Talk:Vaudeville

Pronunciation
Could someone show how this is to be pronounced in English? easytiger 11:11, 14 January 2006 (UTC)

Pronounced "VAW-duh-vil" by most of the folks during it's reign. Now usually pronounced "VAWD-vil".

It is more properly "VAW-deh-vill" but "VAWD-ville" is not incorrect. In the documentary "Vaudeville", the performers interviewed pronounce the middle syllable, but trip over it very lightly. JoKing 23:22, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

Right. (See my note immediately preceding your own.) My point was not how it was pronounced (correctly, I believe) by its largely deceased base of performers, nor how civilians pronounced it at the time of the genre's dominance, but what it's common current pronunciation is:  VAWD-ville. I don't think I've heard the "correct" (but lamentably antiquated) pronunciation even once at any academic conference on theatre history or popular entertainment. --Patchyreynolds 11:13, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

I don't think that vaud-ville is THE common pronunciation. I hear it as vaud-deh-ville more often than not. However, I work in the theatre so that may account for it. 74.106.252.74 00:46, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

Music Hall, Vaudeville, Variety
Could someone explain the differences if any between Vaudeville, Variety, and Music Hall? If any? My own knowledge is extremely sketchy....

But I have taken the liberty of adding "see also" links from Vaudeville to Music Hall and vice versa, and a link from Variety to both... Dpbsmith 13:36, 24 Mar 2004 (UTC)


 * Where is variety? Variety is a disambiguation page, and the only related thing I see is Variety show, which only talks about the television genre. Rigadoun 18:57, 24 May 2006 (UTC)

Note to self, come back and add some British content. --bodnotbod 14:48, May 2, 2004 (UTC)

What about the Marx Brothers? Dwarf Kirlston 13:55, 5 Mar 2005 (UTC)
 * Okay, what about them? They're mentioned and have their article linked to here. What's your question? -- Infrogmation 18:56, 5 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Confusion between "variety" and "vaudeville"
Yes, the articles might be helpful. The quick answer is that the distinctions largely address era, audience and industry. First, variety preceded vaudeville, finding it's greatest success in NYC during and after the Civil War up through the late 1870s. Second, variety had a a probably well-deserved reputation as being smokey, booze-ridden environments in which many Victorian women might be uncomfortable. (And even if they weren't, the era suggested, they Italic textshouldItalic text have been...) Finally, mature vaudeville made great use of cicuits, large (often regional, infrequently national) chains of allied theatres that might sometimes have the same owner but would, by definition, share and order bookings of acts (very important to know that the same performer hadn't agreed to be in Milwaukee and Chicago on the same week), as well as help monitor performers to make sure the women wore tights, no references to homosexuality was on stage, little swearing, etc. The biggest confusion lies in various employments of the word "variety". Really, any theatre that presents several different performers in an evening's entertainment is "variety theatre." But the word came to be used to specifically refer to the previously described type of American theatre in a definitional sense. Thus, even though mid-nineteenth century melodrama, by virtue of having other acts as adjuncts to the central play, could properly be referred to as being "variety theatre", using the term in this way confuses people. It gets even tricker when vaude comes into the picture, because the only way to distinguish it from legitimate theatre (e.g., a production of Italic textHamletItalic text) is to note its "variety" nature, something which then muddies the distinction between it and its predecessor, variety. Music hall was the British analogue to the American forms.

What's with this paragraph?
The last paragraph of 1.4, beginning "Vaudeville finally died", seems POV, irrelevant, and unencyclopedic. I'm on the point of deleting it, unless someone can either explain why it should be there or restructure it to fix the problems. SFT 04:34, 22 November 2005 (UTC)


 * Hey guys, I was thinking on editing this wikipedia article by adding a substantive section on how american vaudeville served as an americanization tool during the late 1800's--early 1900's. I wanted to focus on Irish American dominance in vaudeville as well as other ethnicities and the use of minstrelsy as a way of cultural understanding by crude ethnic humor. Please give any thoughts or feedback as I am going to make these contributions this weekend. Thanks! Ashleymz (talk) 04:31, 27 February 2016 (UTC)


 * Sounds interesting but please be sure that the information is based on reliable published sources that can be credited in the article and not your own research or analysis. Thanks! Markhh (talk) 11:33, 27 February 2016 (UTC)

Word usage
The phrase 'dumb act' is used in this article to indicate an act with no dialogue. This is not a very politically correct way of putting it. If there is a reason it should remain like this, e.g. it is a phrase that was used at the time, can it please be put in inverted commas. Otherwise I suggest 'mute' in the place of 'dumb', or similar. Pipedreambomb 14:22, 1 March 2006 (UTC)
 * It should be placed in quotes, but not changed as this is the proper way to describe such a skit. *Exeunt* Ganymead | Dialogue? 16:22, 1 March 2006 (UTC)
 * Gany is absolutely right. If and when "mute act" becomes common usage, we should use it. Politically correctness is a PoV, we don't take a PoV, whether or not it's the best one. The only way to optimally further accessibility of knowledge is NPoV, so right or wrong, WP will be last to adopt such a change of usage. --Jerzy•t 22:01, 2 May 2006 (UTC)

Actually, there shouldn't be quotation marks around "dumb" when used in this context as the primary (and quite proper) definition of the word is "lacking the power of speech." It's the more colloquial (though still correct) use of the word to denote a lack of intelligence that promotes disrespect toward those who cannot speak. Political correctness--and here I applaud Jerzy's warning about PC's pernicious effects on NPoV--would in fact mandate using the term only to refer to those who cannot speak. And "mute" doesn't much solve the problem. First, as with other performance terms ("blackface" springs to mind) "dumb" has specific historical and performance connotations that exceed its literal definition. Second, there is a connotative difference between mute--a category that would include those who might have taken a vow of silence and therfore choose not to speak--and dumb; the latter does not usually refer to a volitional lack of speech. (Phraseology often has one "struck" dumb, for example.) Finally, neither of the terms, in their literal definitions, do a very good job of defining the relative silence of a dumb act in vaudeville. Italian acrobats--be they Italian or "Italian" (lots of Sicilian vaude acrobats with last names such as "Goldberg" or "McClusky")--a frequent opening act, often enjoined the meandering, restive audience to applaud, pay careful attention, etc. What made them a dumb act was the presumption that one need not necessarily listen to or be able to hear them to appreciate the act. So unless we're moving toward "the-act-ya-didn't-have-to-listen-to-to-enjoy"... --Patchyreynolds 21:17, 30 May 2006 (UTC)

i want to translate this to portugese? can i?

