James Fisher is professor emeritus of theater at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. His twenty books include three Rowman & Littlefield historical dictionaries on American theatre, from its beginning to the present and The Theatre of Tony Kushner: Living Past Hope. Second Edition.He is recipient of the 2017 Mary Settle Sharp Teaching Excellence Award from UNCG and was inducted into the College of Fellows of the American Theatre in 2019.

• AcknowledgmentsReader’s NoteChronologyIntroductionTHE DICTIONARYBibliographyAbout the Author

[Hopefully] this book can be a launching pad for new scholarship on the period that continues to fill in the gaps of variety entertainment. There is much to be learned from how variety entertainment spoke to so many disparate audiences and shaped how Americans understood themselves and others.

James Fisher is professor emeritus of theater at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. His twenty books include three Rowman & Littlefield historical dictionaries on American theatre, from its beginning to the present and The Theatre of Tony Kushner: Living Past Hope. Second Edition.He is recipient of the 2017 Mary Settle Sharp Teaching Excellence Award from UNCG and was inducted into the College of Fellows of the American Theatre in 2019.

• AcknowledgmentsReader’s NoteChronologyIntroductionTHE DICTIONARYBibliographyAbout the Author

[Hopefully] this book can be a launching pad for new scholarship on the period that continues to fill in the gaps of variety entertainment. There is much to be learned from how variety entertainment spoke to so many disparate audiences and shaped how Americans understood themselves and others.

James Fisher is professor emeritus of theater at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. His twenty books include three Rowman & Littlefield historical dictionaries on American theatre, from its beginning to the present and The Theatre of Tony Kushner: Living Past Hope. Second Edition.He is recipient of the 2017 Mary Settle Sharp Teaching Excellence Award from UNCG and was inducted into the College of Fellows of the American Theatre in 2019.

• AcknowledgmentsReader’s NoteChronologyIntroductionTHE DICTIONARYBibliographyAbout the Author

[Hopefully] this book can be a launching pad for new scholarship on the period that continues to fill in the gaps of variety entertainment. There is much to be learned from how variety entertainment spoke to so many disparate audiences and shaped how Americans understood themselves and others.