The Great American Revue: - New York Public Library

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8 Group iii: the body as performance Artists & Models (Shubert Brothers, 1923 – 1925, 1927, 1930, 1943) Focus: Establishment of series identity through graphics, scripts, etc. Earl Carroll’s Vanities (1923 – 1926, 1928, 1930—1932, 1940) & Sketchbooks (1929, 1935) Focus: Survival of the tableau vivant Group iv: political satires Americana, As Thousands Cheer, Life Begins at 8:40, and Pins & Needles. Focus: The changing role of modern dance and ballet in revues Top Left: Promotional palette design for the Artists & Models series. Top Center: Letitia Ide and José Limón in the “Heat Wave” sequence in As Thousands Cheer. Photograph by Vandamm Studio. Top Right: Dancers as Cocktails in the Passing Show of 1919. Above: Photograph of “The Birth of the Blues” sequence in the George White Scandals of 1926, used as the centerfold of G. Maillard Kesslere’s Art Impressions souvenir brochure.
9 Three political-cultural topics were so entrenched in the period that they were featured in every contemporary revue series. ❖ The popularity of the Russian ballet made specific ballets and dancers show up in most of the revue series from 1910 – 1926, with frequent parodies of Scheherazade and pun-filled characters based on Pavlova, Mordkin and Nijinsky. ❖ In the World War I era, revues began to address their public’s concerns with benefit events for refugees before America entered the War and continues through Elsie Janis’ work with veterans and the Bonus Army in the 1920s. In the seasons between, revues presented patriotic pageantry and comedy about taxes and rationing, and listed performer and writers’ military ranks in their programs. ❖ Prohibition was feared as a threat to New York’s entertainment/ tourism industries and detested by Broadway script and song writers. From Raymond Hitchcock’s Hitchy-Koo monologue a few weeks before enactment to the annual variations of “Three Mile” jokes, they played to their audience’s knowledge of ways around the Amendment’s provisions. Revues provided visibility to generations of performers, designers, directors, choreographers, writers, and songwriters who went on to redefine Broadway, films, television, and popular entertainments. The form has never disappeared. Hollywood adopted the form to usher in the sound era, with each surviving studio presenting its own all-singing revue. Many of the Broadway series continued or resumed into the 1940s. Revues led by comics such as Bert Lahr proved popular into the 1950s on Broadway. Since the 1960s, Off-Broadway and night club revues flourish in the pattern of the Grand Street Follies and Garrick Gaities, celebrating song writing and social satire.
Page 1: The Great American Revue: How Flore
Page 4 and 5: 4 Why did Revues become so popular
Page 6 and 7: 6 The revues series (chronologicall
Page 10 and 11: Credits & Acknowledgments Public Pr
Page 12: Support for this exhibition has bee

The Great American Revue: - New York Public Library

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