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192-646: The Marx Brothers were an American family comedy act that was successful in vaudeville , on Broadway , and in 14 motion pictures from 1905 to 1949. Five of the Marx Brothers' fourteen feature films were selected by the American Film Institute (AFI) as among the top 100 comedy films , with two of them, Duck Soup (1933) and A Night at the Opera (1935), in the top fifteen. They are widely considered by critics, scholars and fans to be among

384-476: A MacArthur Fellow and Tony Award -winning actor, are frequently lauded as "New Vaudevillians". References to vaudeville and the use of its distinctive argot continue throughout North American popular culture. Words such as "flop" and "gag" were terms created from the vaudeville era and have entered the American idiom. Vaudevillian techniques can commonly be witnessed on television and in movies, remarkably in

576-414: A gumshoe detective . Other sources reported that Gummo was the family's hypochondriac, having been the sickliest of the brothers in childhood, and therefore wore rubber overshoes , called gumshoes, in all kinds of weather. Still others reported that Milton was the troupe's best dancer, and dance shoes tended to have rubber soles. Groucho stated that the source of the name was Gummo wearing galoshes. Whatever

768-477: A "low point", where all seems lost for both the Marxes and the romantic leads. He instituted the innovation of testing the film's script before live audiences before filming began, to perfect the comic timing, and to retain jokes that earned laughs and replace those that did not. Thalberg restored Harpo's harp solos and Chico's piano solos, which had been omitted from Duck Soup . The first Marx Brothers/Thalberg film

960-472: A 7:00 p.m. or 8:00 p.m. "curtain". The afternoon " matinée " performances are at 2:00 p.m. on Wednesdays and Saturdays and at 3:00 p.m. on Sundays. This makes for an eight-performance week. On this schedule, most shows do not play on Monday and the shows and theatres are said to be "dark" on that day. The actors and the crew in these shows tend to regard Sunday evening through Monday evening as their weekend. The Tony award presentation ceremony

1152-584: A Broadway show. This is when she began experimenting with improvisational comedy and quickly found her unique success, even taking her performances global with acts in the U.K. Sophie Tucker , a Russian Jewish immigrant, was told by promoter Chris Brown that she was not attractive enough to succeed in show business without doing Blackface, so she performed that way for the first two years onstage, until one day she decided to go without it, and achieved much greater success being herself from that point on, especially with her song "Some of These Days." Moms Mabley

1344-464: A Mangy Lover (1964) and The Groucho Letters (1967). Groucho and Chico briefly appeared in a 1957 color short film promoting The Saturday Evening Post entitled Showdown at Ulcer Gulch , directed by animator Shamus Culhane , Chico's son-in-law. Groucho, Chico, and Harpo worked together (in separate scenes) in The Story of Mankind (1957). In 1959, the three began production of Deputy Seraph ,

1536-493: A TV series starring Harpo and Chico as blundering angels, and Groucho (in every third episode) as their boss, the " Deputy Seraph ". The project was abandoned when Chico was found to be uninsurable (and incapable of memorizing his lines) due to severe arteriosclerosis . On March 8 of that year, Chico and Harpo starred as bumbling thieves in The Incredible Jewel Robbery , a half-hour pantomimed episode of

1728-839: A Theater Advisory Council, which included Papp. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic in New York City , Broadway theaters closed on March 12, 2020, shuttering 16 shows that were playing or were in the process of opening. The Broadway League shutdown was extended first to April, then to May, then June, then September 2020 and January 2021, and later to June 1, 2021. Then-governor Andrew Cuomo announced that most sectors of New York would have their restrictions lifted on May 19, 2021, but he stated that Broadway theatres would not be able to immediately resume performances on this date due to logistical reasons. In May 2021, Cuomo announced that Broadway theaters would be allowed to reopen on September 14, and

1920-449: A booming economy and abundant creative talent kept Broadway hopping. To this day, the shows of the 1950s form the core of the musical theatre repertory." Kenrick notes that "the late 1960s marked a time of cultural upheaval. All those changes would prove painful for many, including those behind the scenes, as well as those in the audience." Of the 1970s, Kenrick writes: "Just when it seemed that traditional book musicals were back in style,

2112-593: A candle burning at both ends. During this period Chico and Groucho starred in a radio comedy series, Flywheel, Shyster and Flywheel . Though the series was short lived, much of the material developed for it was used in subsequent films. The show's scripts and recordings were believed lost until copies of the scripts were found in the Library of Congress in the 1980s. After publication in a book they were performed with Marx Brothers' impersonators for BBC Radio . Their last Paramount film, Duck Soup (1933), directed by

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2304-546: A career. Other celebrity fans of the comedy ensemble have been Antonin Artaud , The Beatles , Anthony Burgess , Alice Cooper , Robert Crumb , Salvador Dalí , Eugene Ionesco , George Gershwin (who dressed up as Groucho once), René Goscinny , Cédric Klapisch , J. D. Salinger and Kurt Vonnegut . Salvador Dalí once made a drawing depicting Harpo. The epic graphic novel, Cerebus the Aardvark , by Dave Sim , includes

2496-663: A cast. There are still, however, performers who are primarily stage actors, spending most of their time "on the boards", and appearing in screen roles only secondarily. As Patrick Healy of The New York Times noted: Broadway once had many homegrown stars who committed to working on a show for a year, as Nathan Lane has for The Addams Family . In 2010, some theater heavyweights like Mr. Lane were not even nominated; instead, several Tony Awards were given for productions that were always intended to be short-timers on Broadway, given that many of their film-star performers had to move on to other commitments. According to Mark Shenton, "One of

2688-434: A challenge to the stage. At first, films were silent and presented only limited competition. By the end of the 1920s, films like The Jazz Singer were presented with synchronized sound, and critics wondered if cinema would replace live theatre altogether. While live vaudeville could not compete with these inexpensive films that featured vaudeville stars and major comedians of the day, other theatres survived. The musicals of

2880-546: A character Lord Julius who is based on Groucho's stage persona. Peter Sellers imitates Groucho in Let's Go Crazy (1951). Vaudeville Vaudeville ( / ˈ v ɔː d ( ə ) v ɪ l , ˈ v oʊ -/ ; French: [vodvil] ) is a theatrical genre of variety entertainment which began in France at the end of the 19th century. A vaudeville was originally a comedy without psychological or moral intentions, based on

3072-467: 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, while changing over time. In some ways analogous to music hall from Victorian Britain , a typical North American vaudeville performance was made up of a series of separate, unrelated acts grouped together on

3264-463: A commitment to entertainment equally inoffensive to men, women and children. Acts that violated this ethos (e.g., those that used words such as "hell") were admonished and threatened with expulsion from the week's remaining performances or were canceled altogether. In spite of such threats, performers routinely flouted this censorship , often to the delight of the very audience members whose sensibilities were supposedly endangered. He eventually instituted

3456-459: 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, including

3648-540: A company of twelve actors from Britain to the colonies with his brother Lewis as their manager. They established a theatre in Williamsburg, Virginia , and opened with The Merchant of Venice and The Anatomist . The company moved to New York in 1753, performing ballad operas and ballad-farces like Damon and Phillida . During the Revolutionary War , theatre was suspended in New York City. But after

3840-494: A contract with Paramount Pictures and embarked on their film career at Paramount's studios in New York City's Astoria section. Their first two released films (after an unreleased short silent film titled Humor Risk ) were adaptations of the Broadway shows The Cocoanuts (1929) and Animal Crackers (1930). Both were written by George S. Kaufman and Morrie Ryskind . Production then shifted to Hollywood, beginning with

4032-565: A discount of 20 to 50%. The TKTS booths are located in Times Square , in Lower Manhattan , and at Lincoln Center . This service is run by Theatre Development Fund . Many Broadway theatres also offer special student rates, same-day "rush" or "lottery" tickets, or standing-room tickets to help ensure that their theatres are as full—and their grosses as high—as possible. According to The Broadway League , total Broadway attendance

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4224-478: A family of artists, and their musical talent was encouraged from an early age. Harpo was particularly talented, learning to play an estimated six different instruments throughout his career. He became a dedicated harpist, which gave him his nickname. Chico was an excellent pianist, Groucho a guitarist and singer, and Zeppo a vocalist. They got their start in vaudeville , where their uncle Albert Schönberg performed as Al Shean of Gallagher and Shean . Groucho's debut

4416-906: A few exceptions, compared with London runs, until World War I . A few very successful British musicals continued to achieve great success in New York, including Florodora in 1900–01. In the early years of the twentieth century, translations of popular late-nineteenth century continental operettas were joined by the "Princess Theatre" shows of the 1910s, by writers such as P. G. Wodehouse , Guy Bolton , and Harry B. Smith . Victor Herbert , whose work included some intimate musical plays with modern settings as well as his string of famous operettas ( The Fortune Teller (1898), Babes in Toyland (1903), Mlle. Modiste (1905), The Red Mill (1906), and Naughty Marietta (1910)). Beginning with The Red Mill , Broadway shows installed electric signs outside

4608-480: A form of entertainment. He incorporated them in his shows as early as 1902. Later, he entered into a partnership with the Famous Players–Lasky , a major Hollywood production company and an affiliate of Paramount Pictures . By the late 1920s, most vaudeville shows included a healthy selection of cinema. Earlier in the century, many vaudevillians, cognizant of the threat represented by cinema, held out hope that