Taking our revue information and correcting inaccuracies
Explaining my changes (actually, reverts) to a few things:

-Vaudeville was not primarily a phenomenon of the "rural and lower class audiences." Though a national form, it flowered most fully in urban areas, and both marketed itself to and succeeded in attracting the emerging middle class. In terms of it's economic structure, after abou 1906 it fell in between the higher priced legitimate theatre and revues and the lower priced cinema.

-The new addition on revues (a different subject) shouldn't even be here, but is already properly included as a link to a related article.

-I'm a bit confused by the vague and misleading comparisons to revues. Precisely what made revues "more polished"? Vaudevillians often spent great sums of money on sets, supporting casts, scripts, etc., and certainly often honed individual routines for years. As well, many vaudeville acts continually integrated new material into their routines, often on a weekly basis and quite frequently in response to current events, fads, or the location of the theatre. I don't know of any scholar who argues that revues would be more "up-to-date" than vaudeville.

-As was already addressed on the this page, vaudeville was not a British form of entertainment, but one found in the United States (and to a lesser extent, Canada). For the Brit version, look at music halls. Though both are variety entertainments and sometimes employed each other's performers, the differences in their corporate structures, performance base, etc. were so great so as to frustrate any attempt to assign the distinction between them to simple nomenclatural difference. The were instead different genres of entertainment. --Patchyreynolds 16:59, 30 July 2006 (UTC)


 * If you want to change the vaudeville page that's fine but I have never heard anyone call a revue a low-class affair. Most of the items offered on revues would have not been appreciated by conservative rural or low class/uneducated audiences. To put it in perspective, George Bush would probably frequent vaudeville types of entertainment but he would probably have been offended or shocked if he attended a revue.AllTalking 19:49, 30 July 2006 (UTC)

In terms of your last point, the president swears in public and around aides with a fair degree of frequency, and was a president of a Yale fraternity known for its partying. Also, vaudeville had a fair amount of classical music, Shakespeare, high srt poses, etc., none of which jives with President Bush's pattern of entertainment attendance while in office. I can't even hazard a guess as to what he'd make of either genre.--Patchyreynolds 22:10, 30 July 2006 (UTC)


 * Music hall began as a largely working class entertainment. Even at the height of their popularity the Music halls' true centre of gravity continued to rest with the lower middle class. A look at early filmed versions of Music Hall acts shows at once their low class origins. The majority of the upper classes and educated urban society would view these acts as a quaint old-fashioned form of entertainment.AllTalking 20:07, 30 July 2006 (UTC)

But again, this has nothing to do with the vaudeville article. Also, I never made any argument about music halls aside from the fact that they were a separate form on entertainemnt than vaudeville (not to mention being located on a different continent). Finally, it's a bit problematic to base any conclusion about revues, vaudeville, or music halls on early cinematic archiving of performances. After all, "early" films of the performances aren't films of "early" (or even classic) performances. (It's somehwhat like writing a history of the automobile based on its appearance in television.) In addition, what we have remaining of these early shows lacks sound, color, and was often slightly (or greatly) re-staged, hardly an inarguable record. We're much better off looking at the texts of the routines, the ticket prices, programs, diaries of performers, managerial accounts, locations of the theatres, etc. --Patchyreynolds 22:11, 30 July 2006 (UTC)


 * I frankly don't know why you are trying to rewrite history and why you are dismissing the facts. In case you didn't know there have always been uneducated conservative people out there and they have always attended different types of entertainment from those who are educated and liberal. I suggest you read some newspapers and magazines from the 1920's to see what people really thought of your beloved vaudeville. The fact that you actually wasted your time editing an article on Jerry Falwell explains a lot though...there is no use providing facts to conservative/religious people as they believe just what they want to believe.AllTalking 04:59, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

AllTalking's comment from 04:59, 31 July 2006 was double posted on the Revue talk page. Please see that page for my response. --Patchyreynolds 14:27, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

Film and Vaudeville
I changed a couple of sentences, but the current article's references to inclusion of film with in the body of the bill is not well phrased, and is, in fact, a bit misleading. Vaudeville (an traditional bill that might include stand-alone films), vaudefilm (a show that combined the two media but leant more heavily on cinema as attraction), and cinema houses (which often employed live performers--many of them vaudevillians--as stage acts before and between the films, but was almost wholly geared around cinema presentation) are three quite different phenomena. Right now, the article makes it appear that a cinema house that employed vaudevillians might be considered late-era vaudeville.--Patchyreynolds 11:35, 1 August 2006 (UTC)
 * There's no doubt that cinema did not exist in the early days of vaudeville, and in fact some of the first cinema showings were at vaudeville houses. So we can say that the mix changed over the years. Kortoso (talk) 21:35, 14 October 2016 (UTC)

