American columnist and radio personality Franklin P. Adams (1881 – 1960) recalled the heyday of Chicago’s Vaudeville (with some detail) for the editors of STAGE MAGAZINE, a witty and highly glossy magazine that concerned all the goings-on in the American theater of the day:
“They were Continuous Variety Shows. They ran – at any rate at the Olympic Theatre, known in Chicago as the Big O – from 12:30 p.m. to 11:00 p.m….While those days are often referred to as the Golden Days of Vaudeville, candor compels the admission that they were brimming with dross; that Vaudeville’s standard in 1896 was no more aerate than musical comedy in 1935 is.”
Vaudeville enjoyed a small revival during the mid-Thirties when the Federal Theater Project of the WPA sent touring vaudevillians throughout the country – you can read about that here…
Click here to read about a 1949 plan to bring Vaudeville back (it didn’t work).
– from Amazon:
