6 Women of Vaudevile

    Madonna, Angelina Joelie and Jennifer Tilly are all female entertainers that many people are familiar with but what about some of the female entertainers that came before them in the long past and often forgotten decades before them or even before actresses like Bette Davis or Audrey Hepburn. In vaudeville there were so many entertainers and some of the film stars that are known got their starts in vaudeville due to vaudeville including many different kinds of acts. To do justice to all of the stars of vaudeville would take many days, so here are a few of the female performers from vaudeville both well-known and not so well-known.

Eva Tanguay

Eva Tanguay Source

    "She wasn't the prettiest or the skinniest and quite intentionally her costumes were outrageous, but for over twenty years she was the favorite of both critics and audiences" (Slide, 2012). For her generation she was American vaudeville; she was the greatest female star for majority of vaudeville's existence (Slide, 2012).

    Eva Tanguay was born August 1, 1878 in Marbleton, Canada (Slide, 2012). Her father was a Parisian doctor who was out for adventure on the Canadian frontier; but when he died in her early childhood it left the family destitute (Trav, 2009). Her parents had immigrated to Holyoke, Massachusetts when she was young; there at the age of ten she sang in the church choir and appeared in amateur nights at Parson's Hall (Slide, 2012). With the Rose Stahl Repertoire Company she played child parts for five years; she toured with the company as Cedric Errol in Little Lord Fauntleroy (Slide, 2012).

    She performed very suggestive songs in a very inimitable way and delivered it in so blatant a manner that proved the point of her most famous song "I Don't Care"; and she actually didn't care what people thought of her no matter who they were (Slide, 2012). She was as much a tempest offstage as she was on stage (Slide, 2012). During an interview with Variety in 1908 Tanguay admitted that she knew that her crazy behavior is what her success in part relied on, and because she acted in an insane manner that audiences kept flocking back to see what she would do next (Slide, 2012). She seemed to be eternally young during her performances and those who had grown up watching her were able to forget the passing years; just by watching her changeless, ageless frantic gyrations (Slide, 2012). Though she acted crazy and seemed ageless, Tanguay understood the value of self-promotion (Miller, 2006). From many of her antics she often was billed as "The Genius of Mirth and Song" and "The Evangelist of Joy" (Miller, 2006).

    By 1910 Tanguay was the highest salaried star in vaudeville beating out Ethel Barrymore by five hundred dollars; she was asking for and getting three thousand five hundred dollars a week (Slide, 2012). She was demanding a weekly salary of ten thousand dollars and a guarantee of three years work before she would star in any films in 1916, no production company took her up on it so she opened her own production company and starred in two films; Energetic Eva in 1916 and The Wild Girl in 1917 (Slide, 2012). Most of her songs like "I Want Somebody to Go Wild with Me" in 1913 or "Go as Far as You Like" also in 1913 never achieved any lasting fame like "I Don't Care" did (Slide, 2012). She began to bill herself as "The Girl Who Made Vaudeville Famous" (Trav, 2009).

    She left vaudeville for three years but she came back May 1930 opening with "Back Doing Business at the Same Old Stand" followed by "Mae West, Texas, and Me"; a comedy number about how the mob had declared that she, West and Texas were "The Unholy Three" (Slide, 2012). Prior to this come back Tanguay had lost her fortune in the 1929 stock market crash and suffered from medical problems (Miller, 2006). In the early 1930s her vision had been dramatically affected by cataracts; with an operation paid for by her admirer Sophie Tucker, Tanguay's sight was restored (Miller, 2006). She was destitute and dependent on charity from the National Vaudeville Association and former colleagues by 1933 (Slide, 2012). She dropped out of public view and became reclusive in her Hollywood home when vaudeville died (Slide, 2012). She became further reclusive in 1937 when arthritis slowed her down (Miller, 2006). On her sixty-eighth birthday she gave an interview with the Los Angeles Times telling the reporter of her hopes of a film based on her life; this didn't come to pass during her lifetime, the film The I Don't Care Girl wasn't released until 1952 after her death (Slide, 2012). Her once vast fortune had dwindled down to five hundred dollars by the time of her death in Hollywood on January 11, 1947 (Miller, 2006).

Kitty Doner

    "Her vigorous, virile dancing was augmented by Character patter, thus cementing her credentials in the small historic pantheon of important drag kings" (Trav, 2011). Kitty Doner was one of the best known American male impersonators and was considered the only one on par with Vesta Tilley and Ella Shields, who were the best known performers of the art (Slide, 2012).

Kitty Doner Source

    She was born in Chicago in 1895 to Joe Doner of Manchester, England and Nellie of London, England both were performers in their own right; before they married Nellie was a popular principle boy in British pantomime (Slide, 2012). After Nellie and Joe married they joined their pantomime acts together to create the act "The Escaped Lunatics" (Slide, 2012). From this background Kitty was a second generation vaudevillian that appeared to perfectly splice her parents' talents (Trav, 2011). When it was time for her to join her parents on the stage her dad dressed her as a boy and said "She might as well get started dressed as a boy because she's not pretty enough to compete with the beautiful girls in show business"; when she reflected on this while explaining some of the reasons on why she became a male impersonator (Slide, 2012). During that reflection she had said that because she was the first born she felt that her father was disappointed that she wasn't a boy and that she became sort of gawky as she grew up and with all of this compounding to help push her in the direction of impersonation (Slide, 2012).

    She never did impersonations of well-known men, so her impersonations were unique unto themselves just as much as her female impressions were (Slide, 2012). She gained the title of "The Best Dressed Man on the American Stage" from her vaudeville act "A League of Song Steps"; and in 1922 she had an engagement in England, the home of male impersonation, where she topped the bill at London's Victoria Palace (Slide, 2012). Her brother and sister, Ted and Rose, were also in show business and they would often perform with her in vaudeville (Slide, 2012). In her first show, "The Candy Shop", she appeared in both male and female attire; it opened in 1912 at the Gaiety Theatre in San Francisco and as far as the West Coast was concerned she made her reputation with that show (Slide, 2012).

    1914 is when her biggest break came, when she signed to play opposite of Al Jolson in Dancing Around , which at the Winter Garden Theater on October 10, 1914 (Slide, 2012). She and Jolson worked together at least twice more in Robinson Crusoe Jr. on February 17, 1916 and in Sinbad on February 14, 1918; and while they were working together on these productions they were also romantically involved with each other (Slide, 2012). Her weekly vaudeville salary through the 20s averaged about one thousand dollars and when she toured with the William Fox circuit in 1927 she was paid one thousand five hundred dollars a week (Slide, 2012).

    Aside from her half dozen Broadway appearances, she had made it to the big time on vaudeville putting in many appearances at The Palace (Trav, 2011). Besides her stage appearances she had one on-screen appearance in 1928 in a Warner Brothers short A Bit of Scotch which she was paid one thousand seven hundred and fifty dollars for (Slide, 2012). On November 26, 1924 a Variety article had this to say about Kitty Doner: "If our cousins across the pond think they have a patent on the raising of male impersonators, they ought to get a load of this baby. In male clothes, she is as masculine as a Notre Dame guard, and in female togs as feminine as bare legs. As a dancer, she is in a class by herself" (Slide, 2012). She was a performer that adapted to the times as they changed; on November 25, 1934 she admitted to the San Francisco Chronicle "There ain't any vaudeville, but some people won't believe it" (Slide, 2012). Her act was the first complete stage act to be televised over a radius of over 100 miles, when on August 1, 1931 she performed her act on top of New York's Vanderbilt Hotel in front of a CBS television camera (Slide, 2012). She retired from performing in the 1930s but she worked in other jobs, even in her last decades she worked as a choreographer (Trav, 2011). During the 1940s she was a show director for Holiday on Ice, then in 1950 and 1951 she was responsible for auditioning the talents for Ted Mack's Amateur Hour (Slide, 2012). She died in Los Angeles on August 26, 1988; she lived for roughly 93 years and she spent majority of that time bringing entertainment to many audiences (Slide, 2012).

Marie Dressler

Marie Dressler Source

    There are very few comediennes that are as fondly remembered or well known as Marie Dressler from vaudeville and the golden age of the motion pictures (Slide, 2012). There was a time that she was the highest paid star in the movie industry; earning more than Greta Garbo or even Mickey Mouse (Garrick, 1997).

    Marie Dressler was born as Leila Koerber in Cobourg, Ontario on November 9, 1869 to Alexander Rudolph Koerber and Annie Henderson of Port Hope (Garrick, 1997). Her father was Austrian born, and he was an excellent musician who had taught music by his own method at Princeton University (Garrick, 1997). He had one problem though, his temper often got in the way of the family having a permanent home so they were always on the move (Garrick, 1997). Her mother would often put on short dramas for the community; during one of these dramas she dressed five year old Leila up as a cherub, placed her on a pedestal and told her not to move (Garrick, 1997). The young girl did as she was told but a curtain came loose and swept her off of the pedestal into the lap Lindsay's greatest "ladies man" causing the audience to laugh; this instant influenced the young girl to play the clown in her early years (Garrick, 1997).

    At the age of 14 she wrote to the Nevada Traveling Stock Company requesting a job; she told them that she was 18 and an accomplished actress, without an audition she was hired (Garrick, 1997). In her later years she would look back on the company and call it "A cheap dramatic company of eleven but a wonderful school" (Garrick, 1997). To save her family from embarrassment she changed her name to Marie Dressler, after an aunt (Garrick, 1997). Unfortunately this job didn't last very long, the company got stranded in Michigan without any funds causing her to walk along the railroad ties going from Edmore to Saginaw to rejoin her family (Garrick, 1997). After that she joined the Robert Grau Opera Company as a chorus member where she earned eight dollars a week (Garrick, 1997). When the leading lady, Agnes Halleck, broke her ankle the company asked Dressler to take on the role of Katisha in The Mikado; through her career she would play this role a total of sixty-seven times (Garrick, 1997).

    Due to her insistence of being paid regularly it led Grau to become annoyed with her and she sent her to Philadelphia claiming that a job would be waiting for her there; there was no job waiting for her (Garrick, 1997). Even though she had been tricked out of her job she didn't let that get her down and she simply checked the paper and found that the Starr Opera Company was in town (Garrick, 1997). She begged them for a job, but with the help of two actresses that had known her on the road and the manager, Mr. Deshon, who was outraged at the way she had been treated she got an audition and a job with the company (Garrick, 1997). After this she started moving from stock company to stock company until she arrived in New York, where she started out singing at the Atlantic Garden on the Bowery and Koster and Bial's Twenty-third Street Theatre (Slide, 2012). Broadway at this time consisted of musical comedy, serious drama, vaudeville, and burlesque; giving performers the choice of the form of entertainment that they wished to perform in (Garrick, 1997). On May 28, 1892 Dressler appeared in her first Broadway role, unfortunately the show was very unsuccessful and closed early (Garrick, 1997).

