Centennial State Diary (Entertainment Venues Edition) – Glenwood Springs Vaudeville Review
Classic Vaudeville Variety Dinner Show in the Rocky Mountains
Glenwood Springs Vaudeville Review
The Springs Theatre
915 Grand Avenue
Glenwood Springs, CO
(970) 945-9699
http://www.gvrshow.com/
About Glenwood Springs Vaudeville Review
“Vaudeville was not about telling stories; it was about putting on a show, and more than that, it was about each performer's individual attempt to stop the show and steal the applause.”
-HENRY JENKINS, The Wow Climax: Tracing the Emotional Impact of Popular Culture
The Glenwood Vaudeville Review revives the heyday of Vaudeville, dating back to the 1800’s, with content that pokes fun at modern day living. The material changes each season as the cast creates a new show filled with classic comedy routines and“…a mix of skits, jokes, slapstick humor, magic, audience participation, barbershop numbers and novelty songs.”
In 2013, the Glenwood Vaudeville Review underwent a major renovation which moved the show from the Masonic Lodge to their current location on Grand Avenue in Glenwood Springs, CO. During the renovation and relocation, the company acquired a rare piece of Vaudeville history to include as part of the show…a Wurlitzer photoplayer piano.
The Wurlitzer Photoplayer Piano is part player piano and part sound effects machine. Photoplayers, or “orchestrians” as they were sometimes called, provided sound for the early moving pictures known as photo plays.
Before film, moving pictures were literally still photos on a series of pages that, when flipped through, created the first silent movies. Because there was no audio, the only sound effects came from the photo player.
The machine is equipped with a large blower and works off of an air regulator. When the different levers above the piano keyboard, or “stops” as they are called, are pulled, air travels to the different pipes creating additional sounds, such as flute, cello, violin and bass.
The more stops, the more sound, which is where the old saying, “pull out all the stops,” originated.
Glenwood Vaudeville Revue is a pub-style dinner theater that features two-hours of family entertainment. Shows run every Friday, Saturday and Sunday, throughout most of the year.
A Brief History of the Vaudeville Show
Beginning in the 1880s American Vaudeville grew from the culture of post Civil War American life and marked the infancy of entertainment as big business. It was a perfect mix of century’s old cultural traditions, including the English Music Hall, the minstrel shows of Antebellum America and Yiddish Theatre- but the real focus of Vaudeville was comedy. Each show always started and ended with the weakest performers. It could go on for hours and the goal of every performer was to steal the applause and the show.
Vaudeville was made up of comedians, singers, plate spinners, ventriloquists, dancers, musicians, acrobats, animal trainers and anyone who could keep the interest of an audience for more than three minutes.
Benjamin Franklin Keith earns the dubious distinction of being recognized as "the father" of American Vaudeville. Keith's triumph as a showman lay chiefly in his ability to bridge the perceived chasm between notions of "high" and "low" entertainment. While he maintained a number of acts whose forms would have been familiar to fans of the earlier variety stage, Keith maintained his theatres' image of gentility by including acts from the "legitimate" stage, drawing an audience previously unavailable to variety amusements.
The Vaudeville show took on a distinctively different theme in the west, which would serve to mythologize the American past. The Wild West Show was born, and with it came none other than Buffalo Bill Cody. Buffalo Bill’s Wild West show captivated audiences worldwide from 1883-1913. It created and spread the myth of the American West, sired the icon of the American Cowboy and forever crystallized the Plains Indian and their lifestyle as the stereotypical Indian. His show exposed the world to the like and talents of Annie Oakley, Wild Bill Hickock, Bronco Bill and Will Rogers.
Ultimately, after hitting a high point at the 1893 Chicago World’s Fair and selling to a crowd of 18,000, the show, and Vaudeville in general, eventually succumbed to the power of the motion picture industry and faded into history.
My Visit to Glenwood Springs Vaudeville Review
Tribute to Vaudeville History
As my previous blog entries have shown, I have a deep interest in history and the historical aspects of places I feature. One of the most amazing tributes to the art of Vaudeville is on the side of the Glenwood Vaudeville Review building (unfortunately partially obstructed by construction at the time of this writing). It is a mural featuring some of the most historically significant Vaudeville performers (Charlie Chaplain, Laurel & Hardy, The Three Stooges, etc.).
The Glenwood Springs Vaudeville Review does more than just give a historical nod with their tribute. The organization owns one of 12 remaining Wurlitzer Photoplayer Piano’s remaining in the United States, and theirs is the only one used in active theater performance.
About the Show
I have to begin by stating John Goss is one incredibly talented, genius Vaudevillian. He is the creative mind behind all of the antics, skits and numbers in the show. The scope of his creativity is breathtaking considering he produces three seasons of shows every year, while performing and managing the business. John has also managed to get the show some national acclaim.
He brilliantly captures the stalker chick anthem with the number Taylor the Latte Boy (He gave me extra foam. I love him. I LOVE him I LOVE HIM!), and, of course, the rebuttal performance of Taylor, complete with the obligatory Starbucks barista apron, at a later time in the show.
The number Plungers, has a troupe performers perfectly time plungers to “pop” off the surface of the floor, walls and ceiling at key points during a singing and dancing number. The performance is loaded with humor, but was also an incredible display of thoughtful choreography.
The show doesn’t shy away from impolite topics everyone was taught not to discuss, such as politics. The political satire of the performance, Donald J Trump, The “J” Stands for Genius is absolute gem of satire as it straddles the line between offensive and decadently humorous.
Dark humor of Poisoning Pigeons in the Park, was both ghoulish and soul-satisfyingly hilarious. In this number, two old men sing and dance to a dark-humor laced song about feeding strychnine-laced seed to the pigeons.
The show does an excellent job keeping the humor appropriate for a wide range of audience, while dancing close enough to the edge without falling over. Both my four year old daughter (whom I took to the performance) and I are ready to book our next trip to Glenwood Springs to catch the next season this fall and I would strongly advise you to pay a visit to this hidden gem of Vaudeville.
Citations
"Vaudeville, A History." Vaudeville, A History. N.p., n.d. Web. 08 Aug. 2016.
“About Vaudeville.” PBS. October/ 8, 1999. http://www.pbs.org/wnet/americanmasters/vaudeville-/about-vaudeville/721/. Accessed August 1, 2016.
“Native Americans & American Pop Culture: 1885-1930: The Wild West Show.” The Authentic History Center. http://www.authentichistory.com/diversity/native/hb5-wwshow/index.html.
Stroud, John. “Whole Lotta New for the Glenwood Vaudeville Review.” The Post Independent. November 26, 2013. http://www.postindependent.com/news/entertainment/whole-lotta-new-for-the-glenwood-vaudeville-revue/. Accessed August 1, 2016.
La Delle, Frederic. Course of Instruction How to Enter Vaudeville. Found, Wikipedia. August 1, 2016. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vaudeville#/media/File:How_to_Enter_Vaudeville_cover.jpg
WRC. Souvenir Photo of William F. “Buffalo Bill” Cody. Found, PBS. August 1, 2016. http://www.pbs.org/weta/thewest/resources/archives/seven/w67i_cody16.htm
N.A. On the right creator of vaudeville production Benjamin .F. Keith. Found, Cheyo’s Site. August 1, 2016. http://dramaproject9c.weebly.com/vaudeville-and-its-influence.html