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The rural face of America is changing the country. By the 1880's
half of the population is found in the
cities and working jobs in factories. A far cry from the long
hours and hard work of agriculture in the
rural areas of the land. This gave people more time and money.
In the cities people were wanting to be
entertained. The minstrel show and medicine shows that had be
one of the main stays of entertainment
for the past decades was on the decline. We were yet to see the
phonograph, radio or movies come
on the entertainment scene yet.
Tony Pastor earned fame as a circus ringmaster and variety vocalist
before he presented the first "clean"
variety show at New York's Fourteenth Street Theatre in 1881. A devout
Catholic and attentive father,
Pastor was seriously dedicated to providing family-friendly entertainment.
Each week he offered a
different line-up of quality acts. Pastor often appeared in the star
spot himself, singing such sentimental
favorites as "The Band Played On" –THIS IS SAID TO BE THE BIRTH PLACE
OF VAUDEVILLE.
Soon there were more of these vaudeville theaters build across the
northeastern US.
Sophie Tucker in her autobiography Some of These Days.
Her agent, the now-legendary William Morris,
claimed that a red windmill in the Vire valley started serving wine
and cheese to farmers waiting to have
their wheat milled. Traveling entertainers took advantage of this ready-made
audience by performing for the
crowd and passing the hat. This arrangement proved so popular that
others soon copied it. Morris insisted
this place not only gave birth to the term "vaudeville" – it also inspired
the name for the popular Parisian
nightclub Moulin Rouge ("Red Windmill").
As vaudeville spread through the United States, major theatre chains
or circuits were built by Sullivan &
Consodine, Alexander Pantages, film mogul Marcus Loew and others. All
of them were tough businessmen,
but no one could match Keith and Albee's cutthroat tactics, or their
ruthless insistence that acts keep their
material clean at all times.
There are stories about the "blue" envelopes that passed around backstage
with the rules of what could and
could not be said in an effort to keep the performances clean.
Thanks to the tint of those dreaded envelopes,
anything risqué came to be known as "blue" material.
A successful act toured for forty or more weeks a year, doing "one nighters"
or weekly stands depending on
a theatre’s size. The number of performances per day varied from circuit
to circuit. Exhausting as the work
was, performers were glad to get it. More than 25,000 people performed
in vaudeville over it’s 50+ years
of existence, working their way through the three levels defined by
the trade newspaper Variety –
"Small time" – small town houses and cheaper theaters in larger towns.
Performers made as little as $15 a
week. "Medium time" – good theaters in most towns and cities,
with salaries in the hundreds. "Big Time" –
the finest theaters in the best cities, all using a two performances-a-day
format. Top stars at this level made
well over $1,000 a week. The Palace Theatre as it appeared soon after
its opening in 1913.
Vaudeville theatres ranged from lavish big-time theatres to dreary converted
storefronts. The Orpheum
Circuit was the ultimate in "big time," with handsomely appointed houses
across the Midwestern US. Acts
that normally commanded $350 a week got $450 a week playing an Orpheum
house, and top stars were
sometimes paid in the thousands. The exception was Orpheum's flagship
house, The Palace Theatre on
New York's Times Square. Top managers and theatrical professionals
packed Monday matinees at the
Palace, so a successful run there could lead to good bookings nationwide.
Anxious performers often
accepted low pay to get on the bill, and would ever afterwards casually
boast about "the time we played
The Palace." Built by Orpheum manager Martin Beck in 1913, this luxurious
house was soon taken over
by (who else?) Keith and Albee, who absorbed the entire Orpheum circuit
into their organization. The
Palace became even more important when unemployed performers started
hanging out on the traffic triangle
in front of it to gossip and keep an ear out for possible bookings.
Wags soon referred to this crowded
stretch of sidewalk as "the beach" – it is now the location of the
popular TKTS discount ticket booth.
Some touring music acts like the Riders of the Purple Sage played the
theaters and they would do their
music then would do trick rope acts and whip tricks and shooting tricks
on stage as part of their acts.
Comic singer Bert Williams, the first black American to attain national
stardom in vaudeville. Here he
spoofs racist attitudes by playing "Jim Crow." Most southern states
did not allow whites and blacks to sit
in the same theatre. The TOBA Circuit ("Theatre Owners Booking Agency,"
which performers referred
to as "Tough On Black Asses") were the only venues below the Mason-Dixon
Line that welcomed
"colored" audiences in the early part of the 20th Century.
to be continued
© 1998-03 Benford
E. Standley. All Rights Reserved.
This can in no way be copied
or distributed.
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continuing this story...if you have any important dates or
information that helps
us tell the story of the evolution of the music and
entertainment business
send them to us and we will add to KICKIN' UP DUST
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