Dame Alice Ellen Terry was a leading English actress of the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
Chautauqua is an adult education and social movement in the United States that peaked in popularity in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Chautauqua assemblies expanded and spread throughout rural America until the mid-1920s. The Chautauqua brought entertainment and culture for the whole community, with speakers, teachers, musicians, showmen, preachers, and specialists of the day. U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt is often quoted as saying that Chautauqua is "the most American thing in America". What he actually said was: "it is a source of positive strength and refreshment of mind and body to come to meet a typical American gathering like this—a gathering that is typically American in that it is typical of America at its best." Several Chautauqua assemblies continue to gather to this day, including the original Chautauqua Institution in Chautauqua, New York.
John Bartholomew Gough was a United States temperance orator.
Ruth Draper was an American actress, dramatist and noted diseuse who specialized in character-driven monologues and monodrama. Her best-known pieces include The Italian Lesson, Three Women and Mr. Clifford, Doctors and Diets, and A Church in Italy.
A solo performance, sometimes referred to as a one-man show, one-woman show, or one-person show, features a single person telling a story for an audience, typically for the purpose of entertainment. This type of performance comes in many varieties, including autobiographical creations, comedy acts, novel adaptations, vaudeville, poetry, music and dance. In 1996, Rob Becker's Defending the Caveman became the longest-running one-person play in the history of Broadway theatre.
The Search for Signs of Intelligent Life in the Universe (1985) is a one-woman stage show written by Jane Wagner. The original Broadway production starred Lily Tomlin, won the Drama Desk Award for Unique Theatrical Experience, and was turned into a film in 1991.
A chalk talk is an illustrated performance in which the speaker draws pictures to emphasize lecture points and create a memorable and entertaining experience for listeners. Chalk talks differ from other types of illustrated talks in their use of real-time illustration rather than static images. They achieved great popularity during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, appearing in vaudeville shows, Chautauqua assemblies, religious rallies, and smaller venues. Since their inception, chalk talks have been both a popular form of entertainment and a pedagogical tool.
Helen Maud Holt, professionally known as Mrs Beerbohm Tree and later Lady Tree, was an English actress. She was the wife of the actor Sir Herbert Beerbohm Tree and the mother of Viola Tree, Felicity Tree and Iris Tree.
Jessie Eldridge Southwick was an American elocutionist, teacher, author, and poet. She was active in the Chautauqua and Lyceum movements of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, performing around the United States as well as internationally. She influenced oratory through active involvement in emerging organizations, writing textbooks, and teaching expressive voice culture and platform performance at Emerson College and elsewhere.
Bessie Mecklem Hackenberger was one of the earliest American-born saxophone soloists. In her teens, she was a student of Edward A. Lefebre (1835–1911), pre-eminent saxophonist of the nineteenth century and soloist with Gilmore and Sousa's bands. During the 1890s, when female woodwind and brass players were uncommon, she performed extensively throughout the northeastern United States with her father, harpist Henry Clay Mecklem (1841–1915). The pair appeared in a wide variety of venues popular during the Gilded Age including lyceum; YMCA and temperance organizations; meetings of fraternal societies, labor organizations, and civic groups; benefit concerts; solos with professional wind bands; and amusement parks. Mecklem recorded twelve wax phonograph cylinders at the Edison Laboratories on 23 April 1892. After her marriage in 1900 to Bertram Lyon Hackenberger (1871–1932), she ceased playing professionally, but continued to perform as an active participant in the Progressive-era women's club movement.
Josephine Kryl was an American violinist.
Jane Goude, born Genevieve Hazel Goude, was an American actress, Chautauqua performer, and clubwoman, billed as "The Girl from the Golden West".
Ada Roach was an American musical comedy actress and entertainer on the Chautauqua and lyceum circuits. She was head of the Ada Roach Company from 1915 to 1917, and partner of Ruth Freeman in the Roach-Freeman Duo into the 1920s.
Lucy Nicolar Poolaw, also called Wa-Tah-Wa-So and billed as Princess Watahwaso, was a Penobscot and a performer on the Chautauqua and lyceum circuits.
Bess Gearhart Morrison was an American actress and educator, and a speaker on the Chautauqua and lyceum adult education circuits.
Mae Shumway Enderly was an American clubwoman, harpist and entertainer on the lyceum platform, the Chautauqua circuit, and the vaudeville stage.
Coyla May Spring was an American dramatic reader, singer, and pianist, on the Chautauqua circuit and the lyceum platform.
Mercedes Leigh was an American actress. She was widely known by her stage name, Mercedes Leigh, which she chose when she began her professional career. Her contemporaries were Mary Haviland Sutton and Mary C. Francis.
Irene Stolofsky, sometimes billed as Irene Stolofsky Davis after 1926, was a violinist from Chicago. She made several recordings in the 1910s, and toured the United States and Canada on the Chautauqua circuit in the 1920s.
Rachel Steinman Clarke was a Polish-born American violinist based in Chicago.
