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Light entertainment popular in the United States from the mid-1890s until the early 1930s that consisted of 10 to 15 individual unrelated acts, featuring magicians, acrobats, comedians, trained animals, jugglers, singers, and dancers.

It is the counterpart of the music hall and variety in England. The term is probably a corruption of vaux-de-vire, satirical songs in couplets, sung to popular airs in the 15th century in the Val-de-Vire (Vau-de-Vire), Normandy, France.

Right - The Shubert Theatre Chicago. Opened on New Years Day in 1906 as the Majestic Theatre.

It passed into theatrical usage in the early 18th century to describe a device employed by professional actors to circumvent the dramatic monopoly held by the Comédie-Française. Forbidden to perform legitimate drama, they presented their plays in pantomime, interpreting the action with lyrics and choruses set to popular tunes.

It eventually developed into a form of light musical drama, with spoken dialogue interspersed with songs, that was popular throughout Europe.

In the United States the development of variety entertainment was encouraged in frontier settlements as well as in the widely scattered urban centres.

Left - The Cadillac Palace Theatre Chicago.

In the 1850s and 1860s straight variety grew in popular favour. Held in beer halls, the coarse and sometimes obscene shows were aimed toward a primarily male audience.

Tony Pastor, a ballad and minstrel singer, is credited both with giving the first performance of what came to be called vaudeville by the late 19th century and with making it respectable. In 1881 he established a theatre in New York City dedicated to the “straight, clean variety show.” His unexpected success encouraged other managers to follow his example. By the 1890s vaudeville was family entertainment and exhibited high standards of performance.

Many future stars were developed under the vaudeville system—e.g., W.C. Fields, juggler and comedian; Will Rogers, cowboy and comic; the famous “American Beauty,” Lillian Russell; Charlie Case, monologuist; and Joe Jackson, pantomimist.

Right - The Oriental Theatre Chicago.

European music hall artists such as Sir Harry Lauder, Albert Chevalier, and Yvette Guilbert also appeared in vaudeville in the United States.

By the end of the 19th century the era of the vaudeville chain, a group of houses controlled by a single manager, was firmly established. The largest chains were United Booking Office, with 400 theatres in the East and Midwest, and Martin Beck's Orpheum Circuit, which controlled houses from Chicago to California. Beck also built the Palace Theatre in New York, which from 1913 to 1932 was the outstanding vaudeville house in the United States.

In 1896 motion pictures were introduced into vaudeville shows as added attractions and to clear the house between shows. They gradually preempted more and more performing time until, after the advent of the “talkies” about 1927, the customary bill featured a full-length motion picture with “added acts” of vaudeville.

The great financial depression of the 1930s and the growth of radio and later of television contributed to the rapid decline of vaudeville and to its virtual disappearance after World War II.

Above text from the Encyclopedia Britannica 2002 - Copyright © 1994-2002 Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.