Theatre and Vaudeville

Items in Collection

The vaudeville theatre, building, operation, management [1918]

Vaudeville trails thru the West [1919]

Variety [October 1919]

New York Clipper [Dec 1894]

New York Clipper [Apr 1915]

The New York Clipper [January 1918]

Variety [March 1956]

The New York Clipper [October 1917]

The New York Clipper [June 1914]

New York Clipper [Dec 1915]

New York Clipper [Aug 1863]

New York Clipper [Sep 1863]

New York Clipper [Dec 1863]

New York Clipper [Nov 1878]

New York Clipper [Feb 1863]

New York Clipper [Jun 1862]

New York Clipper [Jul 1862]

New York Clipper [Aug 1862]

New York Clipper [Nov 1862]

New York Clipper [Dec 1862]

New York Clipper [Oct 1864]

New York Clipper [May 1866]

New York Clipper [Mar 1871]

New York Clipper [Mar 1877]

New York Clipper [Mar 1880]

New York Clipper [Aug 1880]

New York Clipper [Jan 1881]

New York Clipper [Mar 1881]

New York Clipper [Nov 1856]

New York Clipper [Oct 1894]

New York Clipper [Feb 1895]

New York Clipper [May 1895]

New York Clipper [Jul 1895]

New York Clipper [Aug 1895]

New York Clipper [Nov 1895]

New York Clipper [Dec 1895]

New York Clipper [Sep 1858]

New York Clipper [Feb 1915]

New York Clipper [Mar 1915]

New York Clipper [Jul 1915]

New York Clipper [Aug 1915]

New York Clipper [Sep 1915]

New York Clipper [Oct 1915]

New York Clipper [Jan 1916]

Variety [Apr 1934]

Variety [January 05, 1955]

Variety [January 12, 1955]

Variety [January 19, 1955]

Variety [January 26, 1955]

Theatre and Vaudeville

By Lesley Stevenson

As the American theatre grew and developed throughout the 1800s, so, too, did the periodicals chronicling its movements and connecting its players to each other. While pre-Civil War conceptualizations of “theatre” encompassed a variety of events, including staged concerts, solo performances and reenactments, lectures, and large productions, postwar theatre sought to distinguish its many performance styles into more recognizable categories like burlesque, “legitimate” theatre, and vaudeville. At the same time, the dominant entertainment-focused publications were emerging, primarily in New York City, and either helping to keep track of the shifting landscape—or perhaps influencing those shifts as they happened.

The New York Clipper (est. 1853), New York Dramatic Mirror (est. 1879), Billboard (est. 1896), and New York Morning Telegraph (est. 1897) all served vaudeville as well as “legit” theatre at first, chronicling both the industry moves and speaking to its players. Popular from the 1880s to 1930s, vaudeville, in particular, drew huge crowds for its variety, novelty, and levity. A wide array of unrelated acts—clowns, magicians, musicians, dancers, ventriloquists, trained animals, comedians, minstrels, and more—performing under one bill meant audiences got to see new material with each ticket, but as film gained popularity, vaudeville declined in popularity. Accordingly, by the late 1890s, these papers were already beginning to expand their coverage—and advertisements—to include the vitascope, nickelodeon, and other motion picture predecessors.

As Eric Hoyt has argued in Ink-Stained Hollywood, the film industry trades inherited more than a journalistic mandate or economic purpose from their theatre predecessors; they reflected the culture of the business itself, “rooted in the values and identities of the industry’s participants.” To read and understand the theatrical trades was to confirm one’s status as an industry insider, and indeed these insiders “cared about belonging, and this required recognizing that others did not belong.” Publications like Variety (est. 1905) used jargon and slang liberally, underscoring their audience as those who had already broken, rather than those wanting to break, into the industry. Acting as “community gatekeepers,” theatrical trades commented on the movements within the industry, noting supposed winners and losers in the ensuing battles among the managers, writers, performers, vendors, and others in the hierarchy.

This gatekeeping work continues in entertainment industry trades today. Variety launched with the promise to be “an artist’s paper,” emphasizing fairness and editorial independence in the fight between vaudeville artists and booking producers, while the New York Clipper and New York Morning Telegraph earned reputations for pro-management bias and advertiser influence. These debates between labor and management endure, most acutely seen in the rise of Deadline Hollywood. During the Writers’ Guild of America strike in 2007, Deadline Hollywood spoke directly to the writers and voiced their grievances against studio heads, corporate executives, as well as the established press—including, ironically, Variety.