Vaudeville was a popular form of entertainment in early 20th century America, featuring a variety of acts including music, dance, comedy, and more. It became more respectable in the 19th century and gained popularity through theaters like the Palace. However, it eventually declined due to the rise of movies and radio. Vaudeville had a lasting impact on show business, launching the careers of many stars and influencing later mediums. Its slang terms are still used today.
Vaudeville is a style of entertainment popular in America during the early 20th century. It consisted of a number of variety acts, including live music, dance and comedy. Other forms of entertainment could also be included, such as lectures, one-act plays, circus-style acts involving people or animals, and even short films, although music and comedy were the foundations of the genre.
Early vaudeville or variety shows, from the mid-19th century, were associated with the lower classes and could be quite risqué, but artist Antonio Pastor made the form more respectable around the 19th century. Women and children were allowed into the shows, while alcohol was often eliminated; early variety shows were often held in beer halls. Benjamin Franklin Keith contributed to vaudeville’s growing popularity by opening numerous theaters in the Eastern and Midwestern United States and Canada.
The most prestigious of Keith’s projects, called Big Time, opened at the Palace Theater in New York City in 1913, and it became instrumental for vaudeville’s most popular stars to perform there. While vaudeville at the Palace was hugely popular, it didn’t stay that way for long. Vaudeville failed to survive the growing popularity of motion pictures and radio, and the Palace Theater was converted into a movie theater in 1932, shortly after the success of the Depression.
While the vaudeville craze didn’t last long, its influences on show business persist to this day. Many early movie stars, including the Marx Brothers and the Three Stooges, launched their careers through vaudeville. The vaudeville aesthetic has also prevailed in more recent mediums, such as screwball comedy films of the 1930s and variety shows on radio and television. Slang terms originating in the world of vaudeville, such as “little time” and “big time,” “limelight” and “flop” for an unsuccessful show, are now in the vocabulary of most English-speaking Americans.
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