Writing for Vaudeville
This etext was produced by Steve Bonner.
Can you be taught how to write for vaudeville? If you have the native gift, what experienced writers say about its problems, what they themselves have accomplished, and the means by which it has been wrought, will be of help to you. So much this book offers, and more I would not claim for it.
Although this volume is the first treatise on the subject of which I know, it is less an original offering than a compilation. Growing out of a series of articles written in collaboration with Mr. William C. Lengel for The Green Book Magazine, the subject assumed such bigness in my eyes that when I began the writing of this book, I spent months harvesting the knowledge of others to add to my own experience. With the warm-heartedness for which vaudevillians are famous, nearly everyone whose aid I asked lent assistance gladly. It is vaudeville's first book, said more than one, deprecating the value of his own suggestions, and we want it right in each slightest particular.
To the following kindly gentlemen I wish to express my especial thanks: Aaron Hoffman, Edwin Hopkins, James Madison, Edgar Allan Woolf, Richard Harding Davis—the foremost example of a writer who made a famous name first in literature and afterward in vaudeville—Arthur Hopkins, Taylor Granville, Junie McCree, Arthur Denvir, Frank Fogarty, Irving Berlin, Charles K. Harris, L. Wolfe Gilbert, Ballard MacDonald, Louis Bernstein, Joe McCarthy, Joseph Hart, Joseph Maxwell, George A. Gottlieb, Daniel F. Hennessy, Sime Silverman, Thomas J. Gray, William C. Lengel, Miss Nellie Revell, the big sister of vaudeville, and a host of others whose names space does not permit my naming again here, but whose work is evidenced in the following pages. To Alexander Black, the man who made the first picture play twenty-one years ago, I owe thanks for points in the discussion of dramatic values. And for many helpful suggestions, and his kindly editing, I wish to express my gratitude to Dr. J. Berg Esenwein. To these friends indeed belongs whatever merit this book possesses.
Brett Page
---
WRITING FOR VAUDEVILLE
FOREWORD
INTRODUCTION
WRITING FOR VAUDEVILLE
I. THE PHYSICAL PROPORTIONS OF THE VAUDEVILLE STAGE
CHAPTER IV
DIAGRAM VIII.—WOOD OR GARDEN SET
CHAPTER V
CHAPTER VI
I. CHOOSING A THEME
CHAPTER VII
CHAPTER VIII
CHAPTER IX
CHAPTER X
CHAPTER XI
CHAPTER XII
I. THE THEME-PROBLEM AND ITS RANGE
CHAPTER XIII
CHAPTER XIV
CHAPTER XV
CHAPTER XVI
CHAPTER XVII
CHAPTER XVIII
CHAPTER XIX
CHAPTER XX
CHAPTER XXI
CHAPTER XXII
ALEXANDER'S RAGTIME BAND
THE TRAIL OF THE LONESOME PINE
SWEET ITALIAN LOVE
OH HOW THAT GERMAN COULD LOVE
WHEN IT STRIKES HOME
MY LITTLE DREAM GIRL
MEMORIES
PUT ON YOUR OLD GREY BONNET
II. QUALITIES OF THE POPULAR SONG LYRIC
CHAPTER XXIII
CHAPTER XXIV
A LIST OF WELL KNOWN VAUDEVILLE PRODUCERS
THE LARGER CIRCUITS AND BOOKING OFFICES
PUBLISHERS OF VAUDEVILLE MATERIAL
CHAPTER XXV
APPENDIX
A WORD ABOUT THE ACTS
THE MONOLOGUE
THE TWO-ACTS
THE PLAYLETS
THE ONE-ACT MUSICAL COMEDY
THE BURLESQUE TAB
THE GERMAN SENATOR
THE ART OF FLIRTATION
AFTER THE SHOWER
AFTER THE SHOWER
SCENE: A pretty country lane in One, (Special drop) supposed to be near Lake George. Rustic bench on R. of stage. When the orchestra begins the music for the act, the girl enters, dressed in a fashionable tailor-made gown, and carrying parasol. She comes on laughing, from L., and glancing back over her shoulder at THE FELLOW, who follows after her, a few paces behind. THE GIRL wears only one glove, and THE FELLOW is holding out the other one to her as he makes his entrance. He is dressed in a natty light summer suit and wears a neat straw hat.
THE VILLAIN STILL PURSUED HER
THE VILLAIN STILL PURSUED HER
THE LOLLARD A SATIRICAL COMEDY
THE LOLLARD
SCENE: The apartment of Miss Carey, a hardworking modiste about 45 years of age, rather sharp in manner, very prudish and a hater of men.
BLACKMAIL A ONE-ACT PLAY BY RICHARD HARDING DAVIS
BLACKMAIL
SCENE
THE SYSTEM A ONE-ACT MELODRAMA
THE SYSTEM
SCENE I
SCENE II
SCENE III
A PERSIAN GARDEN
SCENE
MY OLD KENTUCKY HOME
MY OLD KENTUCKY HOME CHARACTERS
SCENE: Garden of ARTHUR MAYNARD'S plantation. Landscape backing. Set house at left with practical veranda (if possible). Wood wings at right. Set tree up stage at right behind which old pocketbook containing a number of greenbacks is concealed. Bench in front of tree. Pedestal up stage at left, dog-house at right.
GLOSSARY