    Then on November 24, 1893 at the Casino Theatre Dressler opened with Lillian Russell in Princess Nicotine; with its long successful run on Broadway the show went on tour of the country thus making Dressler well known across America (Garrick, 1997). Four years after Dressler first reached Broadway she had a real triumph with her performance as Flo Honeydew in The Lady Slavey (Garrick, 1997). It played for two years and then went on tour, but Dressler got sick and she returned to New York; her manager, A.E. Erlanger then accused her of shamming and got her blacklisted on the New York stages (Garrick, 1997). This blacklisting caused her to take to the road again, this time with the Rich and Harris Touring Company where she played Dottie Dimple in Courted Into Court, sang African-American songs, danced the "cakewalk" and continued to work with facial expressions (Garrick, 1997).

    When she did return to New York she continued to work in musical comedy and vaudeville (Garrick, 1997). At the turn of the century she had become a favorite in vaudeville and burlesque with her impersonations and "coon" songs (Slide, 2012). Later parts of her costumes would become her trademark; she designed and made all of her costumes herself so that she could use the latest fashion fads to make outrageous dresses (Garrick, 1997). Being daring and adventurous Dressler decided to play the Palace Theatre in London, she did this particular show for thirty weeks and had an overwhelmingly positive response from the audience (Garrick, 1997). From the previous positive responses she then planned and tried two more shows in London but they failed and she fell into debt (Garrick, 1997). To work off this debt she had to work the vaudeville circuits for two years to become financially solvent (Garrick, 1997). In January of 1907 she offered impersonations of Mrs. Leslie Carter and Blanche Bates from the legitimate stage and she sang her almost theme song "A Great Big Girl Like Me" (Slide, 2012).

    On May 5, 1910 Dressler introduced her character Tillie Blobbs in Tillie's Nightmare, "A melange of mirth and melody", at New York's Herald Square Theatre; during this performance she sang the song "Heaven Will Protect the Working Girl" (Slide, 2012). Due to the success of this production she was invited by Mack Sennett to star in the 1914 feature-length film Tillie's Punctured Romance; the film didn't help Dressler's career but it did help her co-stars Charlie Chaplin and Mabel Normand (Slide, 2012). She later stared in the following sequels Tillie's Tomato Surprise in 1915 and Tillie Wakes Up in 1917 (Slide, 2012). Throughout the first World War Dressler worked incessantly selling Liberty Bonds, but once the war was over so was her Broadway career (Garrick, 1997). During all of this she was still fairly active in musical comedies and in vaudeville, she also took part in the Actor's Equity Strike of 1919 as the head of the chorus girls division (Slide, 2012). In April of 1919 she received a rather small salary, one thousand five hundred dollars, when she headlined at the Palace (Slide, 2012). This appearance was almost the swan song of her career as it started to fall apart in the 1920s with her stage engagements far and few in between, but she did return to the Palace October 1925 and appeared on the "old-timers" bill (Slide, 2012).

    She was considering leaving the United States permanently in 1927 to move to Paris and open a small hotel, this was something that she had been thinking about since 1901 (Slide, 2012). Then she landed a supporting role in The Joy Girl in 1927 and it lead to other silent film roles, and it was thanks to MGM screenwriter Frances Marion in large part (Slide, 2012). Dressler proved her worth as an actress when she played opposite of Greta Garbo in the 1930 film Anna Christie, also in the 1930s she played opposite of Polly Moran in a series of comedy shorts and featured films (Slide, 2012). She stared in Dinner at Eight in 1933, and it is still considered a classic like her films Christopher Bean and Tugboat Annie (Slide, 2012). When she took on the role of Min in Min and Bill, she finally reached stardom where she portrayed a housekeeper who sacrifices all of her savings to send the girl she is raising to a private school in hopes of giving the girl a better life (Slide, 2012). This role represented all of the parents of The Great Depression who were sacrificing so that their sons and daughters could have a better tomorrow (Garrick, 1997). For her work opposite Wallace Beery in Min and Bill, Dressler received the Academy Award for Best Actress (Slide, 2012). During her final years she had once more become one of America's favorite entertainers and one of the biggest box office attractions in the early 1930s (Slide, 2012). Even though she died on July 28, 1934 her image lives on in her many films (Garrick, 1997). In a radio tribute to her shortly after her death Will Rogers described her very accurately as "a marvelous personality and a great heart" (Slide, 2012).

Louise Dresser

    Louise Dresser was "A statuesque blond beauty who was once nominated as the natural successor to Lilian Russell"; she was a renowned singer and actress, and a star in both vaudeville and in musical comedies (Slide, 2012). She was born Louise Josephine Kerlin in Evansville, Indiana on October 5, 1878; after the death of her railroad engineer father she joined a burlesque show at the age of fifteen (Slide, 2012). The composer Paul Dresser had known her father and at the age of eighteen they met one another (Slide, 2012). Dresser took Louise under his wing and made her his protégé; he had even suggested that she adopt his last name and pretend to be his sister, this led people to believe that she was also the sister of Dresser's brother Theodore Dreiser (Slide, 2012).

    For the first time in Chicago Louise Kerlin became Louise Dresser after her first performance from singing two of Dresser's better known songs "On the Banks of the Wabash" and "My Gal Sal" (Slide, 2012). At the turn of the century she appeared on the vaudeville stage as a singer backed by a group of African-American children; they were billed as Louise Dresser and Her Picks, which was short for pickaninnies (Slide, 2012). Even though her vaudeville engagements with this group was a small part of her career it was a significant part of the relations between Jewish performers and the stage (Kilber, 2009). Usually with acts like this the performers would use some form of a racial masquerade, like racial dialects or makeup; and these masquerades were particularly popular amongst the Jewish community so that they could establish their own American identity (Kilber, 2009).

Louise Dresser Source

    Dresser's first vaudeville appearance was in the spring of 1906 and the first time that she played the Palace was in 1914; during that same year she expanded her talents as a vaudeville performer by appearing in the playlet A Turn of the Knob (Slide, 2012). At the height of her vaudeville career she was averaging one thousand seven hundred and fifty dollars a week (Slide, 2012). During her career she had been married twice; the first was to composer and vaudevillian Jack Norworth this marriage ended in divorce in 1908, the second was to actor Jack Gardner whom had been the original star of the operetta The Chocolate Soldier and it ended in 1950 with his death (Slide, 2012).

    Aside from her vaudeville career, she also had a career on the legitimate stage and on-screen (Slide, 2012). Some of her well known roles on the legitimate stage was: Mrs. Burton in A Matinee Idol in 1912, Ruth Snyder in Potash and Perlmutter in 1913 and Patsy Pygmalion in Hello Broadway! in 1914 (Slide, 2012). 1922 is when she started her screen career, she gave many memorable performances a few of her roles on screen were as Catherine the Great in The Eagle in 1925 and as Empress Elizabeth in The Scarlet Empress in 1934 (Slide, 2012). Though she had many roles that were memorable she is probably best remembered for the films where she was playing opposite of Will Rodgers as his wife; like in State Fair in 1933 and David Harum in 1934 (Kilber, 2009). These roles were so well liked by their fans that to the fans they were actually husband and wife in their minds (Kilber, 2009).

    In 1937 Dresser retired from her screen career, but she had planed a comeback for after her husband's death (Slide, 2012). Unfortunately she failed to reappear after his death in 1950 (Slide, 2012). She died in Woodland Hills, California on April 24, 1965 from a complication with a surgery for an intestinal obstruction (Kilber, 2009).

May Irwin

May Irwin Source

     May Irwin was known as "The Dean of Comediennes" and was a legend on both the legitimate stage and in vaudeville (Slide, 2012). She was born Ada May Campbell in 1862 in Whitby, Ontario, Canada to Robert Campbell and May Draper ("May Irwin, actor, " 1998). Her father's death made it so that 13 year old Irwin had to support herself financially ("May Irwin, actor," 1998). She had started singing in the church choir, her sister Flo and she left home and started on the vaudeville stage together at Daniel Shelby's Adelphi Variety Theatre in Buffalo (Slide, 2012). Throughout the Midwest the sisters performed as "coon shouters", singing African American songs like "Don't You Hear dem Bells?" (Slide, 2012). During the sisters' travels and performances they were seen by Tony Pastor in Detroit, after which he brought them to New York to perform in the Metropolitan Theatre in 1877 (Slide, 2012).

    In 1883 Flo and May split up when May had been offered a job by Augustin Daly to join his company (Slide, 2012). After joining Daly's stock company she spent several seasons in Toole's Theatre in London ("May Irwin, actor,", 1998). For the 1891-92 season Irwin returned to New York City and she appeared in the farce-comedy Boys and Girls ("May Irwin, actor,", 1998). She performed in a burlesque version of Oscar Wilde's Lady Windemere's Fan, which had imported characters from Hamlet in 1893; during the same year she performed a dance number with wine dummies called A Country Sport ("May Irwin, actor,", 1998). She got her first staring role in The Widow Jones as Beatrice Byke, where she stared opposite John Rice in 1895; the kissing scene from this show was recorded by the Edison Company and became known simply as The Kiss (Slide, 2012).

    November of 1907 Irwin returned to vaudeville playing at New York's Orpheum Theatre (Slide, 2012). She topped the bill at the Palace in February of 1915, during this performance she sang "Kentucky Home" and "Those were the Happy Days" and she recited "Father's Old Red Beard" which had been written for her by Irving Berlin (Slide, 2012). Variety's Sime Sliverman gave this review: "As often as May Irwin may wish to return to vaudeville just so often will vaudeville always welcome her with open arms, for vaudeville audiences, regardless of what else may be said of them, never fail to recognize an artist"; of her 1917 Palace appearance (Slide, 2012).

    Irwin had managed her money very well and in her later years she had become a millionaire ("May Irwin, actor,", 1998). In 1920 with her second husband and manager, Kurt Eisfeldt, she retired to her farm in the Thousand Island area of New York (Slide, 2012). She and Eisfeldt had two sons during their marriage ("May Irwin, actor,", 1998). She died in New York on October 10, 1938 at the age of 76 years old (Slide, 2012).

Kathleen Clifford

Kathleen Clifford Source

    Kathleen Clifford was another one of vaudeville's male impersonators, she was most often described as the American answer to Vesta Tilley (Slide, 2012). Clifford would dress as a very dapper man sporting a monocle to go with her hat and tails, causing her to be billed as "The Smartest Chap in Town" (Slide, 2012).    

    Kathleen Clifford was born in Charlottesville, Virginia on February 16, 1887; British male impersonators were held in very high regards in vaudeville so more often than not she pretended to have been born in England (Slide, 2012). She started her career in straight musical comedy when she was a teenager, she performed and was featured in the 1907 musical extravaganza The Top o' the' World (Slide, 2012).

