Tab show

Last updated October 01, 2019

A tab show was a short, or tabloid version, of various popular musical comedies performed in the United States in the early 20th century.^[1]^[2]^[3]

Musical theatre Stage work that combines songs, music, spoken dialogue, acting, and dance

Musical theatre is a form of theatrical performance that combines songs, spoken dialogue, acting and dance. The story and emotional content of a musical – humor, pathos, love, anger – are communicated through words, music, movement and technical aspects of the entertainment as an integrated whole. Although musical theatre overlaps with other theatrical forms like opera and dance, it may be distinguished by the equal importance given to the music as compared with the dialogue, movement and other elements. Since the early 20th century, musical theatre stage works have generally been called, simply, musicals.

The United States of America (USA), commonly known as the United States or America, is a country comprising 50 states, a federal district, five major self-governing territories, and various possessions. At 3.8 million square miles, the United States is the world's third or fourth largest country by total area and is slightly smaller than the entire continent of Europe. With a population of over 327 million people, the U.S. is the third most populous country. The capital is Washington, D.C., and the most populous city is New York City. Most of the country is located contiguously in North America between Canada and Mexico.

History

The shows were about an hour in length^[4] but could be as short as 25 minutes,^[3] either way being well suited for traveling or road shows.^[5]^[6] They had lower costs^[5] and fewer logistical complications^[3] than major productions. To achieve this, producers typically eliminated much of the dialogue, plot and chorus of the parent, often Broadway production, reduced the scenery to a few flats and platforms that could be easily transported by rail or roadway, and retained only the hit numbers and the principal characters including the love interests and the chief comic.^[3] With this shortened format, tab shows did not usually serve as an entertainment form in themselves but were adjuncts for at least three other forms of major entertainment. First, they could be the featured act of the second half of a vaudeville bill.^[3] The substitution of these shows for a portion of vaudeville acts in the early 1900s was described as "far-reaching in its scope" in a Billboard article of 23 December 1911.^[2]

Vaudeville is a theatrical genre of variety entertainment born in France at the end of the 18th century. A vaudeville was originally a comedy without psychological or moral intentions, based on a comical situation: a kind of dramatic composition or light poetry, interspersed with songs or ballets. It became popular in the United States and Canada from the early 1880s until the early 1930s, but the idea of vaudeville's theatre changed radically from its French antecedent.

Billboard is an American entertainment media brand owned by the Billboard-Hollywood Reporter Media Group, a division of Eldridge Industries. It publishes pieces involving news, video, opinion, reviews, events, and style, and is also known for its music charts, including the Hot 100 and Billboard 200, tracking the most popular songs and albums in different genres. It also hosts events, owns a publishing firm, and operates several TV shows.

Second, they were often performed in conjunction with silent films for a half hour performance either before the film came on,^[7] or as a vaudeville act between films.^[2] Show Boat was one Broadway hit that was reduced to a truncated tab show running in movie theaters in the early 1930s.^[8]

Silent film Film with no synchronized recorded dialogue

A silent film is a film with no synchronized recorded sound. In silent films for entertainment, the plot may be conveyed by the use of title cards, written indications of the plot and key dialogue lines. The idea of combining motion pictures with recorded sound is nearly as old as film itself, but because of the technical challenges involved, the introduction of synchronized dialogue became practical only in the late 1920s with the perfection of the Audion amplifier tube and the advent of the Vitaphone system.

Show Boat is a musical in two acts, with music by Jerome Kern and book and lyrics by Oscar Hammerstein II, based on Edna Ferber's best-selling novel of the same name. The musical follows the lives of the performers, stagehands and dock workers on the Cotton Blossom, a Mississippi River show boat, over 40 years from 1887 to 1927. Its themes include racial prejudice and tragic, enduring love. The musical contributed such classic songs as "Ol' Man River", "Make Believe", and "Can't Help Lovin' Dat Man".

Broadway theatre, also known simply as Broadway, refers to the theatrical performances presented in the 41 professional theatres, each with 500 or more seats located in the Theater District and Lincoln Center along Broadway, in Midtown Manhattan, New York City. Along with London's West End theatre, Broadway theatre is widely considered to represent the highest level of commercial theatre in the English-speaking world.

Third, tab shows were closely related to the early, non-stripper versions of burlesque.^[3]^[4] The girls were 'clean' and did not have bare legs.^[2] By the 1920s, "tab show" was sometimes used to avoid the negative, low-brow connotations of "burlesque".^[4]

A burlesque is a literary, dramatic or musical work intended to cause laughter by caricaturing the manner or spirit of serious works, or by ludicrous treatment of their subjects. The word derives from the Italian burlesco, which, in turn, is derived from the Italian burla – a joke, ridicule or mockery.

There are two suggestions for the origin of the word "tab". It is often said to be derived from "tabloid",^[4]^[7] as in the short form of a newspaper.^[5] Alternatively, it could refer to "tableau" as in the tab style of curtain^[9] across the front of a stage, since the curtain and a few pieces of furniture might be the only scenery used by a tab show.^[5]

A tabloid is a newspaper with a compact page size smaller than broadsheet. There is no standard size for this newspaper format.

