Staging Vaudeville for a Twenty-First-Century Audience
theaters in the United States , located in every region of the country . Roughly , five million Americans attended vaudeville shows every week .
Vaudeville also differed from earlier forms of amusement in the way the business was organized and consumers enjoyed it . Local and regional chains of variety theaters were first created in the 1870s , and vaudeville ( as a way of organizing variety entertainment ) grew from those beginnings . To deliver variety shows nationally , theater entrepreneurs organized chains of theaters which consolidated bookings . They also organized cartels to divide territory , fix prices , and prevent rivals entering the industry . But vaudeville did not become popular just because it rested on a national distribution system . It grew because , in the late 1890s , the variety show caught on and became what people at the time called “ a craze .” In its golden age , between 1900 and 1912 , it was not uncommon for hundreds of people to queue up to see a vaudeville show . They did so because it was in vaudeville that they saw the latest fashions in clothing and coiffure , heard the newest songs from Tin Pan Alley composers , and laughed at the freshest jokes . The “ headliners ” vaudeville featured were the first entertainment celebrities , whose homes , salaries , romances , exercise , and eating habits were as important to consumers as their acts . As popular celebrities , vaudevillians helped create a modern style for Americans living in a rapidly urbanizing and industrializing society .
This article is intended to demonstrate the value of an extensive online research database , vaudevilleamerica . org . It aims to provide readers with information both on how to research vaudeville and on what kinds of information the database contains . The database comprises reviews taken from newspapers , the trade magazine Variety , and the Keith-Albee the-
213