"Noted" vaudevillians
This page is beginning to drown in "noted" vaudevillians. Increasingly, however, the persons being added were not noted for being vaudevillians, but noted for other fields: film, television, legitimate theatre, etc. Film actor George Raft, for example, was certainly a person of note who (briefly) performed in vaudeville, but he was not noted FOR vaudeville. His inclusion on this page is akin to including Fidel Castor or George H.W. Bush on the baseball page as "noted baseball players." As thousands of folks performed in vaudeville, the list could grow to absurd proportions if it sought to include anyone who held time on a vaudeville stage but later became known in another field. I believe this list should be pared down to those important for vaudeville. At the least, a separate list should be created for those who fall into the problematic category. Objections? Thoughts? --Patchyreynolds 17:33, 30 September 2006 (UTC)
 * I agree. Here only performers particularly noted for their apperances on Vaudeville should be included. (For a more comprehensive listing of people article worthy people who appeared on Vaudeville, we have "Category:Vaudeville performers".) -- Infrogmation 01:25, 1 October 2006 (UTC)
 * I have taken the initiative of moving the list to a separate article (List of vaudeville performers). However, I disagree with only including those who were famous as vaudevillians. While I realize that listing every vaudeville performer is nearly impossible and I believe the list should be comprehensive, I think leaving performers out who achieved fame elsewhere is ridiculous. Seeing these names in one place (even those who were briefly in vaude) can give a good idea of how big vaudeville actually was. The only people I am including are those who either already have articles or those inidividuals who should have articles. There are many performers out there for whom little information is available and they are being left out. I have also included basic biographical information on the individuals as well. Cheers! *Exeunt* Ganymead | Dialogue? 01:28, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

History/etymology
I think that there is room for some expansion, both the origins of the form and the previous uses of the name.

I found myself at this article today for an odd reason: the finale of Mozart's Entführung aus dem Serail (Vienna 1782) is marked in the score as a "vaudeville," just as other numbers are marked aria, duet, chorus, whatever. This made me wonder if it was a standard term (meaning what? I don't know) in 18th century singspiels. The singspiel troupes did various plays, parodies, whatevers, that looked sort of like music hall / variety shows later did. There is at least a common thread of, for lack of a better name, non-highbrow comic theatre, going back a very long way.

I have no idea, myself, if some older French word got borrowed by both German and English in different senses; if the term moved first to German singspiel and THEN to England later; or what. But if any contributors to wikipedia do know ... just wanted to let you know I turned up here looking for an answer. It'd be a nice addition both here and to the Entführung article. TaigaBridge 23:02, 5 October 2006 (UTC)

Further to my above question, I have pasted below the entry for "vaudeville" at etymonline.com. Our article here includes the vau de Vire possibility, but does not mention the word had been in use in English for 150 years before the 1880s: vaudeville 1739, "light, popular song," especially one sung on the stage, from Fr. vaudeville, alteration (by influence of ville "town") of M.Fr. vaudevire, said to be from (chanson du) Vau de Vire "(song of the) valley of Vire," in the Calvados region of Normandy, first applied to the popular satirical songs of Olivier Basselin, a 15c. poet who lived in Vire. The other alternative is that vaudevire derives from M.Fr. dialectal vauder "to go" + virer "to turn." The meaning "theatrical entertainment interspersed with songs" first recorded 1827. Vaudevillian (n.) is attested from 1913.

Any thoughts on how best to incorporate that information (the word being older than the theatre form) into the main article? TaigaBridge 23:36, 5 October 2006 (UTC)

For "Vaudeville" on the title page on an 1811 book, see File:La clé du Caveau 1811.jpg... AnonMoos (talk) 17:44, 13 December 2010 (UTC)

Citing sources
How come the article doesn't follow the mandatory Wikipedia policy WP:V and how-to WP:CITE? You will have to do that eventually and it is easier if you do it as you go along. Mattisse(talk) 12:17, 24 November 2006 (UTC)
 * While I agree that the article should stick to citation policies, I wonder if the 3 (!!) different boxes above the article really do it any good. I stopped reading after trying to figure out what each box really said. KryzMasta 17:05, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

From Here
I've done some stylistic tweaking and adjustment, little of substance --deleted references to the emerging middle class (when has the middle class NOT been emerging? It's given as the cause for the development of just about everything in just about every age). There remains a lot of unencyclopedic overwriting, and maybe someone wants to do a section on vaudeville nostalgia and revivals, as well as a line (and link) to the separate article on burlesque, which took over so many old vaudeville houses. The references to "variety" as something really distinct from vaudeville need either finally to be removed, or to be justified by a well-developed article on the subject -- which someone who insists on the distinction would do well to write, yes? I've tried to add a couple of notes that give a little attention to vaudeville outside the urban centers and the bigtime acts (it was mostly smalltowns and smalltimers, the way the old guys tell it), as I thought these were under-represented. This is the kind of topic that makes a feature article, but it's got a ways to go. DavidOaks 22:15, 9 January 2007 (UTC)


 * Considerable improvement but, as you said, it's got a ways to go. It needs more about the theater circuits, and links to the WP articles about them (and those articles need a lot of work themselves). It needs a section on the complex relationship of vaudeville to race in America, and the way in which vaudeville helped both to perpetuate and to break down stereotypes of African Americans for white audiences. Also, there should be at least a mention of Variety, the quintessential show business publication which got its start covering vaudeville (and yes, vaudeville is a species of variety entertainment.) And, most of all, the article needs citations! Whyaduck 13:46, 10 January 2007 (UTC)

someone do something about Post-Vaudeville
something needs to be done about the Post-Vaudeville bit it reads like a history report. im not very good at re-writhing things so im not gona try :( but someone realy should. Nickecb (talk • contribs) 07:16, 16 January 2007 (UTC).