4800-640: A guest appearance to introduce the Tonight Show's new host, Johnny Carson . Around 1960, acclaimed director Billy Wilder considered writing and directing a new Marx Brothers film. Tentatively titled A Day at the U.N. , it was to be a comedy of international intrigue set around the United Nations building in New York. Wilder had discussions with Groucho and Gummo, but the project was put on hold because of Harpo's ill health, and abandoned when Chico died on October 11, 1961, from arteriosclerosis , at

4992-476: A larger theatre. Other productions are first developed through workshops and then out-of-town tryouts before transferring to Broadway. Merrily We Roll Along famously skipped an out-of-town tryout and attempted to do an in-town tryout—actually preview performances —on Broadway before its official opening, with disastrous results. After, or even during, successful runs in Broadway theatres, producers often remount their productions with new casts and crew for

5184-415: A launching pad for later careers. They left live performance before achieving the national celebrity of earlier vaudeville stars, and found fame in new venues. The line between live and filmed performances was blurred by the number of vaudeville entrepreneurs who made more or less successful forays into the movie business. For example, Alexander Pantages quickly realized the importance of motion pictures as

5376-535: A marketing strategy to attract many different audiences. As stated in Andrew Erdman 's book Blue Vaudeville , the Vaudeville stage was "a highly sexualized space ... where unclad bodies, provocative dancers, and singers of 'blue' lyrics all vied for attention." Such performances highlighted and objectified the female body as a "sexual delight", but more than that, historians think that Vaudeville marked

5568-530: A method of understanding different groups and their societal positions within their cities. The use of the greenhorn immigrant for comedic effect showcased how immigrants were viewed as new arrivals, but also what they could aspire to be. In addition to interpreting visual ethnic caricatures, the Irish American ideal of transitioning from the shanty to the lace curtain became a model of economic upward mobility for immigrant groups. The continued growth of

5760-526: A more experimental, challenging, and intimate performance than is possible in the larger Broadway theatres. Some Broadway shows, however, such as the musicals Hair , Little Shop of Horrors , Spring Awakening , Next to Normal , Rent , Avenue Q , In the Heights , Fun Home , A Chorus Line , Dear Evan Hansen , and Hamilton , began their runs Off-Broadway and later transferred to Broadway, seeking to replicate their intimate experience in

5952-539: A negative COVID-19 test (PCR within 72 hours or antigen within six hours of the performance start time). Beginning November 8, those ages 5–11 also had the option to provide proof of at least one vaccination shot. Effective December 14, in accordance with NYC's vaccination mandate, guests ages 5–11 were required to have at least one vaccination shot until January 29, 2022, where they had to be fully vaccinated. The vaccine mandate lasted until April 30, and attendees were also required to wear face masks until July 1. During

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6144-1152: A new age of American playwright with the emergence of Eugene O'Neill , whose plays Beyond the Horizon , Anna Christie , The Hairy Ape , Strange Interlude , and Mourning Becomes Electra proved that there was an audience for serious drama on Broadway, and O'Neill's success paved the way for major dramatists like Elmer Rice , Maxwell Anderson , Robert E. Sherwood , Clifford Odets , Tennessee Williams , and Arthur Miller , as well as writers of comedy like George S. Kaufman and Moss Hart . Classical revivals also proved popular with Broadway theatre-goers, notably John Barrymore in Hamlet and Richard III , John Gielgud in Hamlet , The Importance of Being Earnest and Much Ado About Nothing , Walter Hampden and José Ferrer in Cyrano de Bergerac , Paul Robeson and Ferrer in Othello , Maurice Evans in Richard II and

6336-500: A rate acceptable to the producers, they may continue to run in the expectation that, eventually, they will pay back their initial costs and become profitable. In some borderline situations, producers may ask that royalties be temporarily reduced or waived, or even that performers—with the permission of their unions—take reduced salaries, to prevent a show from closing. Theatre owners, who are not generally profit participants in most productions, may waive or reduce rents, or even lend money to

6528-431: A run of 253 performances. The first theatre piece that conforms to the modern conception of a musical, adding dance and original music that helped to tell the story, is considered to be The Black Crook , which premiered in New York on September 12, 1866. The production was five-and-a-half hours long, but despite its length, it ran for a record-breaking 474 performances. The same year, The Black Domino/Between You, Me and

6720-453: A runaway mule. The audience hurried out to see what was happening. Groucho was angered by the interruption and, when the audience returned, he made snide comments at their expense, including "Nacogdoches is full of roaches" and "the jackass is the flower of Tex-ass". Instead of becoming angry, the audience laughed. The family then realized that it had potential as a comic troupe. (However, in his autobiography Harpo Speaks , Harpo Marx stated that

6912-528: A serious actress but was advised to remain in comedy. She went on to star in a few films but again returned to vaudeville, her original career. Another famous vaudevillian actress was Trixie Friganza , originally born Delia O'Callaghan. She had a famous catchphrase: "You know Trixie with her bag of tricks." She began her career in opera, performing to help provide for her family. The oldest of three daughters, she wanted to help her family financially but had to do it secretly, as female performers were frowned on at

7104-572: A set of guidelines to be an audience member at his show, and these were reinforced by the ushers working in the theatre. This "polite entertainment" also extended to Keith's company members. He went to extreme measures to maintain this level of modesty. Keith even went as far as posting warnings backstage such as this: "Don't say 'slob' or 'son of a gun' or 'hully gee' on the stage unless you want to be canceled peremptorily... if you are guilty of uttering anything sacrilegious or even suggestive you will be immediately closed and will never again be allowed in

7296-456: A short film that was included in Paramount's twentieth anniversary documentary, The House That Shadows Built (1931), in which they adapted a scene from I'll Say She Is . Their third feature-length film, Monkey Business (1931), was their first movie not based on a stage production. Horse Feathers (1932), in which the brothers satirized the American college system and Prohibition ,

7488-481: A show to keep it running. Some Broadway shows are produced by non-commercial organizations as part of a regular subscription season— Lincoln Center Theatre , Roundabout Theatre Company , Manhattan Theatre Club , and Second Stage Theater are the four non-profit theatre companies that currently have permanent Broadway venues. Some other productions are produced on Broadway with "limited engagement runs" for several reasons, including financial issues, prior engagements of

7680-459: A single (an individual male or female performer); next would be an alley-oop (an acrobatic act); then another single, followed by yet another sketch such as a blackface comedy. The acts that followed these for the rest of the show would vary from musicals to jugglers to song-and-dance singles and end with a final extravaganza – either musical or drama – with the full company. These shows would feature such stars as ragtime and jazz pianist Eubie Blake ,

7872-402: A single host introducing a series of acts became a popular television style and can be seen consistently in the development of television, from The Milton Berle Show in 1948 to Late Night with David Letterman in the 1980s. The multi-act format had renewed success in shows such as Your Show of Shows with Sid Caesar and The Ed Sullivan Show . Today, performers such as Bill Irwin ,

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8064-437: A stooped walk. Harpo stopped speaking onstage and began to wear a red fright wig and carry a taxi-cab horn. Chico spoke with a fake Italian accent, developed off-stage to deal with neighborhood toughs, while Zeppo adopted the role of the romantic (and "peerlessly cheesy", according to James Agee ) straight man . The on-stage personalities of Groucho, Chico, and Harpo were said to have been based on their actual traits. Zeppo, on

8256-659: A surprise to audience members when such beautiful women actually possessed talent in addition to their appealing looks. This element of surprise colored much of the reaction to the female entertainment of this time. In the 1920s, announcements seeking all-girl bands for vaudeville performances appeared in industry publications like Billboard , Variety and in newspapers. Bands like The Ingenues and The Dixie Sweethearts were well-publicized, while other groups were simply described as "all-girl Revue". According to Feminist Theory, similar trends in theater and film objectified women, an example of male gaze , as women's role in public life

8448-411: A taste for the risqué . In the 1840s, the minstrel show , another type of variety performance, and "the first emanation of a pervasive and purely American mass culture", grew to enormous popularity and formed what Nick Tosches called "the heart of 19th-century show business". A significant influence also came from "Dutch" (i.e., German or faux-German) minstrels and comedians. Medicine shows traveled

8640-496: A theatre where Mr. Keith is in authority." Along these same lines of discipline, Keith's theatre managers would occasionally send out blue envelopes with orders to omit certain suggestive lines of songs and possible substitutions for those words. If actors chose to ignore these orders or quit, they would get "a black mark" on their name and would never again be allowed to work on the Keith Circuit. Thus, actors learned to follow

8832-628: A time in which the female body became its own "sexual spectacle". This sexual image began sprouting everywhere an American went: the shops, a restaurant, the grocery store, etc. The more this image brought in the highest revenue, the more Vaudeville focused on acts involving women. Even acts that were as innocent as a sister act were higher sellers than a good brother act. Consequently, Erdman adds that female Vaudeville performers such as Julie Mackey and Gibson's Bathing Girls began to focus less on talent and more on physical appeal through their figure, tight gowns, and other revealing attire. It eventually came as

9024-521: A trained mule) shared a stage with acts more usually regarded as "highbrow" or classical entertainment (opera vocalists, classical musicians). B. F. Keith took the next step, starting in Boston , where he built an empire of theatres and brought vaudeville to the United States and Canada. Later, E. F. Albee , adoptive grandfather of the Pulitzer Prize -winning playwright Edward Albee , managed

9216-559: A truncated form of chanson du Vau de Vire ' song of the Valley of the Vire ' . Around 1610, Jean le Houx collected these works as Le Livre des Chants nouveaux de Vaudevire , which is probably the direct origin of the word. With its first subtle appearances within the early 1860s, vaudeville was not initially a common form of entertainment. The form gradually evolved from the concert saloon and variety hall into its mature form throughout

9408-401: A unique ethnic interplay between Irish American use of self-deprecation as humor and their diverse inner city surroundings. The interactions between newly arrived immigrants and settled immigrants within the backdrop of the unknown American urban landscape allowed vaudeville to be utilized as an avenue for expression and understanding. The often hostile immigrant experience in their new country

9600-580: A venue for plays under the name Burton's Theatre. The Astor Opera House opened in 1847. A riot broke out in 1849 when the lower-class patrons of the Bowery Theatre objected to what they perceived as snobbery by the upper-class audiences at Astor Place: "After the Astor Place Riot of 1849, entertainment in New York City was divided along class lines: opera was chiefly for the upper-middle and upper classes, minstrel shows and melodramas for

9792-505: A wide range of clientele. Many small towns had purpose-built theatres. A small yet interesting example might include what is called Grange Halls in northern New England, still being used. These are old-fashioned, wooden buildings with creaky, dimly-lit, wooden stages, which were meant to offset the isolation of a farming lifestyle. These stages could offer anything from child performers to contra-dances to visits by Santa to local, musical talent, to homemade foods such as whoopee pies. Some of

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9984-475: Is an internationally prominent tourist attraction in New York City . According to The Broadway League , shows on Broadway sold approximately US$ 1.54 billion worth of tickets in both the 2022-2023 and the 2023–2024 seasons. Both seasons featured theater attendance of approximately 12.3 million each. Most Broadway shows are musicals . Historian Martin Shefter argues that "Broadway musicals, culminating in

10176-494: Is often considered to have been the death knell of vaudeville. Though talk of its resurrection was heard during the 1930s and later, the demise of the supporting apparatus of the circuits and the higher cost of live performance made any large-scale renewal of vaudeville unrealistic. The most striking examples of Gilded Age theatre architecture were commissioned by the big time vaudeville magnates and stood as monuments of their wealth and ambition. Examples of such architecture are

10368-475: Is that it comes from the 15th-century songs on satire by poet Olivier Basselin , "Vau de Vire". In his Connections television series, science historian James Burke argues that the term is a corruption of the French Vau de Vire ' Vire River Valley ' , an area known for its bawdy drinking songs and where Basselin lived. The Oxford English Dictionary also endorses the vau de vire origin,

10560-571: Is usually held on a Sunday evening in June to fit this schedule. In recent years, some shows have moved their Tuesday show time an hour earlier to 7:00 pm. The rationale for this move was that since fewer tourists take in shows midweek, Tuesday attendance depends more on local patrons. The earlier curtain makes it possible for suburban patrons to get home by a reasonable hour after the show. Some shows, especially those produced by Disney , change their performance schedules fairly frequently depending on

10752-541: The General Electric Theater on CBS. Groucho made a cameo appearance (uncredited, because of constraints in his NBC contract) in the last scene, and delivered the only line of dialogue ("We won't talk until we see our lawyer!"). According to a September 1947 article in Newsweek , Groucho, Harpo, Chico, and Zeppo all signed to appear as themselves in a biographical film entitled The Life and Times of

10944-610: The American Theatre Wing , a service organization. While the League and the theatrical unions are sometimes at loggerheads during those periods when new contracts are being negotiated, they also cooperate on many projects and events designed to promote professional theatre in New York. Of the four non-profit theatre companies with Broadway theatres, all four ( Lincoln Center Theater , Manhattan Theatre Club , Roundabout Theatre Company , and Second Stage Theatre ) belong to

11136-750: The English-speaking world . While the Broadway thoroughfare is eponymous with the district, it is closely identified with Times Square . Only three theaters are located on Broadway itself: Broadway Theatre , Palace Theatre , and Winter Garden Theatre . The rest are located on the numbered cross streets, extending from the Nederlander Theatre one block south of Times Square on West 41st Street, north along either side of Broadway to 53rd Street , and Vivian Beaumont Theater , at Lincoln Center on West 65th Street. While exceptions exist,

11328-580: The League of Resident Theatres and have contracts with the theatrical unions which are negotiated separately from the other Broadway theatre and producers. ( Disney also negotiates apart from the League, as did Livent before it closed down its operations.) The majority of Broadway theatres are owned or managed by three organizations: the Shubert Organization , a for-profit arm of the non-profit Shubert Foundation, which owns seventeen theatres;

11520-734: The Marx Brothers , Jimmy Durante , Bill "Bojangles" Robinson , Edgar Bergen , Fanny Brice , Burns and Allen , and Eddie Cantor , used the prominence gained in live variety performance to vault into the new medium of cinema. In doing so, such performers often exhausted in a few moments of screen time the novelty of an act that might have kept them on tour for several years. Other performers who entered in vaudeville's later years, including Jack Benny , Abbott and Costello , Kate Smith , Cary Grant , Bob Hope , Milton Berle , Judy Garland , Rose Marie , Sammy Davis Jr. , Red Skelton , Larry Storch and The Three Stooges , used vaudeville only as

11712-503: The Nederlander Organization , which controls nine theatres; and ATG Entertainment , which owns seven Broadway houses. Both musicals and straight plays on Broadway often rely on casting well-known performers in leading roles to draw larger audiences or bring in new audience members to the theatre. Actors from film and television are frequently cast for the revivals of Broadway shows or are used to replace actors leaving

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11904-476: The Roaring Twenties , borrowing from vaudeville, music hall , and other light entertainment, tended to ignore plot in favor of emphasizing star actors and actresses, big dance routines, and popular songs. Florenz Ziegfeld produced annual spectacular song-and-dance revues on Broadway featuring extravagant sets and elaborate costumes, but there was little to tie the various numbers together. Typical of

12096-642: The Selective Service caught up with Marxes, and each was rejected except Gummo, who was drafted; he spent the war serving in Illinois. Following this, Zeppo (the youngest brother) joined the team. By this time, "The Four Marx Brothers" had begun to incorporate their unique style of comedy into their act and to develop their characters. Both Groucho's and Harpo's memoirs say that their now-famous on-stage personae were created by Al Shean . Groucho began to wear his trademark greasepaint mustache and to use

12288-671: The Tivoli Theatre are housed at the State Library of Victoria , Melbourne , Australia , with additional personal papers of vaudevillian performers from the Tivoli Theatre, including extensive costume and set design holdings, held by the Performing Arts Collection , Arts Centre Melbourne . The American Vaudeville Museum, one of the largest collections of vaudeville memorabilia, is located at

12480-528: 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 entertainment in North America for several decades. The origin of the term is obscure but often explained as being derived from the French expression voix de ville ' voice of the city ' . A second hypothesis

12672-457: The "Irwin Sisters". Many years later, their act had taken off and with performances in both vaudeville and burlesque at famous music halls, until Irwin decided to continue her career on her own. She then changed her approach to vaudeville, performing African-American-influenced songs, even later writing her songs. She introduced her signature in vaudeville, "The Bully Song", which was performed in

12864-425: The "big time" (possible remuneration of several thousand dollars per week in large, urban theatres largely patronized by the middle and upper-middle classes). As performers rose in renown and established regional and national followings, they worked their way into the less arduous working conditions and better pay of the big time. The capital of the big time was New York City's Palace Theatre (or just "The Palace" in

13056-494: The 'establishment', [and] at his hilarious biting best with his film soundtrack one-line zingers on his love life, his son, politics, big business, society, etc.". Village Voice critic Robert Christgau was less enthusiastic, however, grading the LP a C-plus and recommending it only to fanatics of the comedy group, also expressing displeasure with the interspersing of small portions of "annoying music" and Owens's commentary. In 1970,

13248-589: The 1870s and 1880s. This more gentle form was known as "Polite Vaudeville". In the years before the American Civil War , entertainment existed on a different scale. Similar variety theatre existed before 1860 in Europe and elsewhere. In the US, as early as the first decades of the 19th century, theatergoers could enjoy a performance consisting of Shakespeare plays, acrobatics, singing, dancing, and comedy. As

13440-409: The 1920s were lighthearted productions such as Sally ; Lady Be Good ; Sunny ; No, No, Nanette ; Harlem ; Oh, Kay! ; and Funny Face . Their books may have been forgettable, but they produced enduring standards from George Gershwin , Cole Porter , Jerome Kern , Vincent Youmans , and Rodgers and Hart , among others, and Noël Coward , Sigmund Romberg , and Rudolf Friml continued in

13632-447: The 1920s, the Marx Brothers had become one of America's favorite theatrical acts, with their sharp and bizarre sense of humor. They satirized high society and human hypocrisy, and they became famous for their improvisational comedy in free-form scenarios. A famous early instance was when Harpo arranged to chase a fleeing chorus girl across the stage during the middle of a Groucho monolog, to see if Groucho would be thrown off. However, to

13824-556: The 1940s onward Chico and Harpo appeared separately and together in nightclubs and casinos. Chico fronted a big band , the Chico Marx Orchestra (with 17-year-old Mel Tormé as a vocalist). Groucho made several radio appearances during the 1940s and starred in You Bet Your Life , which ran from 1947 to 1961 on NBC radio and television. He authored several books, including Groucho and Me (1959), Memoirs of

