Vaudeville
American variety theatre, a bill of short acts with no through-line
Related
Vaudeville usually means American variety theatre from the 1880s to the 1930s: a bill of ten or more short acts, with songs, dance, magic, acrobatics and comic patter, and no through-line.
Keith and Orpheum circuits standardised the bill as clean family entertainment, and touring performers followed the routes. The earlier French vaudeville was a comic play with songs fitted to popular tunes, a different animal under the same name.
It is not revue, which has a unifying theme and production, nor cabaret, which is intimate and performed among tables. The line with musical theatre is clear: a musical uses a book to bind its songs, vaudeville simply sells the acts.
Sources
- 美国杂耍剧场的院线制度与法国 vaudeville 源流，参 The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, "Vaudeville"；本文为原创表述
Used for fact-checking only; all prose is original.