Tent show
Tent shows have been an important part of American history since the mid-to-late nineteenth century. In 1927, Don Carle Gillette gave "statistical evidence that the tented drama constituted 'a more extensive business than Broadway and all the rest of the legitimate theatre industry put together.'" The shows first began "in regions which couldn’t support full-time playhouses." Men such as Fayette Lodowick, one of the earliest tent show entrepreneurs, would travel around river towns all over the United States making money on traveling tent shows. These shows "were utilized for a variety of amusements including medicine shows, moving picture shows, vaudeville shows, circuses, musicals, concert companies, and any number of one-night stand dramatic troupes."
Tent theatre played a critical role in the American entertainment industry. It first grew out of opera houses, which were in almost every major city until the end of the nineteenth century. The opera houses were very poorly ventilated at the time, which did not appeal to the audiences. The tents were outdoors and therefore had no problem with overheating or poor ventilation, because the winds would provide a nice way of cooling down the audiences. Tent theatre boomed by the 1920s, when the industry for outdoor entertainment was at its peak, and declined shortly after. From the origins of tent shows, to its decline and fall, tent theatre had a major influence on American culture and left a legacy for tent shows everywhere.
Origins and the opera house
Tent theatre received its influence from the original small town opera houses. The golden age of the opera house, "the last thirty years of the 19th century,"along with the rapid expansion of America's rail transportation network, allowed for performing artists to tour America more easily and efficiently. As the operations developed by touring opera companies improved, canvas theatres began adopting the business methods used by opera houses. These methods were implemented by people such as Roy E. Fox and Harley Sadler, tent entrepreneurs who had large amounts of "public relations and an unusual amount of publicity." Fox and Sadler always made sure to make the shows as intricate as possible. They studied the seating arrangements, making the theatre space more like a normal playhouse instead of circular like a circus, used platform stages to make the actors more visible, properly ventilated the tents so they could be used year-round, and created optimal lighting for the actors.
Tent shows became very popular when, during the summer months, the opera houses would get so hot that audiences would rather stay home than go and be in the blazing heat of the summer with no ventilation. This is where the tent shows made their way to become forerunners in the entertainment industry of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Tent shows were exceedingly popular in the western part of the United States.
At the time, small shows at opera houses had begun to get too expensive to be put on. In 1900, "There were approximately 340 theatrical companies touring… by 1920 the number had dwindled to less than 50." As the opera touring companies began to shut down, outdoor entertainment such as tent theatre began to start a new trend. Although the number of touring tent shows increased dramatically, tent shows had many regulations they had to abide by. One major issue tent theatre had was piracy. The shows put on could not have low enough prices and still be able to give the people what they want. When troupes were not brave enough to pirate plays, "managers and other members of repertoire troupes became playwrights, re-hashing old plots and devices, re-dressing new and popular pieces, and inventing fresh situations tailored to the special talents of their company." In 1897, the copyright law was revised. "The revision explained that anyone proven guilty of piracy was to pay 100 dollars for the first performance and 50 for each performance after that." The guilty person would also be charged with a misdemeanor and serve at least a year in prison. Due to the strict law, many companies had to raise prices. This caused competition of price-cutting for the tent shows. Although tent shows faced many issues like this throughout the twentieth century, the 1920s were still the most successful time for tent shows.
Types of tent shows
Repertory companies
acted similarly to the touring companies we know today, though rather than traveling from theatre to theatre, they would travel with their equipment, set up in town and perform "repertories extensive enough to provide a week's worth of entertainment." Although a week's stay was typical, a "stay could be lengthened to as long as two months in occasional larger cities." Such companies would often have a star performer with them to help attract audiences.Circus
The more popular type of performance that would take place in the tent shows was the circus. The owner typically associated with the circus is P.T. Barnum of the Barnum and Bailey Circus, which is still in operation today. An excerpt from the book Traveling Medicine Show states, "Circuses were based on the idea that rural townsfolk were underexposed to the world, and the circus was the medium through which they could experience exotic entertainment and ideas, a concept the medicine show would later exploit to equal success."Medicine shows
Similarly to the circus, medicine shows were groups of travelling performers that put on entertaining acts, but unlike circuses, their performances were "interspersed with sales pitches peddling miracle cures, elixirs and other various products of a dubious nature."Vaudeville
was a very popular type of entertainment that would perform in the tent shows. Vaudeville really defined the culture of life after the Civil War. The development of vaudeville marked the beginning of popular entertainment as big business dependent on the organization of a growing number of white-collar workers and the increased leisure time, spending power and changing tastes of an urban middle class audience. Vaudeville provided more material and formats for the medicine show than any other popular form. Vaudeville, also a variety show, established the conception of having a variety of entertainment styles with no need for connection or relation.Wild West shows
were a very interesting yet fun type of entertainment that would perform in the tent shows. These shows had many different kinds of acts that centered around "cowboys and Indians". The Wild West shows basically created an "American folklore", heroizing the cowboy and exploiting the exoticism of the Native Americans. They were variety shows about western mythology and often included cheap thrills with gun shows and animal exhibitions.Buffalo Bill Cody was one of the most famous Wild West show owners. The musical Annie Get Your Gun was later inspired by his employee, Annie Oakley. She was a young sharpshooter who got her start in other, less popular touring shows and was brought on by Buffalo Bill Cody as a novelty act.
Circuit Chautauqua
Unlike the other styles which were obviously spectacle and performance-centric mediums, circuit Chautauqua marketed itself as an educational week for local towns. "Although Chautauqua programs were performed in a tent, on a stage, by professional entertainers, for which admission was charged, extreme care was taken to keep this separate from 'show business'". However, the educational nature made it no less entertaining or popular amongst the communities in which Chautauqua weeks were held.Famous performers
"In the early part of the 19th century, theatre audiences were primarily male, and men dominated as entertainers. Women actresses did not become popular until around the middle of the century." Once it became socially acceptable for women to perform in these tent shows, a new fad began to arise in performers. Husband and wife duos were exceedingly popular, but they did not always work successfully on stage. Another strange phenomenon that came about was that the women performing were not exactly the most attractive women. Some were tall, some homely, and some too big to even be stuffed into a corset successfully. This is the opposite of what was happening in the movie and theatre industry of the time. A few big names of the tent show circuits include Edwin Forrest, Jenny Lind, Fingal O'Flahertie, Wills Wilde, Eddie Foy, and Jack Langrishe. Notably, actress Sarah Bernhardt also toured the United States in a tent show.Theatre in the 19th century often blurred the lines between actor, producer, and director. Harley Sadler, the quintessential "actor-manager", and his New Stage Show was wildly popular in Texas in the mid 1930s and was self-described as the "biggest" the "best" and the "largest" tent show in America. He was touted by competitors as being the best and standing out in a way the others could not. He presented shows with stock characters that his hardy audience could identify with and had his actors speak in their audience’s accent. His tent was designed to maximize airflow during blistering Texas summers, and mimic a homely feeling that was a fun place to be. Harley knew how to entertain and handle the business side of a production company that large with such a widespread footprint. He even made deals with big-time companies like 20th Century Fox and their actresses to create publicity for both. His shows were often vaudeville-esque, with a variety of entertainment offered during the stay. He and his players would perform comedic dramas that always had a happy ending with a vaudeville act at each intermission, ranging from performing dogs or children to all the typical vaudeville entertainments: stand-up comedy, song and dance, magicians, and so much more. Audiences loved the simplicity and the beauty of these acts in between the evening’s star entertainment. Sadler’s tent show, though the most beloved of them, represented a vast majority of what it meant to be a successful touring theatre troupe in America.