New Vaudeville
I think New Vaudeville is a topic we should probably have some coverage of, but it should probably be spun off into a seperate article. Other thoughts, opinions? -- Infrogmation 16:33, 27 February 2007 (UTC)
 * Absolutely. In most ways, "new vaudeville" has almost nothing to do with classic vaudeville than sharing part of a name.  I'm about to remove all the new vaude stuff from here.  Objections?  It really should be a totally different article.  --Patchyreynolds 23:32, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

Folks, I'm about to eliminate the "New Vaudeville" section on this page, since it has nothing to do with historical vaudeville (the focus of this article) aside from sharing a name and being a variety act. Objections? --Patchyreynolds (talk) 20:27, 30 January 2008 (UTC)
 * I object to the deletion of any referenced information or any name, topic, etc., which has its own article. In this case, I removed anything that was unreferenced from that list quite some time ago.  All the items currently on the list have their own articles, which means they met the criteria of notability and verifiability.  What are your specific objections, other than your belief that they have nothing to do with "historical vaudeville"? ---  RepublicanJacobite  The'FortyFive'  20:31, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

Because this article is about vaudeville, that variety entertainment that lasted from roughly 1881-1932. "New vaudeville" refers to a completely separate form that post-dates vaudeville proper by several decades and has no relation to the previous genre aside the aesthetic affinity that many new vaudevillians share with the roistering comedy or curiosity acts that were only one of the many acts that played vaudeville. The fact that they share a name does not mean that they belong in the same article. There is no more reason to separately list new vaudeville acts on this page than there is to mention The New Vaudeville Band and its novelty hits in the 1960s. Have you a creditable source that firmly links new vaudevillians to the historical vaudeville--and I don't know why you use scare quotes, since the article makes perfectly clear it's been dead for some time--aside from some stylistic likenesses with a few comic acts? By that rather wan linkage, everything from an opera singer to a unicyclist could be linked to the page. Vaudeville was defined by a certain business structure, audience base, mode of comportment, and era, none of which support a link to new vaudevillians such as David Shriner or Bill Irwin. In fact, even Irwin--he of Tony Award and Macarthur fellowship fame--the most celebrated new vaudevillian cannot explain what defines new vaudeville, stating, "I haven't a clue what 'new vaudevillian' means. This catch-all 'new vaudeville' term came up. 'New vaudeville' is a phrase that somebody made up, and it serves a purpose." The acts on the list might be "notable" and their existence "verifiable," but the same might be said of the variety store, another article that shares a name but has no direct link to vaudeville. Truth be told, it would be far more relevant to include a section on "American Idol" or "Saturday Night Live." So aside from the nomenclatural link, I don't know why a separate list of these acts is relevant. Should "New Vaudeville" have its own page? Sure. But does the absence of that page mean that it should have a section on the vaudeville page implying (by its very presence) that the non-genre or any of these acts is actually an updating of vaudeville? No. Instead, it should be like the "concert saloon," a reference that existed within the vaudeville article and an item on the "related forms" list long before someone actually created an article.--Patchyreynolds (talk) 21:06, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

Theatre
I found a couple of theatres in the article and proceeded to change them to theaters. I read on and found another which I also changed. Then I found others. These theatres seemed to float happily in amongst a text that was otherwise spelt distinctly American. I thought that there must be more than meets the eye so I reverted myself. Is this one of those cases in which Americans retain the French spelling? If so, someone had better fix the caption under Ray Wollbrinck's picture. If not, why all these theaters? Jimp 04:57, 8 March 2007 (UTC)


 * It's one of those cases in which some Americans retain the original (French) spelling, under some circumstances, but the rule is not consistently applied. Much of the confusion is owing to the trade group called the National Association of Theatre Owners, which long ago deliberately chose to use the original spelling, in order to differentiate their business from live "theater". It did no good, as most stage houses in the U.S. also now use the original spelling (see The League of American Theatres and Producers.) Also see the WP articles on Movie theater and Broadway Theatre for some unintentional comedy. Each article claims that, in America, its own subject uses the original spelling and that the Americanized spelling is used for the other type of theatre/er. In short, it's an American pig's breakfast. Whyaduck 05:55, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

Actually, "re" has been used in the states since before Noah Webster, attempting to "Americanize" the mother tongue, changed what he felt to be some of the more vexing inherited spellings. (We had to spell it some way, after all, before there were cinema houses from which one wished to differentiate oneself.) It often tends to be a high/middlebrow class issue or professional/community theatre issue, with more populist houses using "er." I'm a theatre professor whose budgets arrive from the business office marked "re" and whose course schedules float in from the dean's office labeled "er." (And the registrar believes we teach "Introduction to the Theatre Arts" in the "Studio Theater.") In short, there is no correct way, just preferences, making most dependent upon style guides. In terms of a vaude article, it would be more historically accurate to use "re," as almost all of these "houses of refinement" did. As the article grows and gains more specificity it would keep from having to naturally include inconsistencies. Objections?--Patchyreynolds 13:03, 8 March 2007 (UTC)


 * I'd thought it might be something along those lines. Good ol' Webster, ay. As for inconsistancies, they're easy to iron out using [Ctrl][F] ... that is assuming we can decide what to spell how in the first place.  I'm going to go and change the two or three theaters to theatres (seeing as the original (French) spelling appears to predominate in the article) ... and bemusedly I'm going to skip over the center.  If it be decided in future that the Americanised version should be used throughout, that's all well and good. Jimp 23:39, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

I worked in public relations for the arts for a number of years. Although "theater" is not wrong, in general the genre (or art) is spelled as "theatre." We used "theater" when it was part of an official name of a company or building i.e "The ABC Theater." Some guides for AE use "theater" as a general spelling, but for non-regional, international, or general use arts writers use "theatre". JoKing (talk) (anon) 14:06, 6 November 2009 (UTC).

Good article, but
Could someone who knows about Vaudeville please describe what Vaudeville was actually like. I read the entire article and I still don't know, though the article is very informative in every other sense. Something that starts with "Vaudeville performances were characterized by..." would be good. 65.78.72.31 (talk) 15:40, 27 March 2007 (UTC).

