What were vaudeville shows?

Vaudeville, a farce with music. In the United States the term connotes a light entertainment popular from the mid-1890s until the early 1930s that consisted of 10 to 15 individual unrelated acts, featuring magicians, acrobats, comedians, trained animals, jugglers, singers, and dancers.

What were some of the biggest acts of the vaudeville days?

Types of acts have included popular and classical musicians, singers, dancers, comedians, trained animals, magicians, ventriloquists, strongmen, female and male impersonators, acrobats, clowns, illustrated songs, jugglers, one-act plays or scenes from plays, athletes, lecturing celebrities, minstrels, and movies.

Where was vaudeville performed?

This form of stage entertainment was based on popular acts that could be seen in British music halls and bar rooms during the nineteenth century. Vaudeville had made its way to the United States in the 1870s, when acts were performed in theaters in New York, Chicago, and other cities.

Where did vaudeville eventually leave its greatest mark?

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.

When was the height of vaudeville in America?

Vaudeville was America’s most important and popular entertainment from the 1890s to the First World War. At its height, it included thousands of theaters, in communities large and small, from coast to coast. Vaudeville enjoyed its most explosive period of growth between 1900 and 1912.

Where did the first vaudeville show take place?

While the initial origins of vaudeville are obscure, historians acknowledge that the opening of Tony Pastor’s Fourteenth Street Theatre in New York City on October 24, 1881, marks the beginning of American vaudeville.

When did Abbott and Costello start performing in vaudeville?

Abbott began working in vaudeville in 1918, producing a “tab show” on the Gus Sun circuit with his wife. Later, he began working as a comic “straight man.” Abbott and Costello met around 1929 and possibly performed together in vaudeville in the very early 1930s. The duo went on to work in radio and film.

What was the life of a vaudeville performer?

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.