Coming Soon: The Year of American Vaudeville

September 28 was the birthday of both Ed Sullivan and his boss, CBS founder and President William S. Paley. I wonder who got the bigger cake? Anyway, It seemed like a good time to catch you up on where my promised book about broadcast variety shows is at — and many other exciting plans that are in the works.

Work on the variety show book, which I’m calling Electric Vaudeville, proceeds apace, and it is a great pleasure to work on (imagine getting to watch episodes of Laugh-In as “research”), but it’s a bigger job than I anticipated, so it’s gone over deadline a couple of times. Meanwhile, something dawned on me. It just so happens that the period from now until the end of 2026 is a veritable blizzard of important anniversaries related to vaudeville history, U.S. history, New York history, and my own life. It includes (in chronological order) the 20th anniversary of my vaudeville book No Applause, the 150th anniversary of the Philadelphia World’s Fair (a.k.a. the Centennial Exposition), the 400th anniversary of the Dutch “purchase” of Manhattan, the 250th anniversary of American Independence (kind of major, don’t you think?), the 30th anniversary of my American Vaudeville Theatre, the bicentennial of New York’s Bowery Theatre, the centennial of Houdini’s death, and the bicentennial of vaudeville in New York (though not the circuits). That’s just SOME of the significant dates that are approaching. Amongst them as well, the centennials of the founding of NBC and CBS radio networks! And that’s the occasion I intend to peg Electric Vaudeville to, about a year from now.

To observe this Year of Vaudeville, I am planning an ambitious slate of vaudeville shows, live talks and monologues, educational videos and podcasts, and the like, to take place between December 2025 and December 2026.

NO! It has not escaped my attention that the country is sliding down to hell down the greasiest of garbage chutes, and that, without exaggeration, the entire globe is in danger. Attentive readers will notice that I fold something about the state of the world into nearly every new post. But it’s also true that these significant historical benchmarks come around but once in a red, white, and blue moon. Unlike some lunatics, I don’t think of life as a zero sum game. Whether we do our work and whether we fight to save our country need not be an either/or proposition. Exploration of vaudeville inspires second level discussion about the American culture that informs it, about democracy, egalitarianism, diversity, opportunity, the pursuit of happiness etc etc. Vaudeville is a living symbol of what it means for individuals to cooperate in the context of a harmonious whole without losing their own identities. So this is the form my resistance to the flood-tide of Fascism will take: an alternative vision that just happens to be several centuries old. “They” don’t get to define patriotism for us. Particularly when they’re so very wrong about what makes this country great.

I want to alert you that this isn’t intended to be a solo trip. I want (and need) to collaborate with as many friends as possible: performers, audio-video pros, venues and their staffs, supporters. If I do this right, I’ll be contacting nearly everyone I’ve ever met to participate in some way, and I don’t intend to be shy about asking for help in making it happen. The main risk of course is in making plans at a time when the world as we know it may end at any time. It may indeed end tomorrow. I have particular worries about Tuesday. On the other hand, in many respects the world as we knew it is already long gone. If we alter our plans, or cancel them, in order to accommodate those who are trying to destroy us, we’re just doing the bad guys’ work for them. It’s high time to be as loudly and obnoxiously ourselves as we dare to be. Do we HAVE to listen to that guy? Let’s start DROWNING OUT the sound of that man with something better than hatred.