    As early as 1910 Clifford was active in vaudeville, Variety's Sime Silverman had hailed her as "a dandy looking boy" but it was complained that she didn't carry herself well or how she wore her clothes including the hat (Slide, 2012). She appeared in in films from 1917 through 1928, she didn't always appear in male parts or in parts that required her to be in male disguise (Slide, 2012). Throughout the early 1930s she worked on vaudeville; but in the late 1920s she had been pursing a new occupation as a Hollywood florist (Slide, 2012). She wrote a novel about her years in Hollywood titled It's April...Remember (Slide, 2012). She died in Los Angeles on January 11, 1963; her body was sent to Belgrade, Yugoslavia the former home of her husband and was buried there (Slide, 2012).

    The stories of these women echo things that have been shown throughout all of history and what we learn almost every day of our lives. One day you can be on top of everything and then when things change around you and you don't adapt you are going to slide down the hill, causing you to have to climb back up the hill. Some times you will be able to make the come back you desire but other times you won't make it back to the top, it all varies on the things going on around you and your own determination. Through the ups and downs of life these women and others never gave up and kept getting back up to try again.Their stories can inspire the courage that one could need to decide to try to keep trying to accomplish their goals and dreams.

Sources 

Slide, A. (2012). The encyclopedia of vaudeville. Jackson: University Press of Mississippi.

May irwin, actor, comedienne and singer (1862-1938). (1998, July 07). Retrieved from http://www.collectionscanada.gc.ca/gramophone/028011-1013-e.html

Miller, J. (2006, June). Eva tanguay, vaudeville’s star. Retrieved from https://www.thehenryford.org/exhibits/pic/2006/06_june.asp

Trav, S. D. (2009, August 01). Stars of vaudeville

Trav, S. D. (2011, September 07). Stars of vaudeville

Garrick, B. (1997). The dressler story. Retrieved from http://www.mariedressler.ca/marie-bio

Kilber, M. A. (2009). Louise dresser. In Jewish Women: A Comprehensive Historical Encyclopedia. Brookline : Jewish Women's Archive. Retrieved from http://jwa.org/encyclopedia/article/dresser-louise

 

6 Men of Vaudeville

    Without some of these men as the forerunners for different entertainment styles would we even be enjoying the entertainment of today. Without the ventriloquists that performed on vaudeville would we be laughing at Jeff Dunham's antics with Peanut and the gang, probably not. These men have helped shape not only American entertainment and culture but also parts of the culture and entertainment around the world.

Dave Apollon

Dave Apollon Source

    Born February 23, 1897 in what was then Kiev, Russia, he would take mandolin playing and turn it into an art form. He started his musical life playing the violin, but when he came across an old bowl-backed mandolin that his father had around the house he switched instruments. Throughout Kiev he was playing the mandolin in different theaters by the age of fourteen; his musical career was put on hold during the Russian Revolution when he became a solider. He continued to play his mandolin and dancing when he moved to the Philippines after the war.

    In 1921 he immigrated to the United States and became an immediate success on the vaudeville circuit. The first recording of his material, a combination of American ragtime rhythms and Russian folk music accompanied by a troupe of Philippine string musicians, was released in 1932. He started playing his mandolin in a series of "soundies" based on his vaudeville routines around this time as well. He and his orchestra appeared on the last two-a-day program at the Palace on May 7, 1932; they were also the last vaudeville performance at New York's State Theatre on December 23, 1947.

    He opened Club Casanova, a nightclub, on Manhattan's Upper East Side and he married Danzi Goodell in 1937. He appeared in the Universal film Merry Go Round and started a routine with comedian Ed Wynn on Broadway. A series of his performances accompanied by piano and guitar was recorded for the Decca label, but he would self release his album Lots of Love in 1956. Prior to this albums release he moved to California, earlier that decade. Lots of Love led him to a performance contract with the Desert Inn in Las Vegas; this contract would last roughly eight years ending in 1963. His exposure from this contract landed him a deal with the Coral label, with whom he would release three more albums through the late 1950s and the early 1960s. The last performances from his career were his Vegas engagements; he passed away in his home on May 30, 1972.

Bill Robinson

    Bill Robinson is considered the greatest tap dancer in vaudeville, he stepped with a relaxed demeanor that film audiences came to appreciate and admire. His dancing style had a happiness that infected everyone that was able to witness his dancing no matter their ethnicity.

Bill Robinson Source

    He was born Luther Robinson on May 25, 1878 to Maria and Maxwell Robinson in Richmond, Virginia. Unfortunately his parents died during his childhood in 1885, leaving his grandmother to raise him. He did many odd jobs to make a living, he reflected "I had to shell peas to make a living". In Richmond he had received the nickname "Bojangles" from "jangler" meaning contentious; though it is unclear how he obtained this nickname. He also invented the phrase "Everything's Copacetic" meaning tip-top. He held many more odd jobs after he ran away from home; he went to Washington, D.C. taking menial tasks like selling newspapers and shining shoes all the while dancing at night in clubs and beer halls for pennies.

    Bill Robinson obtained his first professional job performing as a member of the pickaninny chorus for Mayme Remington with The South Before the War in 1892. He challenged Harry Swinton, the In Old Kentucky star tap dancer, in 1900 when he got to New York and won the challenge. He and George W. Cooper, an older African-American vaudeville dancer, formed a partnership when Robinson was only seventeen. They worked together from 1092 to 1914, they were bound to vaudeville's "two-colored" rule that had restricted African Americans to performing in pairs. Together they performed on the Keith and Orpheum circuits, but unlike many other performers they did not use black-face makeup. Marty Forkin, an agent, saw the two perform and from that performance he signed them.

    Robinson was very professional; but like many others, he had his own vices, he was a gambler with a short temper and carried a gold plated revolver. After an assault charge in 1915, Cooper and Robinson broke up, Forkin convinced Robinson to go solo and he remained Robinson's agent for the remainder of his life. Slowly Robinson made the switch from black vaudeville to mainstream vaudeville, and in July 1915 he appeared at Henderson's on Coney Island where he danced, sang and imitated many musical instruments. Robinson became one of the few African-American performers to headline at the Palace Theatre in New York.

    1918 is when he introduced his stair dance; it was distinguished by its showmanship and sound, each step produced a different pitch and rhythm. Robinson became a regular at the Palace and he had started to bill himself as "The Dark Cloud of Joy"; and in 1924 he was billed as "The Chocolate Nijinsky". He would appear in the second spot on the bill, but Douglas Gilbert would later recall that Robinson's position on the bill would often change because nobody wanted to go on after him; so he would mostly close the show. He appeared at the Palace in June 1926, April and September 1927, June 1929, February and August 1930, and January and February 1931.

    Racial prejudices was still an issue that Robinson had to face due to the color of his skin. One instance that he was confronted with took place on August 21, 1922 at the Maryland Theatre in Baltimore. On this occasion he was appearing in his usual number two spot; when a group of women hissed at him, after they were asked to leave his performance was applauded enthusiastically by the audience. He married Gannie Clay in 1922, and she would become his business manager, secretary, and partner in the efforts to fight the racial prejudices. He was one of the founding members of the Negro Actors Guild of America.

    Also during the 1920s Robinson expanded his career; he was a success at London's Holborn Empire in July of 1926. He also starred in Blackbirds of 1928 (where he introduced "Doin' the New Low-Down") and in the 1930 production of Brown Buddies. He turned to Hollywood films in the 1930s; which had been restricted to African Americans until then. His first film was Dixiana (1930) and it had a mostly white cast; whereas his later film Harlem is Heaven (1933) was the first all black film ever made.

    Some of the other films that he worked on were: The Little Colonel, The Littlest Rebel both in 1935, Dimples in 1936, and Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm in 1938. In many of his better known films he had teamed up with Shirley Temple. Robinson and Temple danced his famous stair dance in The Little Colonel. According to Eleanor Powell, Robinson had only taught Temple and herself his stair dance; Powell danced it in her film Honolulu (1939). He left films for a time to star in The Hot Mikado, which opened on March 23, 1939 at the Broadhurst Theatre.

    Even as he advanced in age he remained active and never lost his vitality, on his sixty-second birthday he danced up Broadway for fifty-two blocks. Robinson was an extremely generous man, when it came to his own race, he gave away millions of dollars to worthy causes and individuals. His efforts in benefits are legendary with estimates of well over one million dollars that he gave in loans and to charities. Marshall Stearns, a critic, once wrote "To his own people, Robinson became a modern John Henry, who instead of driving steel, laid down iron taps". He gave so much to his hometown of Richmond, Virginia that they honored him with a life-sized statue that the base describes him as "Dancer, Actor, Humanitarian".

    He was a member of many clubs and civic organizations, and an honorary member of police departments across the US throughout his life. Mayor William O'Dwyer of New York City honored him by proclaiming Bill Robinson Day on April 29,1946. Young tap dancers at the Hoofers Club in Harlem were very influenced by Robinson. He died in New York on November 25, 1949; forty-five thousand people stood in line to file past his casket, and more than one-and-a-half million people lined the funeral route from Times Square to Harlem. With the Copacetics Club founding it ensured that Bill Robinson's excellence would not be forgotten.

Sir Harry Lauder

    Roughly some seventy years ago Sir Harry Lauder's songs were well known and part of Scottish popular culture and quite possibly they are still well-known and just as much a part of today's Scottish popular culture. Some of his most recognized songs were: "I Love a Lassie", "She Is Ma Daisy", "Roamin' in the Gloamin'", "She Is My Rose" and "The End of the Road". Observing videos of him you will see a grouchy-looking Scotsman putting out lots of energy but not much personality into his songs and jokes, making it hard to understand his appeal even with the popularity of his songs.

Sir Harry Lauder Source

    Near Edinburgh on August 4, 1870 Harry Lauder was born; he was the oldest out of eight children. His father passed away when he was twelve years old; causing his mother to move the family to Arbroath, where she had relatives living. He worked in a mill and a coal mine here, and on August 24, 1882 he made his first public appearance of his singing career. At fourteen his family moved to Lanarkshire, here he went to work in the pit. He kept singing and entered several competitions; through all of this he started to obtain paid engagements and joined a concert party, at the time this was a popular form of entertainment, and with them he toured Scotland. In 1894 Lauder had his first professional engagement. After this engagement, he formed a touring company of his own with Makenzie-Murdock, the violinist.

