A theatrical piece, usually a comedy, the dialogue of which is intermingled with light or satirical songs, set to familiar airs
Vaudeville is a type of entertainment consisting of short acts such as comedy, singing, and dancing. Vaudeville was especially popular in the early part of the twentieth century. a type of theatre entertainment, popular from the 1880s to the 1950s, in which there were many short performances of different kinds, including singing, dancing, jokes etc music hall (vaudevire type of popular song, from vau-de-Vire , town in northwest France where such songs were written). Light entertainment popular in the U.S. in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. It consisted of 10-15 unrelated acts featuring magicians, acrobats, comedians, trained animals, singers, and dancers. The form developed from the coarse variety shows held in beer halls for a primarily male audience. Tony Pastor established a successful "clean variety show" at his New York City theatre in 1881 and influenced other managers to follow suit. By 1900 chains of vaudeville theatres around the country included Martin Beck's Orpheum Circuit, of which New York's Palace Theatre was the most famous (1913-32). Among the many entertainers who began in vaudeville were Mae West, W.C. Fields, Will Rogers, Buster Keaton, Charlie Chaplin, the Marx Brothers, Bud Abbott and Lou Costello, Milton Berle, and Bob Hope. See also music hall and variety theatre
(2 syl ) A corruption of Val de Vire, or in Old French, Vau de Vire, the native valley of Oliver Basselin, a Norman poet, the founder of a certain class of convivial songs, which he called after the name of his own valley These songs are the basis of modern vaudeville Father of the Vaudeville Oliver Basselin, a Norman poet (Fifteenth century )
The primary entertainment circuit of late-19th and early 20th-century U S popular culture Vaudeville shows were a series of different performers, grouped together to provide a long evening's entertainment Most of the early motion picture, radio and television comedians found their start on the vaudeville circuit, and it also was an important venue for the era's popular music, such as the classic blues
Loosely, and now commonly, variety (see above), as, to play in vaudeville; a vaudeville actor
A kind of song of a lively character, frequently embodying a satire on some person or event, sung to a familiar air in couplets with a refrain; a street song; a topical song