The History of Vaudeville and Burlesque In Text, Photographs, Music and Film

INTRODUCTION


By the turn of the century, there was a standardized line-up of acts on the vaudeville stage. The bill was divided into two parts with an intermission in the middle. The show would open with a "dumb act," usually an animal or acrobatic act. "Dumb" did not refer to the quality of the act, but rather to the fact that they did not rely on sound, and thus were appropriate to use as opening and closing acts when patrons were noisily entering and leaving. Dumb acts were rarely given prime positions on the bill. "The second act could be almost anything at all, as long as it provided more entertainment than the first act" (DiMeglio 1973, 35). The third act "was intended to wake up the house, the number four to deliver the first solid punch, and the last before the interval a knockout that would bring them back wanting more" (Banham 1995, 1161-1162). This fifth act usually had to feature a big name. After the intermission, the sixth act had to sustain the impact of the previous acts yet not supersede in popularity the ones that would follow. The main attraction or star would appear as the next to closing act. The concluding act was often called a chaser since it was meant to play as people would be exiting the theater early. Often a chaser was a motion picture. Some historians have indicated that the use of the motion picture as a chaser indicated its low position in the vaudeville theater, but it is also possible that it was used for closing merely because it, too, was a "dumb act" that need not rely on sound. The chaser, while allowing theater-goers to exit noisily if necessary, also had to be entertaining enough to keep the remaining audience members happy with the entire bill. The entire bill typically included eight to ten acts with some theaters using more or less.


SUBJECTS By CHAPTER

1. An Introduction To Vaudeville And Early Period Burlesque 

2. Vaudeville And Burlesque Posters: 1890s To 1930s

3. Vaudeville And Burlesque Photographs: 1870s To 1920s

4. Vaudeville Newspaper Advertisements And Playbills

5. American Variety Stage Audio Sampler (1914 To 1922) 

6. Vaudeville Short Films Compilation (All Silent; Early 1900s)  

7. Burlesque Short Films Compilation (All Silent; Early 1900s)  

8. Select Betty Boop Cartoons (1930s)