    His first appearance at the Argyle Theatre Birkenhead in 1898 gave his career a big step forward, with his first "hit song" "Calligan- Call Again". He had toured in both professional and amateur settings for a few more years before making his London debut at Gatti's Music Hall in Westminister on March 19, 1900, where he was filling in for a sick artist. This venture was a big success, with him singing "Tobermory", "Calligan- Call Again" and "The Lass of Killiecrankie". He became one of the most popular and highest paid music hall artist touring the United Kingdom, South Africa and Australia. Lauder sailed to America in 1907 making his fist appearance at the New York Theatre; he would meet William Morris, who would become his American manager, on this trip. The Americans loved him, audiences just would not let him leave the stage; at this first engagement the audience held him for more than an hour. Throughout the years he would return to America twenty-two times and William Morris handled all of his engagements in America until the last tour 1934.

    Lauder was very loyal to Morris and others who worked with him; like Marlin Wagner, who was the company manager, and Jack Lait, the publicist. Audiences were just as loyal to him, as he was to the people who helped him. An example of the audience's loyalty is when he was booked in the Manhattan Opera House in 1911; (it was the first vaudeville performance there) because of fog and quarantine issues he was delayed on opening night until 12:47 a.m. The audience had waited for him since 8:15 p.m., his opening comment was "Ha' ye no hame to go to?".

    During the winter season pantomime was the biggest part of it and it could make a career if a performer was successful at it. Lauder also participated in pantomime, his first was Aladdin at the Theatre Royal in Glasgow where he portrayed Roderick McSwankey and he first sang "I Love a Lassie". He premiered the song "Roamin' in the Gloamin'" in Red Riding Hood in 1910. To Jericho was his first phonograph recording in February 1902 and his last Always Take Care of Your Pennies and It's a' Roon th' Toon' in May 1933; there were later recordings, but they were not released. Typically his appearance on vaudeville would last for roughly one hour and fifteen minutes.

    In 1904 he made an experimental talkie, his first film, called Inverary for the British Gaumont Company. Then, in 1914, before the war broke out, Lauder made fourteen experimental sound-on-disc films for the Cort-Kitsee Talking Pictures and Selig Polyscope Company. Though when the war did break out he was in Australia with his son John. Lauder continued with his tour while his son was recalled to his regiment, the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders. He wanted to be involved with the war work, but he was deemed too old to be sent to the trenches, so he had suggested that he could sing to the men in the trenches. Initially this idea was rejected, but he would later be given permission to entertain the Scottish troops wherever they were located. Aside from entertaining the troops he sold Liberty Bonds in the US and worked on recruiting troops. He had his own recruiting band, and he would give encouraging speeches to the young to join up. Through his work over 12,000 men were recruited.

    Lauder was back in London in 1916 when he opened the review "Three Cheers" at the Shaftesbury Theatre. The final song he performed was "The Laddies Who Fought", and at the end of the song a company of Scots Guards marched on to the stage. On January 1, 1917, during this tour, he received a telegram informing him that his son John had been killed. He rushed back to Scotland to be at his wife's side, and three days later he returned to the show. In December of 1918, a year after his son's death, he was opening at the Lexington Theatre in New York. During his performance there were tears in his eyes as he sang "Wee Hoose 'mang the Heather", his son's favorite song, but the highlight of this performance was a plea called "Victory with Mercy" during which he asked "Don't let us sing any more about war; just let us sing of Love". He would make a similar tour in 1928 after his wife Nancy died in 1927.

    He established the Harry Lauder Million Pound Fund for maimed Scottish soldiers and sailors in September of 1917. He was made a Knight of the British Empire in 1919 as a result of all of his war work. Aside from his musical tours and his war work, he was also in films and on radio broadcasts. Some of his feature films are Hunting Tower (1928), I Love a Lassie (1932), and End of the Road (1936). His last radio broadcast was for the BBC on December 25, 1942.

    While Sir Harry Lauder had never played at the Palace, some of his early films were shown, each film showed him singing one of his well-known songs, but none of these films are known to survive to today. Somewhere along the way he had gained a reputation for stinginess, but in actuality he was very generous; he even returned $3,000 of his $5,000 weekly salary to William Morris for some performances that he had missed. His philosophy was to be honest, pay one's debts, work hard, and save; and he never strayed from these simple beliefs. The only downside of his personality was that he would never perform on a Sunday, maintaining that his audiences were deeply religious like himself.

    His last on stage appearance was a concert in the Gorbals to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the local Rover Scout Group in 1947. Lauder officially retired in 1949 stating:"Retirement is a word I've simply been far too busy to use, a word that I've avoided. I've worked hard all my life and enjoyed every minute of it. Still, I suppose a man can't go on forever, although I'd be perfectly willing to. I daresay it's time I took a breather". Sir Harry Lauder passed away February 26, 1950 in Lanarkshire, Scotland at the age of eighty.

W.C. Fields

    W.C. Fields holds a unique status in American entertainment, marked by him being the only vaudevillian, besides Will Rogers, to be honored with a commemorative stamp from the U.S. Postal Service on the 100th anniversary of his birth. He was a master juggler with a sharp wit and a mastery of euphemism with phrases like "drat", "Godfrey Daniels" and "Mother of Pearl". He was born on April 9, 1879 in Philadelphia as William Claude Dunkenfield.

W.C. Fields Source

    He became entranced with a juggling act at the age of fourteen and it helped inspire him and lay his future in entertainment. His first professional vaudeville appearance was at an Atlantic City beer hall in the spring of 1896. When he joined a tour with the Keith Vaudeville Circuit at the age of nineteen is when his career got a jump start. Aside from his juggling act he did many jobs within the tour, like shifting scenery and playing in musical comedies to name a few. After eighteen months on the circuit he landed in New York City, where he got fabulous reviews and a new job with the Orpheum Circuit at $125 per week (which lasted for four years). Around this time he met a chorus girl from the Irwin Burlesquers by the name of Hattie Hughes. He would marry her, and she would join his act as his assistant and straight woman.

    He would appear on stage dressed as a tramp with a stubble beard. To save on wardrobe costs he would wear old, torn, loose clothing that he already owned, to appear unshaven he would use make up techniques. It wasn't until his marriage to Hattie in 1900 that he added comedy to his act. Their act was about twenty minutes of comedy juggling. He would use a few props for his juggling; tennis balls, a balancing stick, a top hat and cigar boxes, with the tennis balls he could juggle up to six of them. In his early career he appeared as a young, trim and handsome juggler, but during the act he would remain silent hiding behind a tramp face. The signature W.C. Fields drawl and sharp wit were only present when he was off stage, until roughly 1915 when he added talking to his act. The silence worked in his favor while he was touring around Europe as it eliminated the language barrier.

    He was billed as "The Eccentric Tramp Juggler" in 1900, and by then he had become a familiar and well-liked performer on American vaudeville stages. He developed a talent for the conscious error during his act. A review of his act in the San Francisco Examiner described it as:"It is impossible to tell whether Fields makes real or fake mistakes in his juggling. He will drop a hat apparently by accident in the middle of some difficult feat and then catch it by another apparently accidental movement. It is all so smooth and effortless". He made his first of may world tours in 1901, with this first tour he had been very successful in Europe and South Africa.

    In 1902 he starred at London's Palace Theatre, his act was just juggling, but when he returned to London in 1904 at the Hippodrome he added a pool table to the act. Also, in 1904 his son, W.C. Fields Jr. was born, unfortunately this marked the end of Hattie's stage career and the beginning of the end of her marriage to Fields. Though they separated they remained married for the rest of their lives; Hattie would out live him. He continued to financially support both Hattie and Jr until his death in 1946. Jr would take up music in college and form his own band while he studied at Columbia University; after his graduation he became a lawyer.

    After the separation he went to Europe with his brother, who was his new assistant at this point, for a second tour. During the following ten years he would have two world tours, many trips around Europe and a couple of tours of all of the US's best vaudeville houses. By this point in his career he was known for his comedy as well as his juggling. He was honored with a command performance for the King and Queen of England, the only American performer so honored, in 1913. He stepped into the vaudeville limelight in 1915 when he made his first appearance in one of the Ziegfeld Follies; by this point in his career he left behind the tramp makeup and gave more humor. He became part of the Follies crew in 1918, 1920, 1921 and 1925. In the 1921 performance he did no juggling at all during the act. His most important stage production was Poppy, a musical comedy, which costarred Madge Kennedy and opened at the New Apollo Theatre on September 2, 1923. He would later film it twice, once in 1925 as Sally of the Sawdust and again in 1936 as Poppy.

    He is one of the few vaudevillians to transfer all of his routines to film, thus creating a new financially successful career and ensuring that his vaudeville acts were preserved for the future. His film career took off in 1925 with Sally of the Sawdust, and he passed a milestone in 1926 when he made his first film with no juggling at all. Some of the films that he appeared in were: That Royle Girl (1925), Tillie's Punctured Romance (1928), Her Majesty Love (his first talkie in 1931), Tillie and Gus (1933), Mrs. Wiggs of the Cabbage Patch (1934), David Copperfield (1935), You Can't Cheat an Honest Man (1939), My Little Chickadee and The Bank Dick (1940), and Never Give a Sucker an Even Break (1941). Though there was a level of crudity and vulgarity in some of his films, most noticeably in International House (1933), they were not part of his vaudeville routines. Through the early to mid 1930s he made a series of films for Paramount that help understand his essence and creativity as a vaudevillian. When he had been established as a film star in LA there was no return to vaudeville and the revue stage for him. He left New York and the stage for good in 1931 when he moved to Hollywood and became the W.C. Fields that is so widely recognized and remembered today.

    Aside from juggling and comedy he was also a talented artist, though few knew it. He would design and draw cartoons for newspaper interviews and poster advertisements; and he continued this hobby for many years. Like many people he was a complex individual, an intelligent and maybe a bit of an introspective man he was not the drunken child hater that he has been shown as. He had been estranged from both his wife and his son, but there had been reconciliation when Jr got married. Fields Sr also showed his grandson a great deal of affection. He died in Pasadena, California on December 25, 1946 at the age of sixty-seven.

Senor Wences

    Moreno Wenceslao was born on April 17, 1899 in Penaranda de Bracamonte, Spain to an artistic Spaniard who played violin for a local orchestra and restored paintings. As a child he worked on throwing his voice and he made hand puppets to entertain his friends, he also occasionally caused some mischief for fun.

    Even though he had practiced throwing his voice throughout his childhood he did not start out his early working days in show business, but in bullfighting. He was a bullfighter for four years before he spent three years in the army. He hadn't been a very successful bullfighter, as results of an injury after a bull got the better of him; he took up juggling to follow the doctor's orders to exercise his arms and fingers. This combined with watching matinees at his father's theatre he decided to start his show business career.