I hope the example of a performance bill helps matters. --Patchyreynolds 21:23, 24 May 2007 (UTC)

Vaudeville - as in "an evening of Vaudeville" - would be characterized as a sequence of performers booked in by the theatre owner via talent booking agents. The acts on a particular evening had no central theme running thru them; you might see a singer followed by a comedian, followed by a juggler, followed by ... . Seating was theatre-style - no tables, food and drink only at intermission, and (in America, at least) no alcohol (They were trying to raise their image above the variety & burlesque shows that were largely done to sell liquor at saloons. Also, no obscenity or nudityin Vaudeville - middle calss entertainment suitable for the finest ladies). If an act did well, it was extended, so from week to week, the acts changed gradually but not totally. Acts that did really well would move on to better bookings.

So, to contrast Vaudeville with its successors/parallels. British Music Hall was essentially the same, but with (i) a Master of Ceremonies to introduce each act (called "Mr. Chairman", and who might or might not sing or tell jokes between acts), and (ii) seating at tables with beer, wine and snacks throughout the evening. In America, Vaudeville gave way (in the 20s-30s)to "Musical Theater": an entire eveing of song/dance/comedy, but with a single cast and maybe some frivolous "plot" to tie it all together (See Gershwin's "Girl Crazy" as a later example.) Musical Theatre then led to the modern Musical Play - single cast, single theme, single dramatic play with a significant plot - "Showboat" (1927) changed all the rules overnight. 128.29.43.1 21:34, 25 April 2007 (UTC)

capitalised?
Whenever I see "vaudeville" or "Vaudeville" on Wikipedia, it varys from being capitalised. What is correct? Parable1991 (talk • contribs) 04:34, 29 April 2007 (UTC).

It's not a proper noun. Should only be capitalized to maintain original quote or if heading a sentence.--Patchyreynolds 19:51, 29 April 2007 (UTC)


 * Yes, even though it may have come from a proper (unknown) noun. Kortoso (talk) 21:37, 14 October 2016 (UTC)

Definition
The article seems to be frequently wandering from its focus: the variety entertainment that existed from the early 1880s to the early 1930s. Monthy Python may have vaudeville-esque elements to its spirit, but it is most decidedly not vaudeville, an entertainment with chains, theatres, traveling performers, managers, and most important, a certain historical period. The fact that entertainments as varied as "Saturday Night Live" and college a cappella bear the influence of vaudeville does not make them vaudeville nor merit their inclusion in a still woefully underdeveloped article. That rant aside--and I do plan on investing some time this summer in fleshing out this article--does anyone have time or interest in starting a "New Vaudeville" page? --Patchyreynolds 06:05, 20 May 2007 (UTC)
 * See Post-vaudeville. The variety show live genre was closely related to vaudeville, and gave birth to the TV shows you mentioned. Kortoso (talk) 21:45, 14 October 2016 (UTC)

Books on Vaudeville
I have read extensively on Vaudeville due to my Jewish roots. This terrible article is full of vague and total misinformation. There is absolutely no mention of who and why Vaudeville came to be. In fact most of the first performers mentioned were all Jews. They changed their names as all performers did in those days. The Jews created this form of Show to entertain themselves as they kept to themselves and were ousted from most communities. Yes there were non Jew performers but when towns tasted the small shows put on by these communities this traveling variety show became a big hit. There is no mention of the contribution of Jews to Vaudeville in this article. They literally created what our entertainment industry is today....209.193.36.109 15:55, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

I'm not quite sure precisely where you feel the current article (which I agree has significant room to grow) misinforms its readers with regard to the religious background of its performers or business managers. True, Jewish performers and business folks made tremendous contributions to vaudeville, though I would argue that the bulk of these amazing efforts came in mature vaudeville rather than in its infancy. As Victor Greene has argued in American Immigrant Leaders, Jewish cultural figures really rose to the fore in America near the turn of the century when their numbers swelled with third wave immigration. Pastor, clearly the most significant figure in vaudeville's early development out of variety, was the son of Italian Catholics (also a rarity in antebellum America). Keith was the Christian son of New Hampshire farmers. Albee, also a Christian, was the great-grandson of an original Minute Man. Proctor, like Keith, was also a New England Protestant. None of them changed their last name. All of this begins to change in the 1890s, of course, and by its later years many of vaudeville's luminaries were indeed Jewish; lamentably, quite a few of these folks did indeed change their names for the purposes of marketing and palatability to the United States' Christo-centric popular culture. As to your contentions about vaudeville being created by Jewish performers for the purposes of self-entertainment during migration, I'm unaware of any reputable scholarly work (or any work at all, for that case) that supports this contention. Indeed, vaudeville's "birth," as I believe the article currently states, is almost impossible to locate definitively. It developed from a host of indigenous and foreign traditions from both sacred and popular cultural forms over a series of about a decade and a half.

What the article clearly lacks right now--and the topic is so huge as to perhaps require a separate article--is a thorough discussion of Yiddish vaudeville, an astoundingly rich field of performance, one with a well developed business structure, star performers, intimate theatres, and dedicated audience base. Previous comments bemoaned its absence from the page and we do need to get working on that. --Patchyreynolds 19:23, 27 June 2007 (UTC)

Article name
I would suggest that this article should be Vaudeville (North America) Vaudeville saw no borders and several Canadian cities were on the big-time circuits, most notably Winnipeg, which at its height was the start or end point of the Pantages circuit. (The Pantages theatre there still stands, and still hosts live performances.) Not to mention the big-time Canadian Vaudevillians like Fifi d'Orsay, Eva Tanguay, Beatrice Lillie, May Irwin, and many more. JoKing 23:18, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

Agreed. Also Canadians were June Havoc and Florence Lawrence (a.k.a. Baby Flo the Wonder Whistler.) Also legendary producer John Murray Anderson, although at the time he was born Newfoundland was independant from Canada. 64.5.236.254 19:20, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