14016-536: The Broadway national tour, which travels to theatres in major cities across the country. Sometimes when a show closes on Broadway, the entire production, with most if not all of the original cast intact, is relaunched as a touring company, hence the name "Broadway national tour". Some shows may even have several touring companies out at a time, whether the show is still running in New York or not, with many companies "sitting down" in other major cities for their own extended runs. For Broadway national tours of top-tier cities,

14208-619: The Broadway orchestra is governed by an agreement with the musicians' union (Local 802, American Federation of Musicians) and The Broadway League. For example, the agreement specifies the minimum size of the orchestra at the Minskoff Theatre to be eighteen, while at the Music Box Theatre it is nine. Most Broadway shows are commercial productions intended to make a profit for the producers and investors ("backers" or "angels"), and therefore have open-ended runs (duration that

14400-738: The COVID-19 shutdown, the Shubert Organization, the Nederlander Organization, and Jujamcyn had pledged to increase racial and cultural diversity in their theaters, including naming at least one theater for a Black theatrical personality. The August Wilson Theatre , owned by Jujamcyn, had been renamed after Black playwright August Wilson in 2005. The Shuberts announced in March 2022 that the Cort Theatre , which

14592-574: The Cakewalk (1898), and the highly successful In Dahomey (1902). Hundreds of musical comedies were staged on Broadway in the 1890s and early 1900s made up of songs written in New York's Tin Pan Alley involving composers such as Gus Edwards , John Walter Bratton , and George M. Cohan ( Little Johnny Jones (1904), 45 Minutes From Broadway (1906), and George Washington Jr. (1906)). Still, New York runs continued to be relatively short, with

14784-639: The Chinese, Italians, Germans and Jews utilized ethnic caricatures to understand themselves as well as the Irish. The urban diversity within the vaudeville stage and audience also reflected their societal status, with the working class constituting two-thirds of the typical vaudeville audience. The ethnic caricatures that now comprised American humor reflected the positive and negative interactions between ethnic groups in America's cities. The caricatures served as

14976-456: The Erlanger syndicate. During this time, the play Lightnin' by Winchell Smith and Frank Bacon became the first Broadway show to reach 700 performances. From then, it would go on to become the first show to reach 1,000 performances. Lightnin' was the longest-running Broadway show until being overtaken in performance totals by Abie's Irish Rose in 1925. The motion picture mounted

15168-423: The Irish becoming subject to discrimination due to their ethnic physical and cultural characteristics. The ethnic stereotypes of Irish through their greenhorn depiction alluded to their newly arrived status as immigrant Americans, with the stereotype portrayed in avenues of entertainment. Following the Irish immigration wave were several waves in which new immigrants from different backgrounds came in contact with

15360-453: The Irish in America's urban centers. Already settled and being native English speakers, Irish Americans took hold of these advantages and began to assert their positions in the immigrant racial hierarchy based on skin tone and assimilation status, cementing job positions that were previously unavailable to them as recently arrived immigrants. As a result, Irish Americans became prominent in vaudeville entertainment as curators and actors, creating

15552-457: The League confirmed that performances would begin to resume in the fall season. Springsteen on Broadway became the first full-length show to resume performances, opening on June 26, 2021, to 1,721 vaccinated patrons at the St. James Theatre . Pass Over then had its first preview on August 4, and opened on August 22, 2021, becoming the first new play to open. Hadestown and Waitress were

15744-650: The Marx Brothers . In addition to being a non-fiction biography of the Marxes, the film would have featured the brothers re-enacting much of their previously unfilmed material from both their vaudeville and Broadway eras. The film, had it been made, would have been the first performance by the Brothers as a quartet since 1933. The five brothers made only one television appearance together, in 1957, on an early incarnation of The Tonight Show called Tonight! America After Dark , hosted by Jack Lescoulie . Five years later (October 1, 1962) after Jack Paar's tenure, Groucho made

15936-423: The Marx Brothers' Paramount films were collected and released on an LP album, The Original Voice Tracks from Their Greatest Movies , by Decca Records . The excerpts were interspersed with voice-over introductions by disc jockey and voice actor Gary Owens . The album was praised by Billboard as "a program of zany antics"; the magazine highlighted the excerpts of Groucho, who was "way ahead of his time in spoofing

16128-445: The Marx Brothers. Most of the comedians provided their own voices for their animated counterparts, except for Fields and Chico Marx (both of whom had died) and Zeppo Marx (who had left show business in 1933). Voice actor Paul Frees filled in for all three (no voice was needed for Harpo). The Marx Brothers' segment was a re-working of a scene from their Broadway play I'll Say She Is , a parody of Napoleon that Groucho considered among

16320-586: The Marx family wondered whether he was real, but Manfred's death certificate from the Borough of Manhattan reveals that he died, aged seven months, on July 17, 1886, of enterocolitis , with " asthenia " contributing, i.e., probably a victim of influenza. He is buried in Washington Cemetery (Brooklyn, NY) , beside his grandmother, Fanny Sophie Schönberg (née Salomons), who died on April 10, 1901. During

16512-552: The Opera at the Majestic Theatre became the longest-running Broadway musical, with 7,486 performances, overtaking Cats . The Phantom of the Opera closed on Broadway on April 16, 2023, soon after celebrating its 35th anniversary, after a total of 13,981 performances. Attending a Broadway show is a common tourist activity in New York. The TKTS booths sell same-day tickets (and in certain cases, next-day matinee tickets) for many Broadway and Off-Broadway shows at

16704-504: The Paramount contract Zeppo left the act to become an agent. He and brother Gummo went on to build one of the biggest talent agencies in Hollywood, working with the likes of Jack Benny and Lana Turner . Groucho and Chico did radio, and there was talk of returning to Broadway. At a bridge game with Chico, Irving Thalberg began discussing the possibility of the Marxes joining Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer . They signed, now billed in films before

16896-535: The Post was the first show to call itself a "musical comedy". Tony Pastor opened the first vaudeville theatre one block east of Union Square in 1881, where Lillian Russell performed. Comedians Edward Harrigan and Tony Hart produced and starred in musicals on Broadway between 1878 ( The Mulligan Guard Picnic ) and 1890, with book and lyrics by Harrigan and music by his father-in-law David Braham . These musical comedies featured characters and situations taken from

17088-764: The Races , leaving the Marxes without an advocate at the studio. After a short experience at RKO ( Room Service , 1938), the Marx Brothers returned to MGM and made three more films: At the Circus (1939), Go West (1940) and The Big Store (1941). Prior to the release of The Big Store the team announced they were retiring from the screen. Four years later, however, Chico persuaded his brothers to make two additional films, A Night in Casablanca (1946) and Love Happy (1949), to alleviate his severe gambling debts. Both pictures were released by United Artists . From

17280-423: The United States and Canada and a large interest in two vaudeville circuits. Another major circuit was that of Alexander Pantages . In his heyday, Pantages owned more than 30 vaudeville theatres and controlled, through management contracts, perhaps 60 more in both the United States and Canada. At its height, vaudeville played across multiple strata of economic class and auditorium size. On the vaudeville circuit, it

17472-466: The United States and Canada, first for about three months in Emil Boreo’s Mirage de Paris followed by nine months in their own Ballet Caprice . After Jack quit the act near the end of 1927, Betty continued to manage the troupe and, with a new dance partner, toured throughout the northeastern United States for the next six months as Betty Felsen and Company. The final performance of Ballet Caprice

17664-629: The University of Arizona. Broadway theatre Broadway theatre , or Broadway , is a theatre genre that consists of the theatrical performances presented in 41 professional theaters , each with 500 or more seats, in the Theater District and Lincoln Center along Broadway , in Midtown Manhattan , New York City . Broadway and London 's West End together represent the highest commercial level of live theater in

17856-409: The age of 74. Three years later, Harpo died on September 28, 1964, at the age of 75, following a heart attack one day after heart surgery . In 1966, Filmation produced a pilot for a Marx Brothers cartoon. Groucho's voice was supplied by Pat Harrington Jr. and other voices were done by Ted Knight and Joe Besser (of The Three Stooges fame). In 1969, audio excerpts of dialogue from all five of

18048-483: The audience's delight, Groucho merely reacted by commenting, "First time I ever saw a taxi hail a passenger." When Harpo chased the girl back in the other direction, Groucho calmly checked his watch and ad-libbed, "The 9:20's right on time. You can set your watch by the Lehigh Valley ." The brothers' vaudeville act had made them stars on Broadway under Chico's management and with Groucho's creative direction, with

18240-541: The audience," Groucho recalled. (Zeppo stood in for Groucho in the film version of Animal Crackers . Groucho was unavailable to film the scene in which the Beaugard painting is stolen, so the script was contrived to include a power failure, which allowed Zeppo to play the Spaulding part in near-darkness.) In December 1917, the Marx brothers were noted in an advertisement playing in a musical comedy act "Home Again". By

18432-492: The authors and also in numerous unlicensed productions). They were imitated in New York by American productions such as Reginald Dekoven 's Robin Hood (1891) and John Philip Sousa 's El Capitan (1896), along with operas, ballets, and other British and European hits. Charles H. Hoyt 's A Trip to Chinatown (1891) became Broadway's long-run champion when it surpassed Adonis and its 603 total performances in 1893, holding