    Senor Wences joined the vaudeville scene in its later years, but he brought vaudeville to new audiences with his forty-eight appearances on The Ed Sullivan Show and multiple live performances throughout the years. He is quite possibly the greatest of all of the comedic ventriloquists. His act usually consisted of two characters, a doll and a disembodied head in a box. The doll was made by using lipstick to paint on the mouth, two onyx rings for eye and a tiny red wig added to his left hand. The head would always argue and threaten, and when Wences started to close the box the head's voice would get muffled slowly. More often then not there would be a three way argument between Wences, the doll and the head.

    He had become very well known for both his juggling and ventriloquism by the 1920s and was in high demand in both Europe and Latin America. At an engagement at the Casino Theatre in Buenos Aires, Argentina in 1928 when the house management put out an edict stating that only acts not needing musical accompaniment would be able to appear; as the result he took up the ventriloquism act that he had performed in his boyhood at school. In 1935 at the El Chico Club in Greenwich Village, after a successful tour in Europe, is where he made his first American appearance. He toured with Chester Morris and the Frazee Sisters in the Ice Carnival during 1938. Then, in November of the same year he made his vaudeville debut at the Paramount Theater in New York, incorrectly billed as "The Wences" in an eleven minute act. He became a big hit with the audience and the highlight of the act was him drinking a glass of water and smoking a cigarette while the doll sang in a high soprano.

    After that debut he became part of a lengthy tour with Martha Raye, which kicked off on October 14, 1939 at the Earle Theater in Philadelphia. Though he was popular with the audiences there were some issues in the Midwest due to his accent being hard to understand. Also, in 1939 he was at the San Francisco World's Fair, there he met his wife Natalie; she helped with his act by translating his ideas from Spanish to English.

    Variety hailed him as "one of the best ventriloquists around" on August 26, 1942, despite any language problems; and around this time is when he developed the head in the box. Originally it had been an entire dummy, but when performing at the Chicago Theatre it had been damaged during transportation. So, he took the idea of cutting off the head and using it and ran with it. Also, in 1942 when he appeared at the Alvin Theatre in New York, performing in Laugh, Town, Laugh he was billed as "From Portugal, a Gentleman of Originality" due to the situations in Europe and Spain's pro-Nazi stance.

    His act was filmed as a cameo in the 1947 Betty Grable film Mother Wore Tights. He created a third character called Cecelia Chicken, when he was working in Egypt during the 1950s. Cecelia made her American debut on the TV series Your Show of Shows. In the fall of 1951 Judy Garland opened at the Palace; and Wences replaced one of the supporting acts, Max Bygraves a British singer. As time passed by Wences spent seven years in Paris at the Crazy Horse Saloon.

Senor Wences & The Doll Source

    On February 14, 1970 one of his last major television appearances in One-Man Show aired on television. The finale of this performance consisted of him juggling four plates on sticks all while speaking in four different voices. A few days later, on February 18, 1970, Variety stated "a reminder that great vaude turns are getting scarce". November 1983 in Los Angeles he made one of his last stage appearances in the show It's Magic. Though he was aging he continued to work as much as he could, he even went on tour with Mickey Rooney and Ann Miller in Sugar Babies in 1986. His devotion "to entertaining generations of audiences and bringing countless hours of joy and happiness to millions throughout the world" is what made him the 1996 recipient of the Lifetime Achievement Award from the National Comedy Hall of Game. He died on April 20, 1999 at the age of 103 in the Manhattan home that he and his wife Natalie had shared for over sixty years.

Edgar Bergen

    He was one of America's most famous ventriloquists, even though he was not one of the greatest. He wasn't fully able to keep his lips from moving, even before he was on the radio, but audiences were capable of overlooking that issue and truly believe that Charlie McCarthy and the others really did possess lives all their own. In virtually every way they were Bergen's alter egos; and they were just as special to him as his family was including his daughter Candice. The audiences felt that he truly believed in Charlie McCarthy and Mortimer Snerd and that their conversations continued long after the audiences left. His act underwent drastic change through the years; so much so that the ventriloquist performing at the Palace in 1926 and the star of later years held little resemblance to one another. Even though the act changed the humor remained the same, it had a gentleness to it, it might not have caused deep belly laughs, but it made a person feel good inside.

    

Edgar Bergen, Charlie, and Mortimer Source

    He was born Edgar John Berrgren to Swedish immigrants on February 16, 1903 in Chicago. He and his family moved to Michigan, where he grew up. After he watched the Great Lester, in vaudeville and read a book of magic called Hermman's Wizard Manual, he decided to go into show business. The first Charlie McCarthy was made by an Irish woodcarver by the name of Charlie Mack around 1920; his features were based off of an Irish newsboy who used to deliver papers to the Berrgren family. Charlie had been named after the woodcarver, he was originally made of Michigan Pine and stood four feet tall and weighed twenty-four pounds. His head attached to his body with a shaft that was about nine inches long. This Charlie was not dressed in his familiar top hat and suit, but he was dressed as a street urchin.

    At sixteen Bergen moved to Chicago and he got a job working in a silent movie theatre, he started out sweeping and keeping the furnace lit, then he became the projectionist and the house pianist. They made their debut at the Waveland Avenue Congregational Church, after a little while they were appearing in the small Chicago theatres that were part of the Chautauqua vaudeville circuit. While he was taking classes at Northwestern University, and his popularity landed him larger venues to perform at. He wouldn't go on to finish his scholastic career, but he was given an Honorary "Master of Innuendos and Snappy Comebacks" degree. His career progressed gradually until he finally appeared at the Palace in a fifteen minute act in June of 1926.

    Their first screen appearance occurred in 1930 in a series of Vitaphone shorts made by Warner Brothers; the first of which were called The Operation and the second was called The Office Scandal. Both of these shorts are preserved at the UCLA Film and Television Archive; with their preservation on it provides documentation of his vaudeville routines, which were lacking in warmth and were racier than his later work. After he obtained a booking at the Helen Morgan Club, a nightclub and speak easy, he decided that it was time to spruce up his act. From that decision we were given the second version of Charlie McCarthy; this version is the one that everyone is familiar with his top hat, tuxedo and monocle.

    On December 17, 1936 when they were guest stars on Rudy Vallee's radio show is when their career caught a major break. They worked with Vallee on a rather regular basis until April 1937; then on May 9, 1937 they started their own radio show. They were sponsored by Chase and Sanborn Coffee; it was originally called The Chase & Sanborn Hour, but very quickly the name changed to The Charlie McCarthy Show, showing who really was the star attraction of the duo. They stayed on the air for the next twenty years; with the most famous part being the ongoing feud between W.C. Fields and Charlie McCarthy, the feud lasted from 1938until 1944. They were paired together in the film You Can't Cheat an Honest Man (19339), as a result of their feud.

    Throughout his years on radio he introduced his other dummies: Mortimer Snerd, Effie Klinker (who looked like Sneezy), Ophelia (a querulous old lady), Maisie and Matilda (a couple of barnyard hens), Podine Puffington (a tall, glamorous blond), Lars Lindquist (a Swedish fisher man), and Gloria Graham (a real talker who was always moving and talked herself right out of show business). By this time Charlie wore size 4 clothes, 2AAA shoes, a 3 3/8 hat and weighed forty pounds; though his body needed changed every now and again his head remained the same.

    He had a talent for keeping his humor up-to-date through all of the changes in the social climate through the years. Bergen left Charlie behind in 1947 to portray Mr. Thorkelson in the film version of I Remember Mama, he had said that it was one of his favorite parts because he didn't have to be Edgar Bergen. He would appear in many films, mostly with Charlie, some of these other films were: The Goldwyn Follies (1938), Song of the Open Road (1944), Fun and Fancy Free (1947), Captain China (1949), Don't Make Waves (1967) and The Muppet Movie (1979). The Muppet Movie was his last screen appearance, even though it was just a cameo the film was dedicated to his memory. At the height of Bergen and Charlie's popularity they were given an honorary Oscar that was made of wood.

    While he had success in films and live performances he did not have the same success on television. Even though he was not as successful he made many guest appearances on different shows, and he also hosted the quiz show Do You Trust Your Wife? from January 1956 until March 1957. In September 1978 Bergen stated that he would be retiring from show business and that he would be leaving Charlie to the Smithsonian Institution. He would die on September 30, 1978 at the Caesar's Palace in Las Vegas, where he was playing a farewell engagement. After his death Charlie McCarthy was taken in by the Smithsonian, where he can still be seen on display. He closed his last show with this: "All acts have a beginning and an end...and I think that time has come for me. So I think I'll just pack up my jokes and my friends".

    Some of these men have helped lay down the ground work for the entertainers to come in a very direct way, whereas others weren't quite so direct with their influence. They have all made a mark on history that has stood out to someone and managed to stand the test of time to be remembered in some way in the future that they helped shape for show business.

Sources

Slide, A. (2012). The encyclopedia of vaudeville. Jackson: University Press of Mississippi.
Severo, R. (1999, April 29). Senor wences, ventriloquist who was a tv regular, 103. The New York Times. Retrieved from http://www.nytimes.com/1999/04/21/arts/senor-wences-ventriloquist-who-was-a-tv-regular-103.html

Loftus, J. (2015). Dave apollon biography. Retrieved from http://www.allmusic.com/artist/dave-apollon-mn0000957070/biography

Sir harry lauder: 1870-1950. Informally published manuscript, Library: Special Collections, University of Glasgow, Glasgow, Scotland. Retrieved from http://www.gla.ac.uk/services/specialcollections/collectionsa-z/scottishtheatrearchive/stacollections/sirharrylauder/

Edgar bergen and his famous dummy. (2011, February 16). Retrieved from http://www.legacy.com/news/legends-and-legacies/edgar-bergen-and-his-famous-dummy/533/

Chamberlin, R. (1983, May). W.c. fields, the crown prince of comedy.. a juggler first!. Retrieved from http://www.juggling.org/fame/fields/chamberlin.html

Hill, C. V. (2002). Bill "bojangles" robinson (c.1878 -1949). Retrieved from http://atdf.org/awards/bojangles.htm

 

The Beginning with the Ancient Greeks

Map Source

 

    The ancient Greeks influenced many other cultures in many ways. They helped to lay the foreground for areas such as philosophy and literature. In addition to these areas they also helped in the formation of the theatrical arts. They would become the example for many others to follow in the world of theater history.

The Festivals

                Dionysus was a god, who was worshiped particularly by the peasants; these peasants would dance to honor him. From these peasant dances drama would develop. The gods were honored by human achievement; these achievements were accomplished through athletic meets, boxing matches, singing songs and acting out plays. Throughout the late winter and early spring Athenians would assemble to celebrate their drama festivals.