Etymology from Swedish?
The pronunciation seems very close to Swedish "Vad du vill" (What you want). At the end of the 19th century there was a massive emigration from Sweden and other countries into the US. So would it be out the question that it was picked up from Nordic emigrants? It seems to make sense to call a show containing a little of everything for just that. The English spelling could then have been fixed by a native without knowledge of the original meaning; just trying to imitate the sounds of the expression. What do you think? --Smallchanges 15:44, 2 September 2007 (UTC)

Interesting--and being of Scandinavian stock I would love for it to be true--but the term was used in American variety decades before the immigration surge you reference (and in French popular song far before that). --Patchyreynolds 17:27, 2 September 2007 (UTC)

Page move back to Vaudeville
It seems to me that, given the fact that there is a disambiguation page, that this is the longest article using the name "vaudeville," and that this is what most people looking for "vaudeville" have in mind when they search, this page should be moved back to Vaudeville. I also recommend that the disambiguation statement at the top of the article be changed to something along these lines: "This article is about the American form of variety/musical theatre. For other uses, see Vaudeville (disambiguation)." --- RepublicanJacobite  The'FortyFive'  23:42, 29 September 2007 (UTC)
 * Hearing no objections, I am going to do just that. --- RepublicanJacobite  The'FortyFive'  20:57, 13 October 2007 (UTC)
 * Correction: This page is about the NORTH American form of Vaudeville, not just American. Nora Bayes (talk • contribs) 14:24, 2 February 2008 (UTC)
 * It's a matter of common terminology, not United States egocentrism. The form of entertainment spoken about in this article is usually referred to as "American vaudeville" as a generic marker, not as a means of establishing the geographic spread of its performances.  In this sense, the common term "American vaudeville"--a nod to the form's (somewhat problematic) birth and development in the United States--was used to distinguish it from its French counterpart.  Thus, "American vaudeville" (though the first word is usually not used except in cases of potential confusion) was certainly performed widely and successfully across much Canada.  Like "French cuisine," however, its spread did not change the form of reference.  One should note that this reference is used almost wholly on the part of post-vaudeville scholars and was never used (at least as far as I've seen in my own research) in Canada.  That said, yes, I agree with the name change.  --Patchyreynolds (talk) 21:50, 3 February 2008 (UTC)
 * I agree with your assessment, Patchyreynolds. I felt the page move was appropriate, and it was unopposed at the time.  I still feel it was the right choice. ---  RepublicanJacobite  The'FortyFive'  00:38, 4 February 2008 (UTC)

Is vaudeville defined by content and style, or by unbroken cultural tradition?
I recently came back from a Las Vegas trip where I saw magicians, dancers, comedians, acrobats. In my humble opinion Las Vegas is 21 century Vaudeville. 72.147.206.172 (talk) 04:15, 17 June 2008 (UTC)
 * I think this is an interesting point. Is vaudeville defined by content and style, or by linear connection to an unbroken cultural tradition? just as the Ed Sullivan Show struck many people as being, essentially, vaudeville. Conventional wisdom has it that vaudeville was killed off by the movies, radio, and television, and I don't think Las Vegas has any historic or cultural connection with vaudeville's roots, but, just possibly, a show is a show? But where do you draw the line? The circus has many vaudeville-like elements; it's a series of "turns" rather than a single continuous show with a plot line. Where do things like Buffalo Bill's Wild West show, or the extravanzas staged by Billy Rose such as Casa Mañana fall? What about the sort of dinner theatre presented in Walt Disney World, such as the "Hoop-de-Doo Musical Review?" Dpbsmith (talk) 15:31, 17 June 2008 (UTC)

Right. And part of what makes this so difficult are two new presences in scholarship and performance: "the vaudeville aesthetic" and "new vaudeville." When most speak about the former they are referring to this grand Rabelaisian spirit of mayhem and jaunty, physical comedy (e.e., ght e films of Buster Keaton or Charlie Chaplin). And the latter picks up not only those aforementioned qualities, but also notes the unerring calculation and expertness of many of those acts, as well as their playing upon vaudeville "characters" such as the baggy pants clown figure (e.g., Bill Irwin). But most of these new references--be they to Vegas or "The Muppet Show"--simply use "vaudeville" now to refer to something/someone that A) plays in some type of variety format; and B) uses some of the more popular tropes of popular remembrances of vaudeville (e.g., slapstick comedy, song-and-dance, magic acts). What is missing in all that, I think, is an appreciation of two aspects of vaudeville proper. First, vaudeville was an historically and geographically situated genre whose aesthetic cannot be meaningfully divorced from the conditions that birthed and governed it. Vaudeville was partly ruled by railroad carriage fees, boarding houses, objections to obscenities, length of jumps, and years spent honing an act. Simply presenting something as "vaudeville" now or finding an "aesthetic" of vaudeville ignores all of the surrounding cultural, artistic, and financial mechanisms that helped define. Second, vaudeville proper had a massive scope of interests. It included one-act plays, lectures, Shakespearean love scenes put on my little people, Mozart symphonies played by jazz bands wearing glow-in-the-dark skeleton suits, academic lectures, donkey acrobats, and comic monologists. I've yet to see any "modern vaudeville" that followed a Puccini aria with a musical pig, or a trick cyclist with a lecture on African geography. (I can't even imagine the drinking games the latter would give rise to in Vegas. "The Congo!")  When this breadth is removed, we're left with variety shows--maybe some damn good ones--but not vaudeville. (Although early Sullivan--with his plate-spinners, opera stars, and tap dancers--got pretty close sometimes.) There is no "unbroken cultural tradition" about which to speak. It died in the late 1920s. (It kicked a couple of times in the early 1930s, but bodies will do that sometimes.) So vaudeville--defined by a certain business structure, star system, bill structure, tutored poly-class audience, form of performer monitoring, and breadth of material--is gone. Using the label now is a lot like putting on a production of l'Illusion comique and calling it "French court theatre;" pretty tough now that they don't have a king. --Patchyreynolds (talk) 19:12, 17 June 2008 (UTC)
 * And if we assume that what you're saying is sensible, relevant, and reflects an understanding of vaudeville... shouldn't some of this get into the article somehow, properly referenced and attributed to reliable sources? Dpbsmith (talk) 23:09, 17 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Hmm. Which of that do you mean?  Do you mean investing a chunk of the article in explainging how other cultural phenomena, forms, or genres are not vaudeville?--Patchyreynolds (talk) 14:20, 18 June 2008 (UTC)


