When was vaudeville invented

Variety gave vaudeville its mix of acts, while the lyceum offered vaudeville a vision of the road, as well as the idea that Americans liked seeing various types of entertainment. If variety was for those who liked to drink and carouse, lyceum entertainment was geared towards attracting a respectable clientele, especially families. Vaudeville was influenced by the circus and other forms of entertainment.

Vaudeville, when it began, was more closely associated with variety than the lyceum. The vaudeville houses had bad reputations for attracting drunks, prostitutes, and the common rabble.

But there was more money to be made from the growing middle class families of America, and due to the vision of a few businessmen, vaudeville cleaned up its act.

In a way, vaudeville became the crossroads where many different forms of entertainment met to create a new form. Three men are commonly associated with transforming vaudeville from a form of entertainment for the lower classes to an evening out for the middle classes or those with middle class sensibilities. They are Tony Pastor, a former circus ringmaster, B. These shows, intended for all-male audiences, were often obscenely comical.

In Tony Pastor, a ballad and minstrel singer, created a variety show for families. Other managers recognized that a wider audience meant more money and followed his lead. With an influx of recent immigrants and quickly growing urban populations, vaudeville soon became a central point for American cultural life.

There was usually a dozen or more acts in every vaudeville performance. Starting and ending with the weakest, the shows went on for hours. The performances ranged from the truly talented to the simply quirky. There were great acts of physical talent; everything from contortionists, to tumblers to dancers such as the Nicholas Brothers.

Music rapidly influenced every Americans life. All of them hope and try to become famous, or simply earn some money for their next meal. That is what I think of when I hear New York. Music is a big part of every single person and it changes people. These include the use and proliferance of previously unorthodox dances, styles, artistry, and socialization.

An example of one of these would be the swing dance, as it has greatly impacted the growth of future dances and styles. Some lasting impressions it left, can be seen in productions such as Grease. World War II was another profound influence on both the style and true meaning of theatre Bordman Radios became more popular and televisions were invented, which made broadcasting news a lot easier. As women started to develop a sense of independence, the way people dressed changed dramatically.

All these changes that occurred in this decade impacted all the generations after. Broadway is constantly changing and adapting new things, which is healthy for its existence.

Since the British invasion of musical theatre, Broadway investors and producers have spent more money to produce shows. Cameron loved to use magnificent scenery designs and lighting. The Jazz Age as it was called also had a great effect on writing and thus came from it was a genre of jazz poetry.

Fashion was greatly influenced by the change in music as well. Because of the economic boom the consumer society was also booming and along with it was a new youth culture. Jazz music was a great force pushing this new youth culture, and by jazz was popular in every major city in the United States.

Various companies framed the show with stage boxes containing puppets, and even a puppet orchestra, but in the later years it was common for performers to adopt the cabaret style and appear on the variety stage without any elaborate fit-up. In Britain Eric Bramall adapted to this mode of performance when on the variety stage whilst in the United States Frank Paris and Bob Bromley began working in this style in A favourite 19th-century marionette act was the minstrel show with songs, dances and sketches based on the black-face performers such as the Christy Minstrels, that had become popular around the middle of the century.

Other very popular acts included Blondin tight-rope walker , Chinese bell dancers, a tranka juggling a pole with his feet , a disjointing skeleton, a Grand Turk who could break into five distinct figures. In addition there was sometimes a harlequinade, which by now had become a series of comic sketches based on the antics of Clown a Grimaldi type figure and Pantaloon, and often involving a policeman torn into two halves.

By the end of the century the invention of the phonograph led to performers creating puppets of major music-hall artistes and accompanying them with their recorded voices. By World War I, the great marionette companies were suffering competition from the cinema and other social changes. In Vittorio Podrecca created his Teatro dei Piccoli and in so doing took the older type of travelling marionette theatre into the avant-garde movement of the 20th century. His company, with marionette performers, musicians, singers and others comprised some twenty people — an enormous number for a company without significant state support.

Modern productions of opera were one of the main aims, but there was also a variety programme, and this became the economic mainstay of the company, especially during the fourteen years spent in the Americas where the company found itself stranded from the outbreak of World War II. The Podrecca variety show brought the genre to a new level of sophistication and each act was a self-contained piece in its own right and often involved quite large numbers of marionettes.

The Podrecca variety show also provided inspiration for one of the most popular productions of the Moscow Central Puppet Theatre of Sergei Obraztsov , the Extraordinary Concert , where the variety acts were transferred to the rod-puppet stage in a new and highly satirical style. The string marionette had been the main type of puppet to appear on the music-hall stage, but glove puppets did so occasionally also.

In the s in Britain the Punch and Judy showmen Bailey and Codman are known to have performed on the music-hall stage, whilst in the early 20th century Francesco Campogalliani created his own variety shows in small theatres where he performed with Fagiolino, Sandrone and other Emilian glove puppets. Ventriloquists see Ventriloquism could also be frequently found on the variety stage, as could humanettes.

By the s the great days of the Music Hall had passed and variety entertainment transferred itself to television where many puppet performers found an outlet for short numbers. In spite of all the changes and developments, the marionette variety show has remained a staple item of many companies. In Britain in the s Waldo Lanchester Lanchester Marionettes had a carefully crafted marionette circus with beautifully carved figures, whilst Stanley Parker also had a circus in the latter half of the century.