville career as a launching pad into television and film, most leaving performing live before they had achieved celebrity status. By the late 1920’s Vaudeville bills failed because they didn’t present more to the patrons as the cinema did. With the introduction of Photography in 1926 most vaudevilles that held out for ‘flickering shadow sweethearts’ or those few people (like myself) that still wanted to go see their acts, because Photography and the bugerion film studio removed what had remained, for many it was because they now preferred spoken dialogue to what vaudevilles had to offer.
Another thing that lead to the downfall of vaudevilles was Radio broadcasting, many theater managers tried to keep a vaudeville aspect in their theater with Vaudfilms, but they were still more costly than films were and were soon dropped from theater bills. Finally in the 1930 with the film industry growing the age of the vaudevilles was over. And with most theaters wired with lights and for sound, we lost one of the greatest forms of entertainment.
The post Vaudeville era saw light for some performers. Some made the switch to Radio, Cinema and television. While others came to find that their stage presents just didn’t carry well over to film and television. Many found themselves returning to try and settle into a normal life, working a middle class job and starting families. Even thought Vaudevilles both in ruling aesthetic and methods did not simply perish but many pieces of vaudevilles continued on in part with productions on Television and in films. Screwball Comedies still reflected the mad cap comedies of the vaudevilles. Vaudevilles were still present in shoes such as the Ed Sullivan Show and Your show of shows, where Multiple acts were put into one show much like the various acts of vaudevilles.
Your more than likely sitting in your seat asking yourself how you could possibly see a Vaudeville now even thought Vaudevilles died so many years ago. Don’t worry friend I have a solution for you.
Today right here in California we have our own Vaudeville, Its called the Lucent Dossier Vaudeville Cirque. Today deep within the underground of Los Angels theres a few people who want to keep the spirit of ‘old school’ entertainments alive. Today most people have seen this amazing set of performers actually perform and many don’t even know it yet, an amazing band in their debut music video had this vaudeville cirque perform with them. The band, Panic At The Disco strives to keep the memory of Vaudevilles alive by taking the Vaudeville cirque on tour with them for their first tour, the Nothing Rhymes with Circus Tour. Even thought they found short lived fame with the badn the cirque is still together today and still performing. The ringmaster of the cirque hopes that with his troupes patricapition in nighlty shows that he and his multiple acts can revive in part the spirit of the vaudevilles. The performance-art troupe embodys the newlwy awakened spiprt of vaudeville glamor.
Panic At The Disco nor the Lucent Dossier Vaudevill Cirque started trying to bring back Vaudvilles they are only helping hands in the grand plan of someone. No one is really is really credited with bring the Vaudeville cirque back into the twenty-first century, it is only known that is was started in New York. The website for Lucent Dossiers Vaudeville Cirque had this to say about their reasoning’s performing and I found it a magnificent way to express everything Vaudevilles stood for. “Creativity is at the core of our nature, yet in the course of our lives our creative desires are lost in the abyss of “impossible dreams.” It now falls to us to rediscover our magical inspirations and release their free-flowing expressions. It is our destiny to make all things possible. We must shed the spells society has accidentally cast upon us, and find out, for ourselves, who we really are and what we want from this incredible world of possibilities. We must find the strength to believe in ourselves and create our dreams into reality. Lucent Dossier is, at its very core, a playground for the innovative genius child in all of us. It is a collective based on magic and inspiration, living by the ancient wisdom of choosing confidence over doubt, joy over pain and love over fear.”
How does a teenager find such a topic? I shall well you, I love music, and more than that i like stage preformance put together, and threought the years that i have been preforming we eould little skits that included a vaudevillian theme, but i never really noticed how amazing it was. Then Panic At The Disco, one of my favorite bands came out with their first CD, and their stage show was the Lucent DOssier Vaudeville cirque, and as i watched teh dancers softly float around the stage, i felt one thing, love. So today you can thank Panic at the Disco for your new found knowladge of what a Vaudeville is.
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