            The dates of these festivals were often associated with different religious celebrations; that had been around long before the plays were ever thought of. The worshipers of Dionysus, referred to as the Cult of Dionysus, would gather to celebrate him by performing dances and ceremonies. A practical reason for holding the festivals so early in the year was the Greek climate. The way Greek acting was then, very strenuous physical and vocal work underneath the mask and costume of the actor making their efforts hot work at the best of times. So to protect the actors from Greece’s’ Mediterranean warm climate was to hold the festivals during the cooler months of the year. In these earlier months the weather was more manageable for the actors because they were past the worst of winter and the temperatures were not oppressive yet. The back draw of holding them so early was that many of the festivals were closed events due to not yet navigable seas and outsiders not able to travel from their own locations.

            Over time the Cult of Dionysus obtained a great deal of importance throughout Greece during the Archaic period (800 BC- 480 BC); which was when the city-states were governed by sole rulers. These so-called tyrants encouraged the cult for the benefit of the peasants, whose support the ruler relied on. The cult would perform dithyrambs, choral songs or chants, and dramas in front of their cult statue as acts of worship instead of as performances directed for the entertainment of spectators. In addition to dithyrambs and general dramas being performed at the festivals held in honor of Dionysus they would perform satyr plays, tragedies and comedies within the holy places of this god. From midwinter to spring there were three, possibly four Dionysiac festivals celebrated throughout Greece. These four festivals were the Rural Dionysia, the Lenaea, the Anthesteria, and the City Dionysia. 

            The Rural Dionysia, also known as the lesser Dionysia, was held in the month of Poseideon from December through the beginning of January. During this festival they had a sacrifice, tasting of new wines, phallic chants were recited and the komoi (the revelries) were performed all in honor of Dionysus. The evolution of comedy, according to Aristotle, is believed to have come from the leaders of this revelry.

            In Gamelion, the marriage month, which was from January through the beginning of February the Lenaea, was held. This festival seemed to hold comedy more important than tragedy. The state would produce artistic comedies during this festival from the first part of the fifth century onward; tragedies would appear at this festival roughly fifty years later. Even though comedy was first improvised at this festival in Athens, it would not obtain a literary form until the end of the sixth century. This festival at first took place in the shrine of Dionysus Lenaeus; located near Dörpfeld in a hollow between the Acropolis, Pnyx and Areopagus. Later these Lenaean plays would be brought to a permanent theatre that was built in the precinct of Dionysus Eleuthereus on the southeast side of the Acropolis. The importance of these plays was only important in their local area, due to the Lenaea being held in winter when the sea routes were closed to many travelers.

            In the month of flowers, Anthesterion, the Anthesteria festival was held; Anthesterion took place from February into the beginning of March. While this also was a Dionysiac festival it was different because there were most likely no dramatic performances held during this festival. It was divided into three parts; the Pithoigia, the Choes and the Chytori. The Pithoigia was the broaching of the wine casks. The Choes was the feast of the jugs; a children’s festival; where the children received little jugs as presents. Then the Chytori was the feast of pots, where food was set out in pots for the deceased. So with it being more of a festival for children and the dead, it was very unlikely that plays performed at other Dionysiac festivals would have been performed at this particular festival; as some people believe did occur.

            The City Dionysia was also known as the Great Dionysia. It took place in the month of stags, Elaphebolion, from March into the beginning of April. This festival was the principal festival that was not only celebrated by the city but by the state as well. With it celebrated by the state the members of the Attic federal state participated in the festivities as well. The archon eponymous, the highest state official, was put in charge of directing the festival each year. This official would be sent all of the plays that were to be produced; and his name would be at the beginning of each theatre record. After receiving the plays he would then make his final selection and chose the actors and the choragi. The choragus was the wealthy citizens who chose, as their state tax, to cover the various costs for the festival; which could become quite large in cost. According to preserved programs there were between sixteen and eighteen choragi for each festival. Over the course of the festival, after 508 BC, then dithyrambs and three tetralogies, a set of three tragedies, would be performed. They would add three to five comedies to this line up after 487/6 BC. The plays would start with five choruses of boys then five choruses of men. There were ten tribes in Attica, and each tribe would produce one dithyramb for the festival. After the dithyrambs the festival would commence with the comedies. At first five poets would each submit one comedy each to compete with each other.

From having five works to present it is possible that this part of the festival had a complete day for this part alone. Later during the Peloponnesian War, 431-404 BC, the number was limited down to three, then one comedy would be presented after each set of tetralogies; if it wasn’t a comedy that was shown afterwards they would present a satyr play instead. With this set up for the festival the plays then took up three consecutive days. They would start the day with the tragedies then by evening, after the tragedies were finished, they would end the day with comedies. Then after 534 BC, the tragedies would be followed by a satyr play.

This festival would present at least fifteen new scripts every year. So theorizing that they were able to hold the festival every year, without problems, for one hundred years presenting fifteen new scripts each year; it would total to roughly one thousand five hundred original scripts in one centuries’ time. Breaking down this number of scripts by genre would come out to about nine hundred tragedies, three hundred comedies and three hundred satyr plays.

The Greeks would end with the comedies because it seemed that they simply wanted to feel happy when heading home; after all for the most part the Dionysiac festivals; particularly the Great Dionysia, were joyous holidays and not the Greek version of more serious holidays like Lent, Yom Kippur or even Ramadan. The practice of adding a bit of fluff to the ending of serious entertainment became a common practice within the theatre.

No one is entirely certain how or why the original cult dances honoring Dionysus gradually gained more and more spectators, but there are many possibilities on what could be the reason. Aside from the god, Dionysus-Eleuthereus, the main spectator was his priest, who was seated in the center of the front row in the theatron. With him sat other priest and high officials of the state. One reason the number of spectators grew, came after the festivals were open to the public, was simply the popularity of the Dionysia. When the work finished and there was leisure time to be had, the Athenians of the Archaic period were very ready to become spectators. As it became more open to the public, it became a concern that involved all of the Athenian people. The people would provide actors and chorus members, in addition to assisting the priests and the officials pick a victor from the competing poets.

During the fifth century BC the major religious festivals would hold these competitions over the course of three days. They would start the days with tragedies, then move onto the satyr plays and finish the day with the comedies. As the time passed the judging of these competitions would be carried out by a panel of ten judges. These judges would cast their vote by placing pebbles in an urn, and from the urns; each representing a play, they would pick five urns at random to make a decision on the final winner. Occasionally the prizes, like tripods, would be shown on vases. Eventually many of the festival components; like the choral dances, would become a form of contest; these competitions would later contribute to the growth of art, music, gymnastics and theatre.   

The Poets

                Even through extrapolation, theories and preserved documents we probably will never know all of the names of every single poet from these festivals. Though with the surviving scripts has provided us with some of their names, their work and contributions to the theatre. Not all of the surviving scripts are complete, so they can only give us a glimpse into how some of the poets from this time worked or lived. Even with time fading some of the details of the poets’ lives and loosing many of the scripts, we still know of and learn about some of them like Sophocles, Aeschylus and Aristophanes. Aside from producing scripts for the festivals, some poets added different elements to how theatre worked.

            Of the many known and unknown Greek poets; Aeschylus, Sophocles and Euripides were known as the greatest of the tragic poets. Some important playwrights in Old Comedy were Aristophanes, Cratinus and Eupolis. Other important comedic poets are Philemon, Meander and Plautus & Terence; all from later branches of comedy.

            Aeschylus lived from about 525 BC through about 456 BC. Persians, produced in 472 BC, is his earliest surviving work. His work often carried a theme between a few of them, thus creating sequels. An example of this would be his collectively titled work known as Oresteia; this trilogy includes Agamemnon, The Libation Bearers (known as Choephori) and The Furies (known as Eumendies). This trilogy is the only complete trilogy that has survived the passage of time. He wrote seventy to eighty scripts which there are only seven remaining. Aside from his scripts he is known to have added a second actor by adding dialogue and adding in more drama to familiar tales for entertainment purposes. He would also decrease the importance of the chorus. At some point in his career he became in danger of losing his life due to an offence he had unknowingly committed, all from the power that the audiences had during this time.

            Sophocles lived from 496 BC to 406 BC, and he was a very popular poet. Roughly he wrote one hundred or more scripts, of which only seven of them are surviving; the most famous of which was Antigone (c. 442 BC). A few of his other works are Oedipus the King, and The Women of Trachis. He is credited with introducing a third actor, incorporating painted scenery and scene changes in plays.

            Euripides lived from 484 BC to 407 BC. He was known for clever dialogues, fine choral lyrics and a degree of realism within his writings and stage productions. It appears that he enjoyed posing awkward questions and unsettling his audiences with thought provoking use of common themes. His tragedy Ixion got halted by an outraged audience because of it blasphemous content; until he explained that the transgression would be punished in the end if the audience would be patient. He wrote roughly ninety plays with only nineteen surviving, the most famous of which was Medeia. Which the plot of that script focuses on how Jason, of the Golden Fleece, abandons her for the King of Corinth’s daughter; and how it leads Medeia into killing her own children in an act of revenge. The function of the poet and the actor was separated late in the history of ancient theatre.

            Of the Greek comic poets the biggest was Aristophanes. Although he is a giant amongst these playwrights, like many of the Old Comedy poets there isn’t much information that is certain involving him. Although from the dates of his surviving works it is believed that he was from Athens and lived from 460 BC to 380 BC. Of his surviving scripts there are eleven of them that are complete and are the only examples of Old Comedy that survived to today. There are two other important playwrights of Old Comedy, but the full extent of their contributions are unknown; aside from their names, a few of their works (with dates) and that both were multiple winners at some of the most prestigious festivals. These poets are Cratinus and Eupolis. Cratinus wrote Tempest-Tossed Men (425 BC), Satyrs (424 BC) and Pytine (423 BC). Eupolis wrote Numeniae (425 BC), Maricas (421 BC), Flatterers (421 BC) and Autolycus (420 BC).

            While there are only a few handfuls of information about Old Comedy and its poets; there is more information about New Comedy and its poets. A few of the important playwrights of New Comedy were Philemon, Diphilus and Menander. Though Plautus & Terence are more Roman playwrights they are mentioned in both Greek and Roman comedy. They are famous for writing Latin comedies and for adding diversity to the comedy genre in the form of pantomime and togata.

            Philemon lived from 368/60 BC until 267/3 BC and he wrote roughly ninety-seven comedies. Diphilus wrote roughly one hundred plays; although we know of their work we do not know the extent of their contributions to New Comedy other than their scripts.  Although we do know that the longest surviving playwright of the New Comedy was Menander. He lived from 342 BC to 291 BC; he wrote roughly one hundred plays, many of which survived until the seventh century BCE when they were unfortunately lost to time. Menander wrote Dyskolos (originally performed in 316 BC) and it is the most complete surviving play of his; there are also significant portions of six other plays written by him that have survived.