18624-435: The beginning of the nineteenth century, the area that now comprises the Theater District was owned by a handful of families and comprised a few farms. In 1836, Mayor Cornelius Lawrence opened 42nd Street and invited Manhattanites to "enjoy the pure clean air." Close to 60 years later, theatrical entrepreneur Oscar Hammerstein I built the iconic Victoria Theater on West 42nd Street. Broadway's first "long-run" musical

18816-476: The biggest changes to the commercial theatrical landscape—on both sides of the Atlantic—over the past decade or so is that sightings of big star names turning out to do plays has [sic] gone up; but the runs they are prepared to commit to has gone down. Time was that a producer would require a minimum commitment from his star of six months, and perhaps a year; now, the 13-week run is the norm." The minimum size of

19008-550: The bill was not passed. The Save the Theatres campaign then turned their efforts to supporting the establishment of the Theater District as a registered historic district . In December 1983, Save the Theatres prepared "The Broadway Theater District, a Preservation Development and Management Plan", and demanded that each theater in the district receive landmark designation. Mayor Ed Koch ultimately reacted by creating

19200-492: The brothers cause mayhem in a sanitarium and at a horse race. The film features Groucho and Chico's famous "Tootsie Frootsie Ice Cream" sketch. In a 1969 interview with Dick Cavett , Groucho said that the two movies made with Thalberg were the best that they ever produced. Despite the Thalberg films' success, the brothers left MGM in 1937; Thalberg had died suddenly on September 14, 1936, two weeks after filming began on A Day at

19392-478: The brothers' funniest routines. The sketch featured animated representations – if not the voices – of all four brothers. Romeo Muller is credited as having written special material for the show, but the script for the classic "Napoleon Scene" was probably supplied by Groucho. On January 16, 1977, the Marx Brothers were inducted into the Motion Picture Hall of Fame. With

19584-497: The brothers' personalities and Gus Mager 's Sherlocko the Monk , a popular comic strip of the day that included a supporting character named " Groucho ". As Fisher dealt each brother a card, he addressed them, for the first time, by the names they kept for the rest of their lives. The reasons behind Chico's and Harpo's stage names are undisputed, and Gummo's is fairly well established. Groucho's and Zeppo's are far less clear. Arthur

19776-1027: The business side of Vaudeville, like Amanda Thorpe, a white woman who founded a black theater in Virginia, and the Griffin Sisters , who managed several theaters in their efforts to create a Black Vaudeville circuit. Black performers and patrons participated in a racially segregated vaudeville circuit. Though many popular acts like Lewis and Walker, Ernest Hogan , Irving Jones , and the Hyers Sisters played to both white and black audiences, early Vaudeville performances for white audiences were limited to one Black act per show, and performers faced discrimination in restaurants and lodging. Entertainers and entrepreneurs like The Whitman Sisters , Pat Chapelle and John Isham created and managed their own touring companies; others took on theater ownership and management and created Black vaudeville circuits, as

19968-500: The chain to its greatest success. Circuits such as those managed by Keith-Albee provided vaudeville's greatest economic innovation and the principal source of its industrial strength. They enabled a chain of allied vaudeville houses that remedied the chaos of the single-theatre booking system by contracting acts for regional and national tours. These could easily be lengthened from a few weeks to two years. Albee also gave national prominence to vaudeville's trumpeting "polite" entertainment,

20160-420: The circuit's central office weekly, follow each act's description. The bill illustrates the typical pattern of opening the show with a "dumb" act to allow patrons to find their seats, placing strong acts in second and penultimate positions, and leaving the weakest act for the end, to clear the house. In this bill, as in many vaudeville shows, acts often associated with "lowbrow" or popular entertainment (acrobats,

20352-470: The city fathers wrote to Paramount and asked the studio to remove all references to Freedonia because "it is hurting our town's image". Groucho fired back a sarcastic retort asking them to change the name of their town, because "it's hurting our picture". On March 11, 1933, the Marx Brothers founded a production company, the "International Amalgamated Consolidated Affiliated World Wide Film Productions Company Incorporated, of North Dakota". After expiration of

20544-416: The countryside offering programs of comedy, music, jugglers , and other novelties along with displays of tonics, salves, and miracle elixirs, while " Wild West " shows provided romantic vistas of the disappearing frontier, complete with trick riding, music and drama. Vaudeville incorporated these various itinerant amusements into a stable, institutionalized form centered in America's growing urban hubs. From

20736-409: The daughter of a musician, she moved to the United States of America in her childhood. At just fourteen years old, she left home to begin her career, lying about her age and sending her mother half of her paycheck. Dressler found great success and was known for her comedic timing and physical comedy, like carrying her male co-stars. She eventually worked on Broadway, where she had a great desire to become

20928-505: The death of vaudeville. After all, when "small time" theatres could offer "big time" performers on screen at a nickel a seat, who could ask audiences to pay higher amounts for less impressive live talent? The newly-formed RKO studios took over the famed Orpheum vaudeville circuit and swiftly turned it into a chain of full-time movie theatres. The half-century tradition of vaudeville was effectively wiped out within less than four years. Inevitably, managers further trimmed costs by eliminating

21120-711: The deaths of Gummo in April 1977, Groucho in August 1977, and Zeppo in November 1979, the brothers were gone. But their effect on the entertainment community continues well into the 21st century. Among famous comedians who have cited them as influences on their style have been Woody Allen , Alan Alda , Gabe Kaplan , Judd Apatow , Mel Brooks , John Cleese , Elliott Gould , Spike Milligan , Monty Python , Carl Reiner , as well as David Zucker , Jerry Zucker and Jim Abrahams . Comedian Frank Ferrante made impersonations of Groucho

21312-422: The decade ended with critics and audiences giving mixed signals." Ken Bloom observed that "The 1960s and 1970s saw a worsening of the area [Times Square] and a drop in the number of legitimate shows produced on Broadway." By way of comparison, in the 1950 to 1951 season (May to May) 94 productions opened on Broadway; in the 1969 to 1970 season (June to May) there were 59 productions (fifteen were revivals). In

21504-462: The details, the name relates to rubber-soled shoes. The reason that Julius was named Groucho is perhaps the most disputed. There are three explanations: I kept my money in a 'grouch bag'. This was a small chamois bag that actors used to wear around their neck to keep other hungry actors from pinching their dough. Naturally, you're going to think that's where I got my name from. But that's not so. Grouch bags were worn on manly chests long before there

21696-422: The early 20th century, Minnie helped her younger brother Abraham Elieser Adolf Schönberg (stage name Al Shean ) to enter show business; he became highly successful in vaudeville and on Broadway as half of the musical comedy double act Gallagher and Shean , and this gave the brothers an entrée to musical comedy, vaudeville and Broadway at Minnie's instigation. Minnie also acted as the brothers' manager, using

21888-679: The effort. At Papp's behest, in July 1982, a bill was introduced in the 97th Congress , entitled "H.R.6885, A bill to designate the Broadway/Times Square Theatre District in the City of New York as a national historic site". The legislation would have provided certain U.S. government resources and assistance to help the city preserve the district. Faced with strong opposition and lobbying by Mayor Ed Koch's Administration and corporate Manhattan development interests,

22080-451: The elder brothers Chico, Harpo, and Groucho, leaving little room for the younger brothers. Gummo and Zeppo both became successful businessmen: Gummo left the act early and gained success through his talent agency activities and a raincoat business, Zeppo stayed with the act through its Broadway years and the beginnings of its film career, but then quit and later became a multi-millionaire through his engineering business. The brothers were from

22272-456: The everyday life of New York's lower classes and represented a significant step forward from vaudeville and burlesque, towards a more literate form. They starred high-quality professional singers ( Lillian Russell , Vivienne Segal , and Fay Templeton ), instead of the amateurs, often sex workers, who had starred in earlier musical forms. As transportation improved, poverty in New York diminished, and street lighting made for safer travel at night,

22464-487: The famous and magical Harry Houdini , and child star Baby Rose Marie . In the New-York Tribune ' s article about Vaudeville, it is said that at any given time, Vaudeville was employing over twelve thousand different people throughout its entire industry. Each entertainer would be on the road 42 weeks at a time while working a particular "Circuit" – or an individual theatre chain of a major company. While

22656-467: The first musicals to resume performances on September 2, 2021. The 74th Tony Awards were also postponed; the Tony nominations were announced on October 15, 2020, and took place on September 26, 2021. On July 30, 2021, it was announced that all Broadway theaters required attendees to provide proof of full COVID-19 vaccination . The rule applied to guests ages 12+. Those under age 12 were required to provide

22848-592: The four Marx Brothers had a brief reunion of sorts in the animated ABC television special The Mad, Mad, Mad Comedians , produced by Rankin-Bass animation (of Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer fame). The special featured animated re-workings of various famous comedians' acts, including W. C. Fields , Jack Benny , George Burns , Henny Youngman , the Smothers Brothers , Flip Wilson , Phyllis Diller , Jack E. Leonard , George Jessel and

23040-499: The greatest and most influential comedians of the 20th century. The brothers were included in AFI's 100 Years...100 Stars list of the 25 greatest male stars of Classical Hollywood cinema, the only performers to be included collectively. The brothers are almost universally known by their stage names: Chico , Harpo , Groucho , Gummo , and Zeppo . There was a sixth brother, the firstborn, named Manfred (Mannie), who died in infancy; Zeppo

