CHAPTER 7 | THE RISE OF TIN PAN ALLEY 177
1896 to form the Syndicate, a group that controlled most major theaters in New
York and many outside. By 1906 the Syndicate boasted a network of some seven
hundred theaters nationwide, and touring on its circuit was coming to be an
orderly process, directed from New York. The Syndicate didn’t just schedule the
shows; it also controlled their content down to such details as the removal or
addition of songs.
Consolidation also took place in variety entertainment, known by the turn of
the century as vaudeville. Its roots lay in New York’s music halls, concert saloons,
beer gardens, and variety houses where Marks plugged his songs. Vaudeville also
owed much to the large numbers of immigrants who had arrived by boat from
Europe. In the form that crystallized around 1900, vaudeville combined a wide
range of performers—comedians, jugglers, acrobats, actors, animal trainers,
dancers, singers, and instrumentalists of every nationality—into an evening’s
entertainment at cheap prices. A standard vaudeville format called for nine acts,
each running fi fteen minutes or less. Shows often began with a “dumb act” (i.e.,
one with no spoken material—dancers, pantomimes, or acrobats) while late-
comers straggled in; from there the show would build, with a climactic eighth
act that featured the star. Following the headliner, an intentionally anticlimactic
dumb act would act as the “chaser” to clear the hall so the entire show could be
repeated for a new audience. A particular group of acts, or “bill,” might play a
given theater for one night or several weeks, depending on the community’s size
and the main star’s drawing power.
As the Syndicate had done for musical theater, the Keith-Albee organization
brought order to vaudeville when in 1906 it formed the United Booking Offi ce
of America, connecting thousands of performers and theater managers. In 1927
Keith-Albee combined with the Orpheum circuit, which played a similar role in
the West. A smaller circuit in the South, the Theater Owners Booking Associa-
tion (TOBA), brought black talent to black theaters and audiences, a market that
Keith-Albee and Orpheum never tried to serve. Vaudeville czars held such powerK In the early 1900s venues
across the country, such as
the Grand Theater in Buffalo,
New York, offered variety
entertainment for low prices.vaudeville172028_07_162-182_r3_ko.indd 177 23/01/13 10:19 AM