Vaudeville

Let’s have a look at the gloriousity of vaudeville in its heyday, shall we?

Vaudeville was a theatrical genre of variety entertainment very much in vogue from the 1880s to the 1930s. The name, vaudeville, is thought to be derived from the expression voix de ville which means voice of the city.

A vaudeville performance is made up with several unrelated acts grouped together on a common bill. These acts tend to include musicians, dancers, comedians, trained animals, impersonators, acrobats, illustrated songs, jugglers, scenes from plays, athletes (yuck), lecturing celebrities, minstrels and movies. Something for everyone, then, except for the athletes thing which sounds like a major fail, cause who likes sports, really? Anyway…

Vaudeville developed from many sources, such as the concert salon, minstrelsy, freak shows, dime museums and burlesque. Well, you can’t go wrong with those ingredients!