23232-407: The highly regarded Leo McCarey , is the highest rated of the five Marx Brothers films on the American Film Institute 's "100 years ... 100 Movies" list. It did not do as well financially as Horse Feathers , but was the sixth-highest grosser of 1933. The film sparked a dispute between the Marxes and the village of Fredonia, New York . "Freedonia" was the name of a fictional country in the script, and

23424-495: The instructions given to them by B. F. Keith for fear of losing their careers forever. By the late 1890s, vaudeville had large circuits, houses (small and large) in almost every sizable location, standardized booking, broad pools of skilled acts, and a loyal national following. One of the biggest circuits was Martin Beck's Orpheum Circuit . It incorporated in 1919 and brought together 45 vaudeville theatres in 36 cities throughout

23616-469: The jump to Broadway , and then to Paramount films. During World War I, anti-German sentiments were common, and the family tried to conceal its German origin. Upon Minnie Marx learning that farmers were excluded from the draft, she purchased a 27-acre (11 ha) poultry farm near Countryside, Illinois ; Stefan Kanfer wrote that "Each night, rats made off with the day’s eggs." During this time, Groucho discontinued his "German" stage personality. In 1917,

23808-427: The last of the live performances. Vaudeville also suffered due to the rise of broadcast radio following the greater availability of inexpensive receiver sets later in the decade. Even the hardiest in the vaudeville industry realized the form was in decline; the perceptive understood the condition to be terminal. The standardized film distribution and talking pictures of the 1930s confirmed the end of vaudeville. By 1930,

24000-563: The lower-priced cinema in the early 1910s dealt the heaviest blow to vaudeville. This was similar to the advent of free broadcast television 's diminishing the cultural and economic strength of the cinema. Cinema was first regularly commercially presented in the US in vaudeville halls. The first public showing of movies projected on a screen took place at Koster and Bial's Music Hall in 1896. Lured by greater salaries and less arduous working conditions, many performers and personalities, such as Al Jolson , W. C. Fields , Mae West , Buster Keaton ,

24192-535: The mid-1860s, impresario Tony Pastor , a former singing circus clown who had become a prominent variety theater performer and manager, capitalized on middle class sensibilities and spending power when he began to feature "polite" variety programs in his New York City theatres. Pastor opened his first "Opera House" on the Bowery in 1865, later moving his variety theater operation to Broadway and, finally, to Fourteenth Street near Union Square . He only began to use

24384-557: The middle-class, variety shows in concert saloons for men of the working class and the slumming middle-class." The plays of William Shakespeare were frequently performed on the Broadway stage during the period, most notably by American actor Edwin Booth who was internationally known for his performance as Hamlet . Booth played the role for a famous 100 consecutive performances at the Winter Garden Theatre in 1865 (with

24576-485: The most prominent vaudevillians successfully made the transition to cinema, though others were not as successful. Some performers such as Bert Lahr fashioned careers out of combining live performance with radio and film roles. Many others later appeared in the Catskill resorts that constituted the " Borscht Belt ". Vaudeville was instrumental in the success of the newer media of film, radio, and television. Comedies of

24768-418: The musical revue I'll Say She Is (1924–1925). Its success helped secure playwright George S. Kaufman and songwriter Irving Berlin —two of Broadway's best talents—for the musical comedy The Cocoanuts (1925–1926) and later Animal Crackers (1928–1929). Out of their distinctive costumes, the brothers looked alike, even down to their receding hairlines. Zeppo could pass for a younger Groucho and played

24960-480: The name "Gummo" never appeared in print during his time in the act. Other sources reported that the Marx Brothers went by their nicknames during their vaudeville era, but briefly listed themselves by their given names when I'll Say She Is opened because they were worried that a Broadway audience would reject a vaudeville act if they were perceived as low class. The Marx Brothers' stage shows became popular just as motion pictures were evolving to " talkies ". They signed

25152-412: The name Minnie Palmer so that agents did not realize that she was also their mother. All the brothers confirmed that Minnie Marx had been the head of the family and the driving force in getting the troupe launched, the only person who could keep them in order; she was said to be a hard bargainer with theater management. As the comedy act developed, it increasingly focused on the stage characters created by

25344-636: The neighborhood character of vaudeville attendance had always promoted a tendency to tailor fare to specific audiences, mature vaudeville grew to feature houses and circuits specifically aimed at certain demographic groups. Black patrons, often segregated into the rear of the second gallery in white-oriented theatres, had their own smaller circuits, as did speakers of Italian and Yiddish (see below). This foreign addition combined with comedy produced such acts as "minstrel shows of antebellum America" and Yiddish theatre. Many ethnic families joined in on this entertainment business, and for them, this traveling lifestyle

25536-490: The new era adopted many of the dramatic and musical tropes of classic vaudeville acts. Film comedies of the 1920s through the 1940s used talent from the vaudeville stage and followed a vaudeville aesthetic of variety entertainment, both in Hollywood and in Asia, including China. The rich repertoire of the vaudeville tradition was mined for prominent prime-time radio variety shows such as The Rudy Vallée Show . The structure of

25728-420: The next sixteen years. However, smaller vaudeville and variety houses proliferated, and Off-Broadway was well established by the end of the nineteenth century. A Trip to Coontown (1898) was the first musical comedy entirely produced and performed by African Americans in a Broadway theatre (inspired largely by the routines of the minstrel shows ), followed by the ragtime -tinged Clorindy: The Origin of

25920-410: The nicknames. He asked them why they used their real names publicly when they had such wonderful nicknames, and they replied, "That wouldn't be dignified." Woollcott answered with a belly laugh. Woollcott did not meet the Marx Brothers until the premiere of I'll Say She Is , which was their first Broadway show, so this would mean that they used their real names throughout their vaudeville days, and that

26112-557: The number of potential patrons for the growing number of theatres increased enormously. Plays could run longer and still draw in the audiences, leading to better profits and improved production values. As in England, during the latter half of the century, the theatre began to be cleaned up, with less prostitution hindering the attendance of the theatre by women. Gilbert and Sullivan 's family-friendly comic opera hits, beginning with H.M.S. Pinafore in 1878, were imported to New York (by

26304-463: The other hand, was considered the funniest brother offstage, despite his straight stage roles. He was the youngest and had grown up watching his brothers, so he could fill in for and imitate any of the others when illness kept them from performing. "He was so good as Captain Spaulding [in Animal Crackers ] that I would have let him play the part indefinitely, if they had allowed me to smoke in

26496-556: The performers, or temporary availability of a theatre between the end of one production and the beginning of another. However, some shows with planned limited engagement runs may, after critical acclaim or box office success, extend their engagements or convert to open-ended runs. This was the case with 2007's August: Osage County , 2009's God of Carnage , 2012's Newsies , and 2022's Take Me Out . Historically, musicals on Broadway tend to have longer runs than "straight" (i.e., non-musical) plays. On January 9, 2006, The Phantom of

26688-415: The plays of George Bernard Shaw , and Katharine Cornell in such plays as Romeo and Juliet , Antony and Cleopatra , and Candida . In 1930, Theatre Guild 's production of Roar, China! was Broadway's first play with a majority Asian cast. As World War II approached, a dozen Broadway dramas addressed the rise of Nazism in Europe and the issue of American non-intervention. The most successful

26880-423: The production plays), meaning that the length of their presentation is not set beforehand, but depends on critical response, word of mouth, and the effectiveness of the show's advertising, all of which determine ticket sales. Investing in a commercial production carries a varied degree of financial risk. Shows need not make a profit immediately; should they make their "nut" (weekly operating expenses), or lose money at

27072-645: The productions of Rodgers and Hammerstein , became enormously influential forms of American popular culture " and contributed to making New York City the cultural capital of the world . New York City's first significant theatre was established in the mid-18th century, around 1750, when actor-managers Walter Murray and Thomas Kean established a resident theatre company at the Theatre on Nassau Street in Lower Manhattan , which held about 280 people. They presented William Shakespeare 's plays and ballad operas such as The Beggar's Opera . In 1752, William Hallam sent

27264-404: The promotion of black-face minstrelsy on the stage, purposefully used to place African Americans beneath the Irish in the racial and social urban hierarchy. Although the Irish had a strong Celtic presence in vaudeville and in the promotion of ethnic stereotypes, the ethnic groups that they were characterizing also utilized the same humor. As the Irish donned their ethnic costumes, groups such as

27456-540: The recent, worldwide phenomenon of TV shows such as America's Got Talent . In professional wrestling , there was a noted tag team, based in WWE , called The Vaudevillains . In 2018, noted film director Christopher Annino, maker of a new silent feature film, Silent Times , founded Vaudeville Con, a gathering to celebrate the history of vaudeville. The first meeting was held in Pawcatuck, Connecticut . The records of

27648-621: The role of Groucho's son in Horse Feathers . A scene in Duck Soup finds Groucho, Harpo, and Chico all appearing in the famous greasepaint eyebrows, mustache, and round glasses while wearing nightcaps; the three are indistinguishable, enabling them to carry off the "mirror scene" perfectly. The stage names of the brothers (except Zeppo) were coined by monologist Art Fisher during a poker game in Galesburg, Illinois , based both on

27840-531: The run ending just a few months before Booth's brother John Wilkes Booth assassinated Abraham Lincoln ), and would later revive the role at his own Booth's Theatre (which was managed for a time by his brother Junius Brutus Booth Jr. ). Other renowned Shakespeareans who appeared in New York in this era were Henry Irving , Tommaso Salvini , Fanny Davenport , and Charles Fechter . Theatre in New York moved from Downtown gradually to Midtown Manhattan , beginning around 1850, seeking less expensive real estate. At

