New Acts, Old Look

The Victorian Chautauqua will be introducing “Vaudeville In The Street” in 2023. A smaller tent venue offers up short performances of interactive live music and unusual acts indicative of a more raucous side of entertainment that contrasted formal theatrical mores at the turn of the last century. Located along G Street, near the Ticket Office Museum, Vaudeville In The Street will place this year’s guest entertainers in the heart of the weekend festival. Short performances will land squarely between the larger staged program.

Born in France at the end of the 19th century, vaudeville became popular in the United States and Canada from the early 1880s until the early 1930s but the idea of vaudeville theater changed radically from its French origins.

A typical North American vaudeville performance was made up of a series of separate, unrelated acts grouped together on a common bill. Types of acts have included popular and classical musicians, singers, dancers, comedians, trained animals, magicians, ventriloquists, strongmen, female and male impersonators, acrobats, clowns, illustrated songs, jugglers, one-act plays or scenes from plays, athletes, lecturing celebrities, minstrels, and films. A vaudeville performer is often referred to as a "vaudevillian."

Vaudeville developed from many sources, also including the concert saloon, minstrelsy, freak shows, dime museums, and literary American burlesque. Called "the heart of American show business", vaudeville was one of the most popular types of pure entertainment in North America for several decades.

Many celebrities made their mark through the Vaudevillian circuit. Among them are Mickey Rooney, Sammy Davis Junior, Mae West, Harry Houdini, Josephine Baker, Judy Garland, and countless others.

VAUDEVILLE IN THE STREET

program schedule

SATURDAY, July 8th

12:00 Snaggy Mountain Slackards (Guitar/Fiddle)

1:30 Don "Douge" Helbig and Dave Bolten (Guitar/Banjo)

3:00 Black Magic Burlesque (Five-Member Troupe of Unusual Acts)

3:30 Soup Camel (Five-Piece Ensemble)

6:00 Joey Osment (Fiddle)

SUNDAY, July 9th

1:00 Snaggy Mountain Slackards (Guitar/Fiddle)

1:30 Don Helbig and Dave Bolten (Guitar/Banjo)

2:30 Black Magic Burlesque (Five-Member Troupe of Unusual Acts)

4:00 Joey Osment (Fiddle)

5:30 Strong Man Cody (Feats of Strength)