            Other playwrights that helped create elements of theatre that we know in modern times are Phrynichus and Agathon. Agathon is credited with the addition of musical interludes that don’t necessarily connect with the plot itself. Phrynichus had the idea to split the chorus into separate groups to represent men, women and elders; even though the only gender on the stage was male.

            The earliest group of dramatists would teach the choruses and create appropriate choreography themselves. The rehearsals would usually be directed by the playwrights instead of a director. Aeschylus and Phrynichus were both famous for taking on both the playwright and the director roles. From the lack of evidence to the contrary it is believed that Sophocles and Euripides also participated in this act of both playwright and director. There is evidence that Aristophanes was the first playwright to separate the two roles.    

The Plays

            The three most important literary forms that have survived to today that was created by the Greeks were epic, lyric and drama. The epic poem was the earliest of these three forms; an example of this is The Odyssey written by Homer. Following the epic poems, the lyric poetry came into existence. It was developed during the seventh and sixth centuries; a lot of its content was borrowed from myths. Drama was the last of these important forms of literature to develop. Tragedy would come about at the end of the sixth century. This was followed by the development of the artistic comedy during the fifth century.

            Herodotus, a Greek historian, had stated that the famous citharoedus (singer) and poet, Arion, was the first person to compose a dithyramb, to give it a name and to possess these poems. Arion also introduced the satyrs, who sang their songs in meter. The satyr play is believed to be the earliest form of drama, since it evolved from the dithyramb that was sung by the satyrs. Then according to Aristotle’s Poetics, tragedy developed from the satyr plays. The later dithyrambs and tragedies would borrow their themes from not only the Dionysus saga but from all heroic sagas in general. Examples of satyr drama would be Hunting Dogs or the Trackers (Ichneutae) by Sophocles (about 460 BC) or the Cyclops by Euripides (about 410 BC).

            Although we have examples of all three forms of drama, the original versions of these scripts have very few details about the production. The details about the sets, costumes, blocking, character entrances and exits, and character descriptions are all missing from these original scripts. For these details we must turn to the imagination of the translator. Rationalizing the corruptions and duration of at least two millennia, also fell under the responsibilities of the translator. Even with these details missing we can still gather information from the tragedies. With the arrangement of the roles in the scripts show that Aristotle’s statement that the number of actors assigned to a tetralogy was three. The absence of fights and killings show, with a reasonable degree of certainty, that there was a rule that forbade on stage violence. There most likely was an offstage area for the three actors for their entrances and exits and/or at the very least for them to make their costume changes. Then the last piece of information gathered from these scripts is that there was at least one practical door, that opened and closed on the set; but the location of this door cannot be determined from the scripts. The comedy scripts focus on more contemporary issues, in more present setting during their time.

            Of all of the playwrights historians have found that Aristophanes’ scripts are abundant with details. His works had information pertaining to furnishing, costuming, machinery, other playwrights and even acting. His works also gave us a glimpse of the Athenians of the time; how and what they ate and drank, about their clothing, their couplings and even their attitudes towards gods, women, foreigners and even each other.

            During this time writing was a prized skill. This led to many plays being preserved for a while. As learning started to decline, papyrus scrolls started to lose their value. Over the course of one century of the City Dionysia it is believed that there were one thousand and five hundred scripts written. The forty-four complete scripts and fragments that have survived to today represent less than three percent of the possible one thousand and five hundred scripts written.

            More often than not the plays selected for school work are selected for their literary value than their theatrical value. They were selected by the Byzantine scholars for their literary qualities, with a fairly balanced selection from Aeschylus, Sophocles and Euripides (the “Hallowed Three”). There were seven plays from both Aeschylus and Sophocles; and nine plays from Euripides to form the selection for “school” plays. Many of the surviving tragedies were used to teach Greek as the lingua franca, an adopted common language between speakers with different native languages, of the Mediterranean. There is a selection of plays that were not chosen for their literary value, but for the way they made it possible to study Athenian popular entertainment.

            Ten of the plays that make up part of The Complete Plays of Euripides; are also part of an Alexandrian papyrus edition of Euripides’ works, with the titles ranging from epsilon to kappa. Another of his surviving works is The Bacchae; the reason it has been preserved is unclear as it is not one of the school plays nor is it from the epsilon to kappa selections. A few of his other surviving plays are titled: Cyclops, Ion, Helen, Elektra, Iphigenia at Aulis and Hecuba. The only known complete satyr play is Cyclops. His plays Ion and Helen are often classified as comedies by today’s standards; they possibly were classified as comedies by ancient standards as well. To a degree both Elektra and Iphigenia at Aulis follow the Aristotelian preference for unhappy endings. His play Hecuba; the only one from the alphabetical list was chosen to be part of the Byzantine school selection. The last five plays in the collection are flawed literarily, with changing characters and plots between the different acts within a single play. Many of the surviving plays by Euripides are among the literary discards and they hardly make it on the reading lists for literature classes. Although as a taste of Euripides’ total works, they are believed to show typical fifth century Athens theatre fare.

            Even though only one and a half satyr plays survived to today they still give us a detail to study in regards to Greek popular entertainment. That detail is; that no matter how serious or depressing the tragedies were, everyone left the theatre in a cheerful mood from slapstick performances that involved gods and other mythic figures in different entertaining situations.

In today’s theatre there is plenty of warning signals that a play is about to start. Even in modern open-air theatres it is possible to notify the audience that a production or an announcement is starting. Whereas we lack the necessary information about if they had similar methods of quieting the audience so as to start a play in ancient times. A strong beginning was needed, along with a delay of the main theme of the play; so that the audience wouldn’t miss any important information while they settled down. For comedies there were two forms that the opening could take. One form was to open with horseplay that was fast and noisy, so as to catch the attention of the audience. The other form was to start with a line of topical references and irrelevant jokes. On the other hand the openings of tragedies tended to be more informative from the start. It is theorized that for this part of the festivals the audience were more subdued and receptive of the information that was presented to them. The purpose of these types of openings was to grab the attention of the audience; so they would quiet down, focus on the stage and help them to establish a connection with the actors. It is possible that plays were rehearsed for a large part of the year. In size many of the audiences for the festivals were quite large, and they were both very talkative and unruly. Their temperament and behaviors helped shape the way plays were formed and presented. The plays that would be re-performed many times and copied for mass publication are what would become known as the classics, especially if they were written by any of the three great tragedians. These classics were even kept by the state as official and unchangeable state documents.

Tragedy

Tragedy Mask Source

    As with many aspects of ancient times there is little to no information on the origins of Greek tragedy. We gain more information once Aeschylus, who is believed to have been the most innovative of all of the Greek playwrights. However it is theorized that the roots of Greek tragedy is entwined with the Athenian spring festival, Dionysos Eleuthereios. All of the surviving tragedies, excluding Persians by Aeschylus, were based off of heroic myths. According to Aristotle tragedy was developed from the dithyramb leaders. Not only were the tragedies spoken, but there is evidence that a large portions were sung.

            The plots for these plays were usually inspired by Greek mythology, which during this time was a part of their religion. The subject matter for these plays was often of a serious nature pertaining to moral rights and wrongs. There were also what seemed to be some standard rules for the poets that wrote these works; there was to be no violence on the stage, deaths had to be heard but not seen, and there could not be any comments or political statements within the plays.

            The most famous festival for competitions for tragedies was the City Dionysia in Athens. To compete in the competitions the plays would go through an audition process, that no one has yet to figure out what all this process would contain, that was judged by the archon of the festival. The plays that were deemed worthy of the festival competition were given financial backing to obtain a chorus and the needed rehearsal time.

Comedy Mask Source

Comedy

       The word comedy is derived from the word komos, which means the song of the gay revelers. Komos is also the name of the god of revelry, merrymaking and festivity. Comedy evolved from improvisations, originating with the leaders of the phallic ceremonies and the reciters of phallic songs, according to Aristotle. Aristotle also stated that they would also sing songs that often abused unpopular people in town.

            From the sixth century on Greek comedy was a popular and influential form of entertainment across the land. There were no real boundaries on who was made fun of within the plays; they would poke fun at politicians, philosophers and fellow artists. Aside from up holding their comedic value, the plays provided us with insights into their society. These insights had both general and deeper details about the workings of their political institutions, legal system, religious practices, education and warfare.

            Early sources of comedy are found within the poems of Archilochus (from the seventh century BCE) and Hipponax (from the sixth century BCE); additionally they contained crude and explicit sexual humor. Although we have these early sources their exact origins are lost to us.

            There are four parts that make up the comedic plays. These parts are called the parados, the agon, the parabasis and the exodos. The parados was the section that members of the chorus would perform songs and several dances. They would often be dressed in unusual costumes that could be just about anything; an example would be them dressed like giant bees with stingers. A costume like that can sometimes lead to the play being named after the chorus. The agon is the next phase of the comedic plays. This phase usually contained a witty verbal contest or debate between the leading actors while there was fantastical plot elements, fast scenic changes and possibly some improvisation happened around them. The parabasis had the chorus speaking directly to the audience and speaking in place of the poet. The exodos was the show-stopping finale where the chorus gave a last round of rousing songs and dances. Judgements made about Greek Comedy are based on the eleven scripts and fragments of Aristophanes works as well as some scraps from other comic playwrights.

            Within Greek Comedy there is the Old Comedy and the New Comedy; there was possibly an in between stage referred to as Middle Comedy, but there hasn’t been enough information found to say if it did or did not exist.

            Plays written in the fifth century BCE, which were comedies, are the plays that make up the Old Comedy. Old Comedy would poke fun at mythology and prominent members of society. Looking through these scripts it appears that there was no censorship on language or actions in the comedic exploration of bodily functions and sex. Aristophanes’ Acharnians is the earliest complete comedic script, with the first performance being dated in 425 BCE. There are some fragmented comic scripts that date back to as early as 450 BCE.

            New Comedy arose in the second half of the fourth century BCE. Menander and his contemporaries make up the basis of what we know as New Comedy. The time between Old and New Comedy, the genre of comedy itself changed with the time and audience. One of these changes was the taming and simplification of comedy, leaving very little obscenity behind. The costumes changed from the grotesque and phallic to more natural looking that would often reflect the new style of the playwright. New Comedy would become more focused on the plot and became more concerned with fictional everyday people and their relationships with the world around them. In addition to being more focused on the plot they also started to use more stock characters; like cooks, soldiers, pimps and cunning slaves. Although there were now more parts for the increased number of actors, the chorus lost some of their importance to the plot; simply providing musical interludes between the acts. The plays even seemed to settle on a five act structure at this time.

            In the beginning comedy was played voluntarily by non-professional actors. There was not a limit on the number of actors for comedies, because comedies were not presented as trilogies. After the year 486 BC the state started to concern itself with comedy. The first contest between the comic actors didn’t happen until about the year 442 BC at the Lenaea. It wasn’t part of the great City Dionysia festival until about 325 BC. Afterwards they decreased the number of comic actors as they had done with the tragedies. The Greek comedies continued to be popular throughout both the Hellenistic and Roman times; and many of the classics were performed again and again.

The Actors & Chorus

            While the chorus was taken from the public they were still different parts of the Athenian public at large. Through uncertain methods a large group of citizens were selected to be part of the chorus for the upcoming festivals every year. From what little we know we are certain that the chorus were unpaid volunteers that chose this as a part of their civic duty. After their selection the chorus were trained and costumed by the choragus at the state’s expense; as this was the choragus’ way of paying his taxes.

            As the performances would be held in open-air theatres it is safe to believe that the chorus wouldn’t rehearse in the eventual performance space. Many scholars agree that rehearsals in the open-air theatres would attract many curious spectators and with that the festivals would lose at least half of their attraction with the audience being able to discuss the plays beforehand. So following this line of thought it is expected that rehearsals were private and held in an enclosed place.

            By Greek tradition the chorus was the source from which drama came; then after the first actor added their purpose shifted to creating increasingly complex possibilities for dramatic action. After the chorus entered it was normal for them to stay on stage and perform a variety of functions for the play. The relationship between the chorus and the play was just as flexible as their relationship with the actors. As dictated by the immediate needs of the play the chorus would change as necessary; as the action would shift so would the role of the chorus.

            The chorus had several functions within the play; but their most important role took place during the parabasis. That is the point in the play where the actors all leave the stage so that the chorus could turn and address the audience instead of addressing the actors. However even with their many roles and constant presence on stage the chorus was not considered actors because they were selected from the public, costumes paid for by the choragus, and they were trained by the chorus trainer.

            There is little known about the processes of selecting and training of the Greek actors, even what we do know is not known to be fully correct. Scholars are mostly certain that the actors were not full-time professionals and although they were paid for their appearances at the festivals; their performance opportunities were fairly limited.

            Due to the actors being costumed from head to toe any form of expression and subtlety was accomplished through the human voice. Throughout the course of Greek theatre, of the time, a good actor and a good voice were one and the same. Over time good voice production and delivery became the indication of an accomplished actor. They would meticulously train and nurture their voices. It is said that Aristotle would advocate the necessity to monitor one’s diet, so as to avoid ruining the voice.

            There are a few characteristics that vary between ancient and modern acting can be seen in the amount of energy needed for performances, the physical strain and their training. For the performances the actors had to put forth large amounts of energy and exaggerated movements for their parts to be understood as they were completely covered head to toe in their heavier costumes. With the large amount of energy and the heavier costumes it is believed that these ancient actors were under more physical strain than many of today’s actors. From what has been found thus far shows that actors’ training in ancient times was more akin to the training regimen of an athlete than that of a performing artist.

Their training required them to abstain from certain foods and beverages, causing them to carefully monitor their diets. Plato felt that this method was a bit on the extreme end of the spectrum; and he believed that it was humiliating for the actors and that it compromised their dignity. So he purposed a milder alternative for the training; where adolescents would completely abstain from wine and moderate wine drinking for men under thirty. There were other indulgences that were forbidden; for example they were not to have sex before performances or some were not to have sex at all. Even though they had these limitations on their indulgences, they were well looked after and given every non-harmful luxury possible while in training.

            The fifth century representational art didn’t express the feelings and passions of the plays with features, but through posture and movement through the entire body instead. With this they put greater emphasis on methods pertaining to voice, movement and ability to perform in multiple roles. Vocally they had to master the art of speaking, be able to sing and be able to speak in time and rhythm with the music. With the number of actors on stage limited to three and many parts within varying plays all of the actors, particularly the second and third actor, needed to develop different movements, voice inflections and gestures for each character that they portrayed. In addition to their movements and gestures they needed to be able to express different feelings, like ecstasy or madness, through dancing and all movement. All of this also had to be flexible in size so as to fill the size of the theatre.

            Before the state became involved with the festivals and the competitions and their workings; the poet and the actor were highly dependent upon each other. It was around 449 B.C. they became independent of each other and instead became dependent on the state instead. After the dependence switch the archon, one of the chief magistrates, would select and appoint an actor to one of the three poets, until each had one actor. After which each primary actor would then find the two subordinate actors. It is then theorized that the primary actor would work with the chorus trainer to assign roles. With the number of characters continually growing it must have made role assignment fairly difficult to manage at times.

            As they didn’t allow women to perform on stage at this time all of the female roles were performed by men. They felt that women’s voices and a few other qualities would not bring the right kind of energy to the roles of tragic heroines. Despite not using women they would occasionally use children and animals on stage. More often than not one role would have to be acted out by several actors, depending on role assignment and the scenes needs.

            If an actor became famous they were held in the highest honor and were given extra privileges throughout the land. These actors were exempt from military service and taxes. They were also granted some political privileges and were used as diplomatic envoys. As envoys they were allowed to move abroad to all parts of the state. While they moved around they were granted help and protection from the sovereigns and the heads of state, just like the poets had received before them. As they moved they brought the classical masterpieces of Athens with them causing the works to be preserved and circulated throughout the ancient world.

The Stage & The Technical Aspects

Greek Stage Source

                As it has been noted throughout this piece the theatres in ancient Greece were open-air spaces outside. As such they had to pay mind to the weather throughout performances, for they would rather be caught in a storm and have to stop the play than to be in an enclosed space. For being in the enclosed space; they felt entirely would destroy the serenity of their religious ceremonies. Today we have several different types of stages for theaters all over the world. The Greek theater design today is called an arena theatre as the acting space is mostly surrounded by the audience.

            Today there are about 200 ancient Greek theatres in various states of preservation. There are old stone records in existence that confirm that what we call theatres actually was used for the purpose of producing plays. As part of the design of the theatres the builders would build it into a hill sided to have the gentle slope in the theatron. It is believed that during the time of the great tragedians all of the inner parts of the theatres were built of perishable material, like wood. With only the outer wall of the theatron was built of stone, just as the walls of the sacred precincts of the priests of Dionysus was. There was a time that the theatre actually belonged to the sanctuary of Dionysus-Eleuthereus, and they held religious ceremonies there.  It wasn’t until the Attic statesman, Lycurgus, had many of the theatres of Dionysus would be rebuilt with stone. After their rebuilds many of the theatres had excellent acoustics, with the stone and the semi-circular design it helped to boost the acoustics naturally; they still maintain their acoustics to this day. While their designs may have slight differences there are a few parts of the Greek stage were the skene, the orchestra, the logeion and the theatron; that were seen in majority of the remaining theatres. Some of these words are still used in today’s society they simply carry a different mean today.

Translated from Greek skene means tent, it is also the name given to the building behind the orchestra and the logeion. Originally this structure was used only for storage of everything needed for the performances and was a convenient location for actors to change costumes as needed. A second story was often built on top of the main building to provide more backdrops for the actors on the logeion, in addition to adding more potential entrances and exits to be used in the play. Over time the skene would see redesigns and have some mechanisms added to it to enhance the performances. They would place the machinery that would be used to bring the gods in through the air or the taking other actors from the “earth”, was placed on top of the skene instead of being placed inside of it like other mechanisms used for the productions. It is believed that Sophocles is the inventor of scene painting on the skene to add to the backgrounds of the plays. This belief is said to be supported in the inner most essence of his poetry. To make the scenery change they had triangles that turned on an axis fastened underneath each triangle. Not all of the scenery was painted, like if it was a representation of a desert island with rocks and caves it is believed that these sets were not painted.

The word orchestra is a derivative of the Greek word orcheîsthai, which means to dance. The orchestra obtained its circular design because the original dances performed by the Cult of Dionysus were circle dances. Today we refer to the orchestra as a group of musicians and their location as the orchestra pit. It was situated between the theatron and the logeion, and it was the primary location for the choral performances. There was an elevated platform, resembling an altar, that was placed in the orchestra and it was called the thymele. The thymele was located at the center of the structure, and all of the measurements for the theatron and the amphitheater’s semi-circle was based off of this central location. This is believed to be where the chorus could be found when they were not performing, but was simply observing the action taking place. When the leader of the chorus would communicate with the characters it was from atop this platform.

The logeion translates to speaking place, so this was the stage for the Greek actors during this period of time. It was positioned behind the orchestra but in front of the skene. It could stand between ten to twelve feet high and it spanned the entire width of the skene.        

The theatron are the seats for the spectators that form a semicircle around the orchestra.  The word itself translates to the seeing place, today the theatron has changed into the word that we use to describe the entire building where performances are held. These seats rise up the further back you go so as to give an equal viewing for all of the spectators for the performances. The increase of height is just a slight one as you go up the rows of seats, just as you see in theatres today. Even the lowest step of the theatron is raised slightly higher than the orchestra, which is sunken down a few degrees as there are no spectators in the orchestra. The theatron itself surrounded the orchestra by about two-thirds.

Between the theatron and the skene on both sides are two aisles called the parodos, these aisles were the entrance and exit places for the chorus to the orchestra. This entrance was also used by the audience to get to their seats and to leave the performances. The word parodos had another meaning aside from the name of the aisles, it was also the name of the song the chorus sang as they entered. It is believed that in most instances the entrance of the chorus was a stately processional marking the formal beginning of the play. Then when they exited with the exodos is believed to have been the formal ending of the play.

In conclusion, many of the elements discussed are the basis for the guidelines and designs that are used in theatrical productions today. While this may not be the absolute origin of theatre, it is where things started to change into what we know as theatre today. These poets are some of the first to have their stories written down instead of just oral stories. A lot of this information has formed the basis for everything we know and believe even if some of it is still a little clouded by mystery.

  

Sources Cited

Arnott, P.D. (1989). Public and performance in the Greek theatre. New York, NY: Routledge.

Ashby, C. (1999). Classical Greek theatre: new views of an old subject. Iowa City: University of Iowa Press.

Bieber, M. (1939). History of the Greek and Roman theatre. Princeton: Princeton University Press.

Cartwright, M. (2013, March 16). Greek Tragedy. Retrieved from Ancient History Encyclopedia: http://ancient.eu/Greek_Tragedy/

Cartwright, M. (2013, March 25). Greek Comedy. Retrieved from Ancient History Encyclopedia: http://ancient.eu/Greek_Comedy/

Hemingway, C. (2004, October). Theater in Ancient Greece. Retrieved from Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History: http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/thtr/hd_thtr.htm

Schlegel, A.W. (1815). A Course of lectures on dramatic art and literature (Vol. 1)(pp.52-270)(John Black, Trans.). London: Baldwin, Cradock and Joy.

Simon, E. (1982). The ancient theatre (C.E. Vafopoulou-Richardson, Trans.). New York: Methuen.