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Vaudeville is a theatrical genre of variety entertainment born in France at the end of the 19th century. A vaudeville was originally a comedy without psychological or moral intentions, based on a comical situation: a 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.
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Music hall is a type of British theatrical entertainment that was popular from the early Victorian era, beginning around 1850. It faded away after 1918 as the halls rebranded their entertainment as variety. Perceptions of a distinction in Britain between bold and scandalous Music Hall and subsequent, more respectable Variety differ. Music hall involved a mixture of popular songs, comedy, speciality acts, and variety entertainment. The term is derived from a type of theatre or venue in which such entertainment took place. In North America vaudeville was in some ways analogous to British music hall, featuring rousing songs and comic acts.
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Joe Elvin was an English comedian and music hall entertainer and a Founder of the Grand Order of Water Rats, a show business charity. With other leading performers he took part in the Music Hall War of 1907, which supported less well paid music hall artistes in their strike for better pay and conditions.
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The Music Hall Strike of 1907 was a theatrical dispute which took place between music hall employees, stage artistes and London theatre proprietors. The catalyst for the strikes were the employees' lack of pay, the scrapping of perks, and an increase in working hours, and matinée performances.
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The 1919 Actors' Equity Association strike officially spanned from August 7, 1919, to September 6, 1919. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the theatre industry was revolutionized by powerful management groups that monopolized and centralized the industry. These groups created harsh working conditions for the actors. On May 26, 1913, actors decided to unionize, and they formed the Actors' Equity Association. After many failed attempts to negotiate with the producers and managers for fair treatment and a standard contract, Equity declared a strike against the Producing Managers' Association on August 7, 1919. During the strike, the actors walked out of theaters, held parades in the streets, and performed benefit shows. Equity received support from the theatrical community, the public, and the American Federation of Labor, and on September 6, 1919, the actors won the strike. The producers signed a contract with the AEA that contained nearly all of Equity's demands. The strike was important because it expanded the definition of labor and altered perceptions about what types of careers could organize. The strike also encouraged other groups within the theatre industry to organize.
Paula A. Edwardes was an American stage performer in musical comedies and vaudeville.
The Actors' Fidelity League (Fidelity) was a short-lived unaffiliated American craft union representing actors who worked in live theatrical performances. It split off from Actors' Equity Association (Equity) in August 1919 when the parent organization affiliated with the American Federation of Labor (AFL) and adopted strike tactics. Fidelity approved of collective bargaining but objected to breaking contracts once signed. A few of its members objected to trade unionism itself in the belief that they were artists rather than craftsmen. Though not a company union in the traditional sense, there was some merit in Equity accusations that the League was too close to the producers.
William Herbert Cartmel, known as W. H. Clemart, was an English ventriloquist and an organiser of variety performers in the Variety Artistes' Federation and the Grand Order of Water Rats.
References
- 1 2 3 Roger Wilmut, Kindly Leave the Stage: The Story of Variety 1919-1960, Methuen, 1985, ISBN 0-413-48960-4, p.49
- 1 2 Marsh, Arthur; Ryan, Victoria (1980). Historical Directory of Trade Unions. Vol. 1. Farnborough: Gower. p. 224. ISBN 0566021609.
- ↑ Richard Anthony Baker, Old Time Variety: an illustrated history, Pen & Sword, 2011, ISBN 978-1-78340-066-9, p.38