Editing Vaudeville (section)

== Popularity ==
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|+Performance bill for Temple Theatre, Detroit, 1 December 1902
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The manager's comments, sent back to the circuit's central office weekly, follow each act's description. The bill illustrates the typical pattern of opening the show with a "dumb" act to allow patrons to find their seats, placing strong acts in second and penultimate positions, and leaving the weakest act for the end, to clear the house.

In this bill, as in many vaudeville shows, acts often associated with "lowbrow" or popular entertainment (acrobats, a trained mule) shared a stage with acts more usually regarded as "highbrow" or classical entertainment (opera vocalists, classical musicians).

* '''(1) Burt Jordan and Rosa Crouch.''' "Sensational, grotesque and 'buck' dancers. A good act ..."
* '''(2) The White Tscherkess Trio.''' "A man and two women who do a singing turn of the operatic order. They carry special scenery which is very artistic and their costumes are original and neat. Their voices are good and blend exceedingly well. The act goes big with the audience."
* '''(3) Sarah Midgely and Gertie Carlisle.''' "Presenting the sketch 'After School.' ... they are a 'knockout.{{' "}}
* '''(4) Theodor F. Smith and Jenny St. George-Fuller.''' "Refined instrumentalists."
* '''(5) Milly Capell.''' "European equestrienne. This is her second week. On account of the very pretty picture that she makes she goes as strong as she did last week."
* '''(6) R. J. Jose.''' "Tenor singer. The very best of them all."
* '''(7) The Nelson Family of Acrobats.''' "This act is composed of three men, two young women, three boys and two small girls. The greatest acrobatic act extant."
* '''(8) James Thornton.''' "Monologist and vocalist. He goes like a cyclone. It is a case of continuous laughter from his entrance to his exit."
* '''(9) Burk and Andrus and Their Trained Mule.''' "This act, if it can be so classed, was closed after the evening performance."
[[File:Kirksville Mercantile College.jpg|frameless|center]] "The Opera" in [[Kirksville, Missouri]] was on the Vaudeville circuit. Vaudeville played in both large and small venues in cities and towns.
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[[Benjamin Franklin Keith|B. F. Keith]] took the next step, starting in [[Boston]], where he built an empire of [[theater (structure)|theatres]] and brought vaudeville to the United States and Canada. Later, [[Edward Franklin Albee II|E. F. Albee]], adoptive grandfather of the [[Pulitzer Prize]]-winning playwright [[Edward Albee]], managed the chain to its greatest success. Circuits such as those managed by Keith-Albee provided vaudeville's greatest economic innovation and the principal source of its industrial strength. They enabled a chain of allied vaudeville houses that remedied the chaos of the single-theatre booking system by contracting acts for regional and national tours. These could easily be lengthened from a few weeks to two years.

Albee also gave national prominence to vaudeville's trumpeting "polite" entertainment, a commitment to entertainment equally inoffensive to men, women and children. Acts that violated this ethos (e.g., those that used words such as "hell") were admonished and threatened with expulsion from the week's remaining performances or were canceled altogether. In spite of such threats, performers routinely flouted this [[censorship]], often to the delight of the very audience members whose sensibilities were supposedly endangered. He eventually instituted a set of guidelines to be an audience member at his show, and these were reinforced by the ushers working in the theatre.<ref name="Kenrick">{{cite web| last=Kenrick| first=John| title=A History of The Musical: Vaudeville| url=http://www.musicals101.com/vaude1.htm| access-date=2015-10-26}}</ref>

This "polite entertainment" also extended to Keith's company members. He went to extreme measures to maintain this level of modesty. Keith even went as far as posting warnings backstage such as this: "Don't say 'slob' or 'son of a gun' or 'hully gee' on the stage unless you want to be canceled peremptorily... if you are guilty of uttering anything sacrilegious or even suggestive you will be immediately closed and will never again be allowed in a theatre where Mr. Keith is in authority." Along these same lines of discipline, Keith's theatre managers would occasionally send out blue envelopes with orders to omit certain suggestive lines of songs and possible substitutions for those words. If actors chose to ignore these orders or quit, they would get "a black mark" on their name and would never again be allowed to work on the Keith Circuit. Thus, actors learned to follow the instructions given to them by B.&nbsp;F. Keith for fear of losing their careers forever.<ref name="Kenrick" />

By the late 1890s, vaudeville had large circuits, houses (small and large) in almost every sizable location, standardized booking, broad pools of skilled acts, and a loyal national following. One of the biggest circuits was Martin Beck's [[Orpheum Circuit, Inc.|Orpheum Circuit]]. It incorporated in 1919 and brought together 45 vaudeville theatres in 36 cities throughout the United States and Canada and a large interest in two vaudeville circuits. Another major circuit was that of [[Alexander Pantages]]. In his heyday, Pantages owned more than 30 vaudeville theatres and controlled, through management contracts, perhaps 60 more in both the United States and Canada.

