Event

Vaudeville on Vitaphone

Guest Speaker: Author and Vaudevillian Trav. S. D.

Admission includes post-screening reception and book signing.

Trav S.D., modern-day vaudevillian and author of No Applause, Just Throw Money: The Book That Made Vaudeville Famous presents an evening of rare and hilarious comedy shorts from the late 1920s starring vaudeville's top comedians, including Burns and Allen, Bert Lahr, Joe E. Brown, Fred Allen, J.C. Flippen, Baby Rose Marie, and more! From 1881 to 1932, vaudeville was at the heart of show business in the United States. Its stars were America's first stars in the modern sense, and it utterly dominated American popular culture. Trav S.D. explores the many ways in which vaudeville's story is the story of show business in America and documents the rich history and cultural legacy of our country's only purely indigenous theatrical form. The arrival of sound movies was the final blow that knocked vaudeville from the top of the entertainment world but ironically it also preserved many of vaudevilles greatest acts. Right around when they were making The Jazz Singer (1927), Warner Bros. brought countless vaudeville performers into their Vitaphone studios. Newly restored by UCLA Film and Television Archives, these amazing short films offer an eye-opening, side-splitting window into a lost world of delightful American entertainment.