28032-648: The runaway mule incident occurred in Ada, Oklahoma . A 1930 article in the San Antonio Express newspaper stated that the incident took place in Marshall, Texas.) The act slowly evolved from singing with comedy to comedy with music. The brothers' sketch "Fun in Hi Skule" featured Groucho as a German-accented teacher presiding over a classroom that included students Harpo, Gummo, and Chico. The last version of

28224-626: The same extent as the elder three. Both left the act to pursue business careers at which they were successful, and for a time ran a large theatrical agency through which they represented their brothers and others. Gummo was not in any of the movies; Zeppo appeared in the first five films in relatively straight (non-comedic) roles. The early performing lives of the brothers owed much to their mother, Minnie Marx (the sister of vaudeville comic Al Shean ), who acted as their manager until her death in 1929. The Marx Brothers were born in New York City ,

28416-499: The school act was titled Home Again and was written by their uncle Al Shean . The Home Again tour reached Flint, Michigan , in 1915, where 14-year-old Zeppo joined his four brothers for what is believed to be the only time that all five Marx Brothers appeared together on stage. Gummo then left to serve in World War I , reasoning that "anything is better than being an actor!" Zeppo replaced him in their final vaudeville years and in

28608-473: The season. This is done in order to maximize access to their target audience. Most Broadway producers and theatre owners are members of The Broadway League (formerly "The League of American Theatres and Producers"), a trade organization that promotes Broadway theatre as a whole, negotiates contracts with the various theatrical unions and agreements with the guilds, and co-administers the Tony Awards with

28800-451: The silent nature of the "flickering shadow sweethearts" would preclude their usurpation of the paramount place in the public's affection. With the introduction of talking pictures in 1926, the burgeoning film studios removed what had remained the chief difference in favor of live theatrical performance: spoken dialogue. Historian John Kenrick wrote: Top vaudeville stars filmed their acts for one-time pay-offs, inadvertently helping to speed

28992-468: The slang of vaudevillians), built by Martin Beck in 1913 and operated by Keith. Featuring a bill stocked with inventive novelty acts, national celebrities, and acknowledged masters of vaudeville performance (such as comedian and trick roper Will Rogers ), the Palace provided what many vaudevillians considered the apotheosis of remarkable careers. A standard show bill would begin with a sketch, follow with

29184-448: The songs that were popularized onstage by white singers, and paved the way for African-American musical theater . In addition to vaudeville's prominence as a form of American entertainment, it reflected the newly evolving urban inner-city culture and interaction of its operators and audience. Making up a large portion of immigration to the United States in the mid-19th century, Irish Americans interacted with established Americans, with

29376-528: The sons of Jewish immigrants from Germany and France. Their mother Miene "Minnie" Schoenberg (professionally known as Minnie Palmer, later the brothers' manager) was from Dornum in East Frisia . She came from a family of performers. Her mother was a yodeling harpist and her father a ventriloquist ; both were funfair entertainers. Around 1880, the family emigrated to New York City, where Minnie married Sam Marx in 1884. Samuel ("Sam"; born Simon) Marx

29568-470: The stage for 657 performances. Chinatown itself was surpassed by the musical Irene (1919) in 1921 as the longest-running Broadway musical, and even earlier, in March 1920, by Lightnin' (1918) as the longest-running Broadway show. In 1896, theatre owners Marc Klaw and A. L. Erlanger formed the Theatrical Syndicate , which controlled almost every legitimate theatre in the U.S. for

29760-434: The term "Broadway theatre" is used predominantly to describe venues with seating capacities of at least 500 people. Smaller theaters in New York City are referred to as off-Broadway , regardless of location, while very small venues with fewer than 100 seats are called off-off-Broadway , a term that can also apply to non-commercial, avant-garde , or productions held outside of traditional theater venues. The Theater District

29952-410: The term "vaudeville" in place of "variety" in early 1876. Hoping to draw a potential audience from female and family-based shopping traffic uptown , Pastor barred the sale of liquor in his theatres, eliminated bawdy material from his shows, and offered gifts of coal and hams to attendees. Pastor's experiment proved successful, and other managers soon followed suit. The manager's comments, sent back to

30144-627: The theatres built by impresario Alexander Pantages . Pantages often used architect B. Marcus Priteca (1881–1971), who in turn regularly worked with muralist Anthony Heinsbergen . Priteca devised an exotic, neo-classical style that his employer called "Pantages Greek". Though classic vaudeville reached a zenith of capitalization and sophistication in urban areas dominated by national chains and commodious theatres, small-time vaudeville included countless more intimate and locally controlled houses. Small-time houses were often converted saloons, rough-hewn theatres, or multi-purpose halls, together catering to

30336-534: The theatres. Since colored bulbs burned out too quickly, white lights were used, and Broadway was nicknamed "The Great White Way". In August 1919, the Actors' Equity Association demanded a standard contract for all professional productions. After a strike shut down all the theatres, the producers were forced to agree. By the 1920s, the Shubert Brothers had risen to take over the majority of the theatres from

30528-481: The theatrical producer and director who established The Public Theater , led the "Save the Theatres" campaign. It was a not-for-profit group supported by the Actors Equity union to save the theater buildings in the neighborhood from demolition by monied Manhattan development interests. Papp provided resources, recruited a publicist and celebrated actors, and provided audio, lighting, and technical crews for

30720-461: The time, the average age of theatergoers was 40.4; nearly two-thirds of the audience were women; and 29% identified as a racial minority. The classification of theatres is governed by language in Actors' Equity Association contracts. To be eligible for a Tony, a production must be in a house with 500 seats or more and in the Theater District, which are the criteria that define Broadway theatre. Off-Broadway and off-off-Broadway shows often provide

30912-690: The time. She worked largely in comedy and gained acclaim and success due to her willingness to step into other's roles who had fallen ill, and were otherwise unable to perform. In her acts, she often emphasized her plus-size figure, calling herself the "perfect forty-six". Friganza was also a poet and writer. She used many of her performances as ways to raise money to support the poor or disenfranchised and went on record publicly numerous times to support these social causes. Friganza also spent much of her life fighting for women's equality and pushing for self-acceptance for women, both publicly and within themselves, as well as their rights in comparison to men. Betty Felsen

31104-414: The title as "Groucho — Chico — Harpo — Marx Bros", with the same ordering in the cast list. Unlike the free-for-all scripts at Paramount, Thalberg insisted on a strong story structure that made the brothers more sympathetic characters, interweaving their comedy with romantic plots and non-comic musical numbers, and targeting their mischief-making at obvious villains. Thalberg was adamant that scripts include

31296-568: The twenties, there were 70–80 theaters, but by 1969, there were 36 left. During this time, many Broadway productions struggled due to low attendance rates, which resulted in perceived mediocrity among such plays. For this reason, the Theatre Development Fund was created with the purpose of assisting productions with high cultural value that likely would struggle without subsidization, by offering tickets to those plays to consumers at reduced prices. In early 1982, Joe Papp ,

31488-600: The vast majority of formerly live theatres had been wired for sound, and none of the major studios were producing silent pictures. For a time, the most luxurious theatres continued to offer live entertainment, but most theatres were forced by the Great Depression to economize. Some in the industry blamed cinema's drain of talent from the vaudeville circuits for the medium's demise. Others argued that vaudeville had allowed its performances to become too familiar to its famously loyal, now seemingly fickle audiences. There

31680-478: The vaudeville stage, Irish Americans became interpreters of immigrant cultural images in American popular culture. New arrivals found their ethnic group status defined within the immigrant population and in their new country as a whole by the Irish on stage. Unfortunately, the same interactions between ethnic groups within the close living conditions of cities also created racial tensions which were reflected in vaudeville. Conflict between Irish and African Americans saw

31872-568: The vein of Victor Herbert. Live theatre has survived the invention of cinema. Leaving these comparatively frivolous entertainments behind and taking the drama a step forward, Show Boat premiered on December 27, 1927, at the Ziegfeld Theatre . It represented a complete integration of book and score, with dramatic themes, as told through the music, dialogue, setting, and movement, woven together more seamlessly than in previous musicals. It ran for 572 performances. The 1920s also spawned

32064-692: The war's end, theatre resumed in 1798, when the 2,000-seat Park Theatre was built on Chatham Street on present-day Park Row . A second major theatre, Bowery Theatre , opened in 1826, followed by others. By the 1840s, P.T. Barnum was operating an entertainment complex in Lower Manhattan. In 1829, at Broadway and Prince Street, Niblo's Garden opened and soon became one of New York's premier nightspots. The 3,000-seat theatre presented all sorts of musical and non-musical entertainments. In 1844, Palmo's Opera House opened and presented opera for only four seasons before bankruptcy led to its rebranding as

32256-529: The winter of 1923 Betty began a partnership with Jack Broderick. From then until the end of 927 Broderick & Felsen performed on the B.F. Keith and Pantages vaudeville circuits throughout the U.S. and Canada. Their act evolved from a simple dance act to one with over twenty dancers, an orchestra, and elaborate costumes and sets. From 1925 to 1926 they played for 20 straight weeks at the huge Colony Theater on Broadway in New York City. In 1926 and 1927, they starred in two spectacular musical productions, touring across