 * I think I agree that while variety acts: acrobats, dancers, singers, etc are as old as entertainment and organized civilization itself. "Vaudeville" mostly refers to the specific period of presenting "polite" variety acts in circuits of theaters as developed in the US in the mid-19th Century and practiced into the early 1930s. Certainly the culture didn't die over night and the veterans of vaudeville continued performing on radio, movies, and TV into the 1970s. Thanks to film, the style of vaudevillians past continues to influence performers today. You can talk about "New vaudeville" and "Vaudeville-inspired" acts, but while people certainly still sing, dance, tell jokes, and perform acrobatics (and always will), "Vaudeville" as an industry and as a specific entertainment genre is dead, having been replaced by movies, nightclubs (now also history), radio and finally television (not to mention pro-"wrestling", monster truck shows and who knows what else). The musical "revue" which mixed acts with elaborate scenery and Broadway-style numbers survived a bit longer in a few big-city movie palaces like the Roxy in New York. The last holdout was the regular lavish stage show produced along with the movies at Radio City Music Hall until 1979. But those weren't really vaudeville, although there was overlap of the genres for sure. They were mini-musical shows that dated back in style to the movie palace productions of the early 1920s. Vegas-style shows now owe more to the modern circus, nightclubs and the Ziegfeld Follies/Radio City/Folies-Bergère type lavish revues than the old two-a-day. Cheers Markhh (talk) 05:55, 1 December 2008 (UTC)

"Modern" vaudeville
I eliminated the small section about vaudeville being revived "as a concept" at the NYC venue. (I don't even know what that means. The concept of its business model?  Social aims?  Audience constitution?  National ambitions?  Moral pronouncements?)  The simple fact that the venue calls what it is doing "vaudeville" does not mean that it is actually producing vaudeville. It seems fairer to say that it is reviving the use of "vaudeville" as a word, not the genre of entertainment discussed in this article. All of this appears to want to live under a separate article discussing variety theatre. The venues' simultaneous housing of burlesque, shows with elements of grand guignol, and standard variety also suggests this. All this is to note, however, that we are probably in need of (at least) four new articles: variety theatre/performance (stretching from early 19th c. through present day); "new vaudeville" (e.g., Bill Irwin); Yiddish vaudeville; and African American vaudeville. Portions of the last two can comfortably and properly live in the "American vaudeville" page, though they were such significant subsets that they deserve their own articles; the last two are separate topics, and should, I think, only be listed under "related forms." --Patchyreynolds (talk) 14:54, 18 June 2008 (UTC)

Sourcing
I'm going to spend a chunk of July going through the article and sourcing a lot of this. (Also want to get in new stuff from recent books by Woods and Fields.) But could the person who added all the info a while back about roots in New Orleans, references to McLean, etc. please add all the sources for that? Some of the former stuff flies in the face of the much of the scholarship, meaning we will need to address divergent opinions about vaude. Absent this, we'll have to remove tit. Thanks much. --Patchyreynolds (talk) 15:00, 18 June 2008 (UTC)

Also would be great to get more sources for inflammatory statements like: “ Conflict between Irish and African Americans saw the promotion of black-face minstrelsy on the stage, purposefully used to place African Americans beneath the Irish in the racial and social urban hierarchy.”

Prove that this was purposely used for this reason and not uncouth comedy. Absurd! Wikiralphie (talk) 11:16, 25 May 2021 (UTC)

Should a vaudevillian have his infobox deleted
Several people from musical Wikiprojects are systematically deleting infoboxes from biographies that are covered by their projects:
 * "Rmv infobox as these are not used for classical musicians per WikiProject Classical music)
 * "Rmv infobox as these are not used for composers, per WikiProject Composers section)"

Here is an example at: Milton Adolphus, the infobox is currently deleted and needs to be restored if you want to see it in situ.

The discussion is here at Wikipedia_talk:Manual_of_Style. As best as I can sum up the argument is that: classical composers as creative people can't be defined by the simple labels used in Musical infoboxes, and as creative people transcend the traditional People infobox which can't capture the essence of what makes them an artist. And of course, some people are just philosophically opposed to any infoboxes, no matter what information they contain.

Milton Adolphus was also vaudeville performer. So please help decide if he gets an infobox or not. I assume by the same reasoning, editors here at vaudeville can decide whether he gets a box or not just as well as Classical music wikiproject can say all classical composers don't get an infobox. --Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) (talk) 03:12, 1 December 2008 (UTC)
 * Didn't know there were Classical-specific infobox templates. If so, why do so many classical articles use info boxes obviously intended for pop artists/groups? I guess the Classical people haven't caught up. Anyway, I agree that where there is overlap there should be a discussion before deleting. But...is this article identified as being part of a vaudeville project as well as Classical? Markhh (talk) 04:34, 1 December 2008 (UTC)


