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The minstrel show, also called minstrelsy, was an American form of theater developed in the early 19th century. [1] The shows were performed by mostly white actors wearing blackface makeup for the purpose of comically portraying racial stereotypes of African Americans. There were also some African-American performers and black-only minstrel ...
Vaudeville. A promotional poster for the Sandow Trocadero Vaudevilles (1894), showing dancers, clowns, trapeze artists, costumed dog, singers and costumed actors. Vaudeville ( / ˈvɔːd ( ə) vɪl, ˈvoʊ -/; [1] French: [vodvil]) is a theatrical genre of variety entertainment which began in France at the end of the 19th century.
Christy's Minstrels, sometimes referred to as the Christy Minstrels, were a blackface group formed by Edwin Pearce Christy, a well-known ballad singer, in 1843, [1] in Buffalo, New York. They were instrumental in the solidification of the minstrel show into a fixed three-act form. [2] The troupe also invented or popularized "the line", the ...
Virginia Minstrels. The Virginia Minstrels or Virginia Serenaders was a group of 19th-century American entertainers who helped invent the entertainment form known as the minstrel show. Led by Dan Emmett, the original lineup consisted of Emmett, Billy Whitlock, Dick Pelham, and Frank Brower . After a successful try-out in the billiard parlor of ...
Thomas D. Rice. Thomas Dartmouth Rice (May 20, 1808 – September 19, 1860) was an American performer and playwright who performed in blackface and used African American vernacular speech, song and dance to become one of the most popular minstrel show entertainers of his time. He is considered the "father of American minstrelsy".
A minstrel was an entertainer, initially in medieval Europe. The term originally described any type of entertainer such as a musician, juggler, acrobat, singer or fool; later, from the sixteenth century, it came to mean a specialist entertainer who sang songs and played musical instruments. [1] [2]
Burlesque on Ben-Hur, c. 1900. A burlesque is a literary, dramatic or musical work intended to cause laughter by caricaturing the manner or spirit of serious works, or by ludicrous treatment of their subjects. [1] The word derives from the Italian burlesco, which, in turn, is derived from the Italian burla – a joke, ridicule or mockery. [2] [3]
Many of these harmful characters were created for minstrel shows, the most popular form of entertainment in the United States in the 1800s. "Minstrel show entertainment was a kind of precursor to ...