[[File:How to Enter Vaudeville cover.jpg|thumb|left|This 1913 how-to booklet for would-be vaudevillians was recently republished.]]
At its height, vaudeville played across multiple strata of economic class and auditorium size. On the vaudeville circuit, it was said that if an act would succeed in [[Peoria, Illinois]], it would work anywhere.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Luciano |first1=Phil |title='Will it play in Peoria?' still plays here and nationally |journal=Journal Star |date=27 April 2019 |url=https://www.pjstar.com/news/20190427/will-it-play-in-peoria-still-plays-here-and-nationally |access-date=4 January 2020}}</ref><ref>{{cite news |title=Letters to the Editor: Playing in Peoria |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1985/11/03/magazine/l-playing-in-peoria-127721.html |access-date=4 January 2020 |work=The New York Times |date=3 November 1985}}</ref><ref>{{cite news |title=Will It Play In Peoria? 'Morning Edition' Hopes So |url=https://www.npr.org/2016/04/08/473477530/will-it-play-in-peoria-morning-edition-hopes-so |website=npr.org |publisher=NPR's "Morning Edition" |access-date=4 January 2020}}</ref><ref>{{cite journal |last1=Groh |first1=Amy |title=The Phrase That Put Peoria on the Map |journal=Peoria Magazine |date=June 2009 |url=https://www.peoriamagazines.com/ibi/2009/jun/phrase-put-peoria-map |access-date=4 January 2020}}</ref> The question "[[Will it play in Peoria?]]" has now become a metaphor for whether something appeals to the American mainstream public. The three most common levels were the "small time" (lower-paying contracts for more frequent performances in rougher, often converted theatres), the "medium time" (moderate wages for two performances each day in purpose-built theatres), and the "big time" (possible remuneration of several thousand dollars per week in large, urban theatres largely patronized by the middle and upper-middle classes). As performers rose in renown and established regional and national followings, they worked their way into the less arduous working conditions and better pay of the big time. The capital of the big time was New York City's [[Palace Theatre (New York City)|Palace Theatre]] (or just "The Palace" in the slang of vaudevillians), built by [[Martin Beck (vaudeville)|Martin Beck]] in 1913 and operated by Keith. Featuring a bill stocked with inventive novelty acts, national celebrities, and acknowledged masters of vaudeville performance (such as comedian and trick roper [[Will Rogers]]), the Palace provided what many vaudevillians considered the [[apotheosis]] of remarkable careers. A standard show bill would begin with a sketch, follow with a single (an individual male or female performer); next would be an alley-oop (an acrobatic act); then another single, followed by yet another sketch such as a blackface comedy. The acts that followed these for the rest of the show would vary from musicals to jugglers to song-and-dance singles and end with a final extravaganza – either musical or drama – with the full company. These shows would feature such stars as ragtime and jazz pianist [[Eubie Blake]], the famous and magical [[Harry Houdini]], and child star [[Baby Rose Marie]].<ref>{{cite book| last=Gilbert| first=Douglas| title=American Vaudeville: Its Life and Times| url=https://archive.org/details/americanvaudevil0000gilb| url-access=registration| year=1940| publisher=Whittlesey House}}</ref> In the ''[[New-York Tribune]]''{{'}}s article about Vaudeville, it is said that at any given time, Vaudeville was employing over twelve thousand different people throughout its entire industry. Each entertainer would be on the road 42 weeks at a time while working a particular "Circuit" – or an individual theatre chain of a major company.<ref name=OldNews>{{cite web| last=Webwerks| title=''The New York Tribune'': Vaudeville| url=http://www.oldnewsads.com/Vaudeville.html| publisher=Oldnewsads.com| access-date=17 January 2012}}</ref>

While the neighborhood character of vaudeville attendance had always promoted a tendency to tailor fare to specific audiences, mature vaudeville grew to feature houses and circuits specifically aimed at certain demographic groups. Black patrons, often segregated into the rear of the second gallery in white-oriented theatres, had their own smaller circuits, as did speakers of [[Italian language|Italian]] and [[Yiddish language|Yiddish]] (see below). This foreign addition combined with comedy produced such acts as "minstrel shows of antebellum America" and Yiddish theatre. Many ethnic families joined in on this entertainment business, and for them, this traveling lifestyle was simply a continuation of the circumstances that brought them to America. Through these acts, they were able to assimilate themselves into their new home while also bringing bits of their own culture into this new world.<ref name=About>{{cite web| title=Vaudeville: About Vaudeville| date=8 October 1999| url=https://www.pbs.org/wnet/americanmasters/episodes/vaudeville/about-vaudeville/721/| publisher=[[PBS]] [[American Masters]]}}</ref> White-oriented regional circuits, such as [[New England]]'s "Peanut Circuit", also provided essential training grounds for new artists while allowing established acts to experiment with and polish new material. At its height, vaudeville was rivaled only by churches and public schools among the nation's premiere public gathering places.

Another slightly different aspect of Vaudeville was an increasing interest in the female figure. The previously mentioned ominous idea of "the blue envelopes" led to the phrase "blue" material, which described the provocative subject matter present in many Vaudeville acts of the time.<ref name="Kenrick" /> Many managers even saw this scandalous material as a marketing strategy to attract many different audiences. As stated in [[Andrew L. Erdman|Andrew Erdman]]'s book ''Blue Vaudeville'', the Vaudeville stage was "a highly sexualized space&nbsp;... where unclad bodies, provocative dancers, and singers of 'blue' lyrics all vied for attention." Such performances highlighted and objectified the female body as a "sexual delight", but more than that, historians think that Vaudeville marked a time in which the female body became its own "sexual spectacle". This sexual image began sprouting everywhere an American went: the shops, a restaurant, the grocery store, etc.{{Citation needed|date=August 2019}} The more this image brought in the highest revenue, the more Vaudeville focused on acts involving women. Even acts that were as innocent as a sister act were higher sellers than a good brother act. Consequently, Erdman adds that female Vaudeville performers such as Julie Mackey and Gibson's Bathing Girls began to focus less on talent and more on physical appeal through their figure, tight gowns, and other revealing attire. It eventually came as a surprise to audience members when such beautiful women actually possessed talent in addition to their appealing looks. This element of surprise colored much of the reaction to the female entertainment of this time.<ref name=Erdman>{{cite book| last=Erdman| first=Andrew L.|author-link=Andrew L. Erdman| title=Blue Vaudeville| publisher=McFarland & Company, Inc.| isbn=978-0-7864-3115-1| date=20 January 2007}}</ref>