Vaudville

Vaudeville Theatre By Robbie W.**

Vaudeville was a style of variety entertainment theatre used from the late 19th century until the early 20th century in the U.S.A. and Canada. A vaudeville performance was made up of multiple different and usually unrelated acts that included comedies, music, dancing, acrobatics and many other entertaining acts.

Vaudeville theatre began after the civil war in the United States and developed with great influence from the circus and medicine shows. Forms of variety entertainment ** existed before the civil war, but vaudeville brought the idea of variety theatre to a different scale. Traditonally, variety halls and concert saloons (earlier forms of vaudeville) had strict rules about genders and races that were allowed to attend, were too expensive for the middle class and most events allowed alcohol. When Vaudeville began, these rules and ideas were changed drastically. The theatres became alcohol free and most rules about gender and race were demolished. This is most probably influenced by the Civil War's outcome, the abolishment of slavery and the beginning of equality in the U.S.A. The first recorded vaudeville performance was on October 24th, 1881 when a theatre manager Tony Pastor staged the first 'clean' variety entertainment show in New York City.
 * History of Vaudeville

Soon after the beginning of vaudeville, A man named Benjamin Keith began to open vaudeville theatres outside of New York City. Chains of vaudeville theatres began to stretch across the U.S.A. and Canada and soon there were many small and large vaudeville houses in almost every large city as well as a few smaller ones too. Each of the houses had similar standards in acting, prices and rules but each theatre differed in acts. Most large cities had famous acts that performed solely in the theatres of the cities where they lived and most acts rarely traveled from city to city. It wasn't until the introduction of Vaudeville circuits in the 20th century that acts began to travel. Many businessmen began to catch on to the idea of vaudeville and began building franchises of vaudeville theatres in the U.S.A. and canada which they called Vaudeville 'circuits'. Each of the theatres in a circuit had the almost exactly the same pricing and rules and most acts began to travel between theatres in the circuits that they worked within. These circuits gradually grew into what came to be known as 'Big Time' vaudeville theatres which usually pulled in thousands of dollars in revenue in just one week. As for the more 'small time' theatres, they began to develop a more 'neighborhood feel' by making acts that were specific to the neighbourhood that the theatres were in and making jokes that were in reference to the people that were attending the theatre.

Vaudeville has definitely gone down in history as one of the most influential styles of theatre but, as with most things, it did not last forever. Theatre owners began to incorporate cinema into the Vaudeville bill and soon no Vaudeville bill did not include a motion picture of some kind. Soon after that, the motion picture craze took over and people began to favour cinemas over vaudeville as a way to save money as well as see what was considered to be a better show. Although vaudeville itself did not last, you can now see forms of vaudeville all over the world. Shows on TV like 'Britain's Got Talent' is a more modern form of vaudeville, with the idea of acts being judged incorporated in. Festivals like the Edinburgh Festival are events where you can see traditional circus-vaudeville acts like juggling, sword swallowing, etc. as well as more modern acts and street performers. If you look closely enough, you can see how influential Vaudeville theatre has been to our modern theatre styles and you will definitely be able to see aspects of Vaudeville in the acting world all around you.
 * Modern Forms of Vaudeville**

"Vaudeville, A History." //Xroads.virginia.edu//. University of Virginia. Web. "VIrtual Vaudeville." //Virtualvaudeville.com//. University of Georgia, 2004. Web. Kenrick, John. "A History of Musical Vaudeville." //Musicals101.com//. 1996. Web. //Vaudeville Act: Lowe, Hite and Stanley//. Perf. Lowe, Hite and Stanley. YouTube, 2007. **
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