Vaudeville wars : how the Keith-Albee and Orpheum circuits controlled the big-time and its performers
"Vaudeville Wars illuminates the story about how the tycoons of the two most powerful circuits, Keith-Albee in the East and the Orpheum in the West, conspired to control the business. These ingenious impresarios revolutionized popular stage entertainment by breaking with the bawdy, concert-saloon tradition, creating instead wholesome vaudeville shows. To forge the first large coast-to-coast chain of hundreds of luxurious theaters where the most popular vaudevillians delighted crowds of adoring fans, the moguls used cutthroat tactics to suppress rival owners and to quash performers' rights and the White Rats union through strikebreaking and blacklisting. After the two circuits merged, Joseph page
Print Book, English, 2006
Palgrave Macmillan, New York, 2006