www.broadwayworld.com: Not long ago, venues across the country were selling out houses and packing in crowds- and it wasn't for plays, musicals, or concerts as we know them today. Vaudeville, while its time in the spotlight was short, laid the groundwork for many aspects of modern entertainment and had a profound impact on live theatre today.
2 comments:
I think that Vaudeville is a genre of theatre that I hear referenced a lot, but I did not actually know what it was. It sounds a lot like what we know to be a cabaret or a talent show. I appreciate that these shows included people who were established in the entertainment industry and those who were less known. This sounds like it would have given them a good chance of breaking into the entertainment scene. I was surprised that it started in the United States and Canada. Vaudeville definitely sounds more like a French word, so it makes sense that it came from the French phrase “voix de ville”, loosely translated to “songs of the town”. This form of theatre seems to be very inclusive. When going to one of these performances, there is most likely something for everyone to enjoy, bringing in a wider audience and sharing this art with as many people as possible.
Vaudeville was never something I really thought about until I did the show Chicago, where Vaudeville is a large part of Velma Kelly’s life and career. I didn’t really know much about it, nor did I really do much research about it. This article really helped me gain more insight about Vaudeville, and I finally learned what Vaudeville is a a genre of theatre. Watching and doing Chicago did help me get a basic introduction to vaudeville as a performance style, but I always just kind of thought it was not a real thing, but just something that was Chicago and Chicago only. The decline of vaudeville was not surprising to me, as I knew that factors like radio and motion picture would start for force vaudeville out of the picture, as those were easily accessible to the general public. I guess even now, there are waves of different styles of theatre that come and go.
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