Vaudeville

What if theater was free to the public? I encourage you to go look up prices to Hamilton in order to really appreciate this concept. What if performance art was no longer limited to the few for whom it is was financially feasible to throw away a couple hundred dollars on a theater ticket. The Federal Theater Project not only made theater available to all, regardless of economic status, but also employees over 10,000 artists suffering from the Great Depression. The Federal Theater Project was…

Freddie died shortly after the wedding in 1904. In 1907, Scott Joplin moved to New York City and hoped to make enough money in order to produce without financial backing. While in New York City, Joplin started to write more music and performed in vaudeville shows. Although John Stark set up a publishing company in New York City, Joplin started to pursue other…

vote and basically do as they please, some took this liberation as a way to branch out and to create their own rules and sense of style. The Jazz Age encouraged carefree ways of thinking. Flappers engaged in night life and attended Jazz clubs and vaudevilles shows. They consumed alcohol more than ever and saw male roles as unnecessary. Flappers wore skirts…

voice, and he played all instruments exceptionally well. Under the desires of the time. Walker was an incredible humorist and artist, with dull skin, and would be relied upon to play the blockhead. The two met in San Francisco that year and formed a vaudeville demonstration. Williams and Walker worked hard to create quality theater. They needed their sets and ensembles to be generally as extreme as those in the white theater. They likewise had incredible lighting and expand props. Walker was the…

The studio system in the Golden Age of Hollywood was a method of film production and distribution between the 1920’s and 60’s. Large motion picture studios wanted to maximize their profit and minimize the risks of going bankrupt. They turned to producing movies on their own film making lots and they were especially skillful in handling employees, and contracts. The use of long-term contracts was very effective in keeping costs lower than they otherwise would have been; and it helped studios…

He was born in Harlem, Manhattan, the son of dancer Elvera Davis (née Sanchez) and vaudeville star Sammy Davis Sr.. His father was African-American and his mother was of Puerto Rican ancestry. Davis Jr. was known as someone who could do it all--sing, dance, play instruments, act, do stand-up--and he was known for his self-deprecating humor; he once heard someone complaining about discrimination, and he said, "You got it easy. I'm a short, ugly, one-eyed, black Jew. What do you think it's like…

in the 1920s are Prohibition was a national ban on the sale, manufacture, and transportation of alcohol, in place from 1920 to 1933. The music in the 1920s including Mamie Smith was an American vaudeville singer, dancer, pianist and actress, who appeared in several films late in her career. As a vaudeville singer she performed a number of styles including jazz and blues. The Automobile This was the invention of an affordable car with a combustion engine. Henry Ford created his with the Model-T…

However, Robinsons grace did not spread to the people over night. He joined numerous traveling companies and vaudeville tours, slowing constructing a reputation in which everyone grew to love. Bill Robinsons performed for mainly blacks during his career until he was fifty year old when he started to become appreciated in the white communities and was permitted to…

Through the silent film Buster Keaton Sherlock Jr.(1924) the filmmaker managed to portray Sherlock Jr's vaudevillist roots by imposing a deadpanning persona centered on burlesque comedy. The protagonist Sherlock Jr did not show any emotional reactions instead he performed actions that would alter laughter to the viewers. These actions would be out of innocence, and his unawareness would result in laughter. For instance, when Sherlock Jr. imitated every movement the culprit of the watch did in…

When it first started, musical theatre wasn’t what we think of today, it wasn’t even called musical theatre. The roots of this art form go all the way back to ancient Greece. In America, however, it goes all the way back to minstrel shows, then vaudeville, follies after that, musical comedy and then finally it developed into what we recognize as musical theatre. This paper will tell a brief history of how musical theatre, or more specifically, Broadway, developed. There’s one prominent person…