 * I think a small group has decided all infoboxes are bad for philosophical reasons, and they are expressing their philosophy where they feels they have control. They have a big enough power base to enforce their will by taking turns deleting the boxes if anyone tries to restore it. See the Milton Adolphus edit history. Certainly Milton Adolphus is as much a vaudevillian, a Yalie, and a New Yorker as much as he is a classical composer. The parties involved have made no contributions to the article, except in deleting the boxes, which they are doing systematically for every article in their category. The one they deleted was just the "people" infobox. You can't see it because each time I add it back they delete it, even while the discussion is ongoing. --Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) (talk) 04:53, 1 December 2008 (UTC)

link
I am trying to link a vaudevilian performer's papers to this page. I think people interested in vaudeville could learn from these papers. The collection is at NYU. please don't delete it.Kelsievans (talk) 21:12, 7 May 2009 (UTC)kelsievans
 * Please note the comment I've left on your talk page (User talk:Kelsievans), as well as the archived discussion about these links at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Spam/2009 Archive Apr 1. Thanks. --Ckatz chat spy  21:19, 7 May 2009 (UTC)

Or is the link broken?
I deleted an external link because I thought it was broken: it linked to a link farm page. However, there is talk of this being down to broken DNS resolver problems with various ISPs and/or software, and so the link may not be broken at all. Can anyone get to this page without seeing the link farm and the girl with the backpack picture? Paul S (talk) 10:40, 22 June 2009 (UTC)

"See also" section
This section, which originally pointed readers to the other major and related forms of variety/popular entertainment (e.g., burlesque), now has a growing list of random new vaudeville-ish and historical vaudeville acts and performers. There's no end to this, really, nor a real logic to those listed. Why list one songwriter of among the thousands whose tunes filled vaudeville halls? Why list fairly minor current popular performers but not David Shriner or Bill Irwin? As time goes on, more names will simply be added to the list for no other reason than the persons had some relationship to vaudeville. As tens of thousands of performers, scenarists, impresarios, managers, and composers were involved in the genre--and some big, WP-covered names, at that--this seems, ultimately, an unwieldy use of this section. Any objection to restoring the section to the smaller list of related topics? Once we start down the "Oh, and we should link to Judy Garland!" road the section will balloon past all usefulness. --Vaudedoc (talk) 14:39, 24 August 2009 (UTC)
 * Agreed. The usual way of addressing this frequently-arising challenge is to create a list-page. DavidOaks (talk) 17:26, 24 August 2009 (UTC)

Too narrow intro
Anton Chekhov (1860–1904) was known for writing vaudevilles. Shouldn't the first into sentence reflect a broader definition that could include this Russian writer and his era?-- static shakedown 18:03, 17 December 2010 (UTC)
 * This article concerns American vaudeville, a distinct generic form from the entertainments for which Chekov wrote. His pieces have nothing to do with this WP entry.  ThtrWrtr (talk) 00:01, 18 December 2010 (UTC)

Pronunciation II
In 2007 someone asked to put the correct pronunciation of this word, but i guess people didn't get he probably meant the inclusion of the phonetic form (phonetic alphabet). Me not being a native English speaker can't do it, but if someone else could it would be nice to add it as a lot of people get confused with the correct pronunciation. Thanks --Camilo Sanchez (talk) 02:11, 2 January 2011 (UTC)

Corresponding French article
What is called, in French, vaudeville is very remote from what this article depicts. I tried to remove the link to the French “Vaudeville” page, which is thus irrelevant and misleading, but I got the following warning: “The action you are about to take will remove a sitelink from this item. Sitelinks should only be removed if the page in question has been deleted, or if that link is being merged into another item. If you are trying to do neither of these, please do not submit this edit again.” I don’t know what to do. Palpalpalpal (talk) 12:36, 3 September 2014 (UTC)
 * Hmmm. In my day, the links were put in by hand, using "article name in that language" at the bottom of the article. Now its done automatically by a bot which must have a database somewhere. I didn't know you could even remove them, since they're not in the article itself. How did you do that? Anyway I suspect that there's no way to prevent articles with the same title from being linked, and due to False friend syndrome some of these links will be wrong. I for one welcome our robot masters.


 * On an unrelated note, "Pastor barred the sale of liquor in his theatres, eliminated bawdy material from his shows, and offered gifts of coal and hams to attendees." Coal and hams? Was that a thing back then, or did Pastor just have a bunch of these on hand, or what? Why coal and hams, particularly? Coal in particular is pretty bulky and dirty. Hams are good though. Herostratus (talk) 14:25, 2 November 2014 (UTC)

When Vaudeville it start?
I the intro it says:

"It was especially popular in the United States and Canada from the early 1700's until the early 1850's."

But under "Beginnings" we get:

"With its first subtle appearances within the early 1860s, vaudeville was not initially a common form of entertainment."

This would seem like a major (century and a half) contradiction on one of the basic facts about the subject. Originalname37  (Talk?)  13:06, 1 November 2016 (UTC)

New section
I found out there is a musician (one man band)that making and recording any kind of music (eg. metal,rock,alternative and electronic genres,stock music for adversitement, games and TV) also a massive amount of cover versions and stuff like that ,so it would be nice to have some official information about that act in future. here's some proper links soundcloud bandcamp pond5

(31.173.80.190) 09:46, 3 February 2017

Vadueville
I believe that in French "vaudeville" meant and still means a kind of play, namely light comedy. In English it clearly means something very different, yet the term must have come from French. Could anyone well informed include some brief comment on this point, including how and when French "vaudeville" crossed the Channel or the Atlantic and became something different? I would do it, but all I know is what I have just written. Many thanks. METRANGOLO1 (talk) 18:48, 16 April 2018 (UTC)

Alternative etymology
The root of term 'Vaudeville' is obviously French; in that language, 'veau', means 'veal', a term frequently used, more in older times, as a synonym for 'young woman'; thus, a 'veau de ville' would be a 'city girl', considered 'carefree' respect to small town girls, or 'country chicks', to your choice. Blessings + — Preceding unsigned comment added by 79.144.193.21 (talk • contribs) 08:19, 7 December 2020 (UTC)