As variations on these themes, tab shows occasionally were up to two hours in length and with their lower costs and fewer logistic demands, were a popular alternative to vaudeville acts in the 1910s.^[3] Also, while the term "tab show" may have been restricted to the United States, the theme of the vicissitudes of traveling third-rate vaudevillians was presented in 1950 in Federico Fellini's Italian film Variety Lights . It has been described as "wholesome corn".^[10]

Federico Fellini, was an Italian film director and screenwriter. Known for his distinct style that blends fantasy and baroque images with earthiness, he is recognized as one of the greatest and most influential filmmakers of all time. His films have ranked, in polls such as Cahiers du cinéma and Sight & Sound, as some of the greatest films of all time. Sight & Sound lists his 1963 film 8½ as the 10th-greatest film of all time.

<i>Variety Lights</i> 1950 film by Federico Fellini, Alberto Lattuada

Variety Lights is a 1951 Italian romantic drama film produced and directed by Federico Fellini and Alberto Lattuada and starring Peppino De Filippo, Carla Del Poggio, and Giulietta Masina. The film is about a beautiful but ambitious young woman who joins a traveling troupe of third-rate vaudevillians and inadvertently causes jealousy and emotional crises. A collaboration with Alberto Lattuada in production, direction, and writing, Variety Lights launched Fellini's directorial career. Prior to this film, Fellini worked primarily as a screenwriter, most notably working on Roberto Rossellini’s Rome, Open City.

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References

↑ "Tab Show". Probert Encyclopaedia. Archived from the original on 2010-01-06. Retrieved 2009-01-18.
1 2 3 4 Schaffner, Caroline (1984). "A Tab Show: The Stepchild of Musical Comedy". In Loney, Glenn (ed.). Musical Theatre in America: Papers and Proceedings of the Conference on the Musical Theatre in America. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press. p. 199. ISBN 978-0-313-23524-5 . Retrieved 2009-01-18.
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Cullen, Frank; Hackman, Florence; McNeilly, Conald (2007). Vaudeville, Old & New: An Encyclopedia of Variety Performers in America (Illustrated ed.). Routledge. p. 1083. ISBN 978-0-415-93853-2 . Retrieved 2009-01-18.
1 2 3 4 Furlonger, Jaye (2005). "San Diego's Bygone Burlesque: The Famous Hollywood Theatre" (PDF). The Journal of San Diego History. San Diego Historical Society. 51 (1 & 2): 18. Retrieved 2009-01-18.
1 2 3 4 "Vaudeville Lingo" . Retrieved 2009-01-18.
↑ "Vaudeville Terminology". Archived from the original on October 3, 2008. Retrieved 2009-01-18.
1 2 Bellamy, Ralph (1979). When the Smoke Hit the Fan. Doubleday. p. 81. ISBN 978-0-385-14860-3.
↑ "About Peggy Stebbins Nelson". Archived from the original on 2011-07-09. Retrieved 2009-01-18.
↑ "Tableau or "Tab" Curtain". Sew What? Inc. Retrieved 2009-01-18.
↑ Weiler, A. H. (May 7, 1965). "Variety Lights (1951) Screen: 'Variety Lights':First Fellini Picture Seen on Double Bill". The New York Times . Retrieved 2009-01-18.

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[PE-1] "Tab Show". Probert Encyclopaedia. Archived from the original on 2010-01-06. Retrieved 2009-01-18.

[CS-2] 1 2 3 4 Schaffner, Caroline (1984). "A Tab Show: The Stepchild of Musical Comedy". In Loney, Glenn (ed.). Musical Theatre in America: Papers and Proceedings of the Conference on the Musical Theatre in America. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press. p. 199. ISBN 978-0-313-23524-5 . Retrieved 2009-01-18.

[VON-3] 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Cullen, Frank; Hackman, Florence; McNeilly, Conald (2007). Vaudeville, Old & New: An Encyclopedia of Variety Performers in America (Illustrated ed.). Routledge. p. 1083. ISBN 978-0-415-93853-2 . Retrieved 2009-01-18.

[JF-4] 1 2 3 4 Furlonger, Jaye (2005). "San Diego's Bygone Burlesque: The Famous Hollywood Theatre" (PDF). The Journal of San Diego History. San Diego Historical Society. 51 (1 & 2): 18. Retrieved 2009-01-18.

[VL-5] 1 2 3 4 "Vaudeville Lingo" . Retrieved 2009-01-18.

[VT-6] "Vaudeville Terminology". Archived from the original on October 3, 2008. Retrieved 2009-01-18.

[RB-7] 1 2 Bellamy, Ralph (1979). When the Smoke Hit the Fan. Doubleday. p. 81. ISBN 978-0-385-14860-3.

[PSN-8] "About Peggy Stebbins Nelson". Archived from the original on 2011-07-09. Retrieved 2009-01-18.

[sew-9] "Tableau or "Tab" Curtain". Sew What? Inc. Retrieved 2009-01-18.

[NYT-10] Weiler, A. H. (May 7, 1965). "Variety Lights (1951) Screen: 'Variety Lights':First Fellini Picture Seen on Double Bill". The New York Times . Retrieved 2009-01-18.