Staging Vaudeville for a Twenty-First-Century Audience
this was not because of over-familiarity with electricity , as the manager believed “ the majority of people cannot attain the proper understanding of what they are witnessing .” 3
Location was an important factor in how an act was received by an audience . The material would sometimes contain geographic quirks that only appealed to some patrons . Certain subjects or performances types could be received differently in different cities . Within the database , the acts can be sorted by city , which allows one to see how geography affected audience responses . The Song Birds was a satire on the opera war in New York with characters based on Oscar Hammerstein , Enrico Caruso , and Nellie Melba that toured the circuit in 1909 . It received rave reviews in Brooklyn , where one manager exclaimed : “ It is enjoyable from the rise to the fall of the curtain . A production better suited to vaudeville has yet to be placed on a stage , and although the story is local , centering in the rivalry of the grand opera impresarios , the comedy can scarce fail anywhere .” 4 Despite this assessment , Song Birds did not appeal to all vaudeville audiences . The act received a less enthusiastic response in Cleveland which was blamed on the fact that “ the fore part of the act consists mostly of New York local stuff , and I do not think the general Cleveland Audiences understand it ; at least they did not seem to this afternoon .” 5 However , audiences in cities closer to New York , including Providence , Boston , and Philadelphia , raved about the performance . The manager at Keith ’ s in Philadelphia wrote , “ I could not conceive of a vaudeville travesty constructed on more popular lines . The hits were applauded and the musical numbers got big hands .” 6 The success of the Song Birds shows us both that opera appealed to turn-of-thecentury popular theater audiences , even though some found its New York references perplexing . This also tells us that vaudeville audiences in the area around Manhattan were suf-
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