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Vaudeville (/ ˈ v ɔː d (ə) v ɪ l, ˈ v oʊ-/; [1] French: ⓘ) is a theatrical genre of variety entertainment which began in France at the end of the 19th century. [2] A Vaudeville was originally a comedy without psychological or moral intentions, based on a comical situation: a dramatic composition or light poetry, interspersed with songs ...
The first theatre piece in the world to achieve 500 consecutive performances was the comedy Our Boys by H. J. Byron, which started its run at the Vaudeville in 1875. The production went on to surpass the 1,000 performance mark. This was such a rare event that London bus conductors approaching the Vaudeville Theatre stop shouted "Our Boys ...
From 1866 to 1868, a new Théâtre du Vaudeville was built on boulevard des Capucines, at the corner of Rue de la Chaussée-d'Antin, in the 9e arrondissement. Although the Vaudeville continued as a commercial boulevard playhouse, it occasionally leased its stage to new experimentalist plays of the Independent Theatre movement.
The circuit now included forty-five vaudeville theaters in thirty-six cities. Heiman and Beck continuously differed in their opinions over questions of theater building and programing. Beck preferred the big-time traditional model of live vaudeville acts while Heiman wanted smaller theaters that favored the new trend of a vaude-film combination ...
Publicity shot of RKO Palace marquee, still advertising "vaudeville", c. 1955 While the shows were successful, they did not lead to a revival of the vaudeville format. [ 170 ] According to theatrical historian Ken Bloom , the Palace "limped along into the fifties with an occasional good week", but the popularity of television had restricted the ...
Stand-up comedy has roots in various traditions of popular entertainment of the late 19th century, including vaudeville, the stump-speech monologues of minstrel shows, dime museums, concert saloons, freak shows, variety shows, medicine shows, American burlesque, English music halls, circus clown antics, Chautauqua, and humorist monologues like those delivered by Mark Twain in his first (1866 ...
Acts which appeared at the Hippodrome included numerous circuses, musical revues, Harry Houdini's disappearing elephant, vaudeville, religious meetings, political rallies, and sporting events. [7] The theater closed in August 1939, [7] and a modern office tower known as The Hippodrome Center (1120 Avenue of the Americas) opened on the site in 1952.
One feature of the comédie en vaudevilles which later found its way into opera was the vaudeville final, a strophic finale in which the characters assemble at the end of the piece with each singing a short verse, often ending with a refrain which everyone would sing, and a final verse with the entire ensemble joining in. Typically the first verse provides the moral of the story, while the ...