32448-486: The years progressed, people seeking diversified amusement found an increasing number of ways to be entertained. Vaudeville was characterized by traveling companies touring through cities and towns. A handful of circuses regularly toured the country; dime museums appealed to the curious; amusement parks, riverboats, and town halls often featured "cleaner" presentations of variety entertainment; compared to saloons, music halls, and burlesque houses, which catered to those with

32640-400: Was A Night at the Opera (1935), a satire on the world of opera, where the brothers help two young singers in love by throwing a production of Il Trovatore into chaos. The film, including its famous scene where an absurd number of people crowd into a tiny stateroom on a ship, was a great success. It was followed two years later by an even bigger hit, A Day at the Races (1937), in which

32832-453: Was Lillian Hellman 's Watch on the Rhine , which opened in April 1941. After the lean years of the Great Depression , Broadway theatre had entered a golden age with the blockbuster hit Oklahoma! , in 1943, which ran for 2,212 performances. According to John Kenrick 's writings on Broadway musicals, "Every season saw new stage musicals send songs to the top of the charts. Public demand,

33024-539: Was 14.77 million in 2018–2019, compared to 13.79 million in 2017–2018. The average age of the Broadway audience in the 2017–18 theater season was 40, the lowest it had been in nearly two decades. By 2018, about 20% of Broadway tickets were sold to international visitors, although many visitors reported not being able to use their tickets. In 2022–2023, the first full season since the COVID-19 pandemic, Broadway theaters sold 12.3 million tickets, of which 35% were to local residents and 17% to international visitors. At

33216-414: Was Pauline, or "Polly". Leonard Joseph "Chico" Marx was the eldest of the brothers, born in 1887. Adolph "Harpo" Marx was born in 1888, Julius Henry "Groucho" Marx in 1890, Milton "Gummo" Marx in 1892, and the youngest, Herbert Manfred "Zeppo" Marx, in 1901. Family lore told privately of the firstborn son, Manny, born in 1886 but surviving for only three months, and dying of tuberculosis. Some members of

33408-644: Was a 50-performance hit called The Elves in 1857. In 1870, the heart of Broadway was in Union Square , and by the end of the century, many theatres were near Madison Square . Theatres arrived in the Times Square area in the early 1900s, and the Broadway theatres consolidated there after a large number were built around the square in the 1920s and 1930s. New York runs continued to lag far behind those in London, but Laura Keene 's "musical burletta" The Seven Sisters (1860) shattered previous New York records with

33600-548: Was a Groucho. Herbert was not nicknamed by Art Fisher, since he did not join the act until Gummo had departed. As with Groucho, three explanations exist for Herbert's name "Zeppo": Maxine Marx reported in The Unknown Marx Brothers that the brothers listed their real names (Julius, Leonard, Adolph, Milton, and Herbert) on playbills and in programs, and only used the nicknames behind the scenes, until Alexander Woollcott overheard them calling one another by

33792-603: Was a comedienne who got her start in Vaudeville and the Chitlin circuits in the 1920s, and ended up with mainstream success in the 20th century. Other 20th century women performers who started in Vaudeville included blues singers Ma Rainey , Ida Cox and Bessie Smith . Women-led touring companies like Black Patti's Troubadours , the Whitman Sisters and the Hyers Sisters were popular acts. Other women worked

33984-536: Was a native of Mertzwiller , a small Alsatian village, and worked as a tailor. His name was changed to Samuel Marx, and he was nicknamed "Frenchy". The family lived in New York City's Upper East Side in the Yorkville district centered in the Irish, German and Italian quarters. The Marx Brothers also had an older sister (actually a cousin, born in January 1885) who had been adopted by Minnie and Frenchy. Her name

34176-623: Was accepted to be a member of the Chicago Opera’s Pavley-Oukrainsky Ballet corps de ballet. From December 1920 until the fall of 1922 Betty was a ballerina soloist and performed with them throughout North America. Under the name Buddye Felsen, Betty landed a starring dancing role in a new show at Fred Mann’s Million Dollar Rainbo Room in the Rainbo Gardens . The show, Rainbo Trail , directed by Frank Westphal , opened on 15 December 1922, and ran until 1 March 1923. In

34368-664: Was an American ballerina, vaudeville star, and teacher. She was born on 9 June 1905, in Chicago, IL Betty began taking lessons at a local Chicago ballet school when she was eight years old, and often performed solo dances in shows presented by that school. Just before her tenth birthday in 1916, her parents enrolled her as a ballet student with the Pavley-Oukrainsky Ballet School within the Chicago Opera Association. Then, in 1919 Betty

34560-433: Was expanding. These expectations for women in the 19th century played a big role in the compelling aspects of vaudeville. Through vaudeville, many women were allowed to join their male counterparts on the stage and found success in their acts. Leila Marie Koerber, later Marie Dressler , was a Canadian actress who specialized in vaudeville comedy, and eventually won an Academy Award for Best Actress later in her career. Being

34752-428: Was given the middle name Manfred in his memory. The core of the act was the three elder brothers: Chico, Harpo, and Groucho, each of whom developed a highly distinctive stage persona. After the group essentially disbanded in 1950, Groucho went on to a successful second career in television, while Harpo and Chico appeared less prominently. The two younger brothers, Gummo and Zeppo, never developed their stage characters to

34944-560: Was in 1905, mainly as a singer. By 1907, he and Gummo were singing together as "The Three Nightingales" with Mabel O'Donnell . The next year, Harpo became the fourth Nightingale and by 1910, the group briefly expanded to include their mother Minnie and their Aunt Hannah. The troupe was renamed "The Six Mascots". One evening in 1912, a performance at the Opera House in Nacogdoches, Texas , was interrupted by shouts from outside about

35136-410: Was named Harpo because he played the harp, and Leonard became Chico (pronounced "Chick-o") because he was, in the slang of the period, a "chicken-chaser". ("Chickens" – later "chicks" – was period slang for women. "In England now," said Groucho, "they were called 'birds'.") In his autobiography, Harpo explained that Milton became Gummo because he crept about the theater like

35328-417: Was no abrupt end to vaudeville, though the form was clearly sagging by the late 1920s. Joseph Kennedy Sr. in a hostile buyout, acquired the Keith-Albee-Orpheum Theatres Corporation (KAO), which had more than 700 vaudeville theatres across the United States which had begun showing movies. The shift of New York City's Palace Theatre, vaudeville's center, to an exclusively cinema presentation on 16 November 1932,

35520-443: Was now used for comic relief on the vaudeville stage, where stereotypes of different ethnic groups were perpetuated. The crude stereotypes that emerged were easily identifiable not only by their distinct ethnic cultural attributes, but how those attributes differed from the mainstream established American culture and identity. Coupled with their historical presence on the English stage for comic relief, and as operators and actors of

35712-413: Was on 4 June 1928, at Broadway’s Palace Theater in New York City. Another famous comedienne, one who brought in thousands of audience members with her signature improvisational skills, was May Irwin . She worked from about 1875 to 1914. Originally born Ada Campbell, she began her life on the stage at thirteen years old following the death of her father. She and her older sister created a singing act called

35904-440: Was rivaled only by churches and public schools among the nation's premiere public gathering places. Another slightly different aspect of Vaudeville was an increasing interest in the female figure. The previously mentioned ominous idea of "the blue envelopes" led to the phrase "blue" material, which described the provocative subject matter present in many Vaudeville acts of the time. Many managers even saw this scandalous material as

36096-460: Was said that if an act would succeed in Peoria, Illinois , it would work anywhere. The question "Will it play in Peoria?" has now become a metaphor for whether something appeals to the American mainstream public. The three most common levels were the "small time" (lower-paying contracts for more frequent performances in rougher, often converted theatres), the "medium time" (moderate wages for two performances each day in purpose-built theatres), and

36288-460: Was simply a continuation of the circumstances that brought them to America. Through these acts, they were able to assimilate themselves into their new home while also bringing bits of their own culture into this new world. White-oriented regional circuits, such as New England 's "Peanut Circuit", also provided essential training grounds for new artists while allowing established acts to experiment with and polish new material. At its height, vaudeville

36480-822: Was the case for Sherman H. Dudley and the Griffin Sisters Later, in the 1920s, many bookings were managed by the Theatre Owners Booking Association . African-Americans challenged the prevailing Blackface stereotypes played by white performers by bringing their own authenticity and style to the stage, composing music, comedy and dance routines and laying the groundwork for distinctly American cultural phenomena like blues , jazz , ragtime and tap dance . Notable Black entertainers in Vaudeville included comedians Bert Williams , and George Walker , dancer/choreographer Ada Overton Walker , and many others. Black songwriters and composers like Bob Cole , Ernest Hogan , Irving Jones , Rosamond Johnson , George Johnson , Tom Lemonier , Gussie L. Davis , and Chris Smith , wrote many of

36672-403: Was their most popular film yet, and won them the cover of Time magazine. It included a running gag from their stage work, in which Harpo produces a ludicrous array of props from inside his coat, including a wooden mallet, a fish, a coiled rope, a tie, a poster of a woman in her underwear, a cup of hot coffee, a sword and (just after Groucho warns him that he "can't burn the candle at both ends")

36864-458: Was under renovation at the time, would be renamed after actor James Earl Jones . In June 2022, the Nederlanders announced that the Brooks Atkinson Theatre would be renamed after Lena Horne , The James Earl Jones Theatre was rededicated in September 2022, while the Lena Horne Theatre was rededicated that November. Although there are some exceptions, shows with open-ended runs generally have evening performances Tuesday through Saturday, with

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