Vaudeville acts were the primary form of theatrical entertainment during the period from the early 1880s to the 1930s. These were entertainment acts made up of a variety of performers and styles. Comedy, music, magic, animal acts and others formed the bulk of presentations. The theaters that offered vaudeville entertainment were found in small communities as well as large.

In small town America, people could pay their money and see performers from North America and sometimes Europe. There were levels of circuits amongst the performers. The stars of vaudeville local circuits played in larger areas and made more money for appearing. In one sense, the popularity of vaudeville was similar to that of great traveling circuses. A variety of acts, with humor, color, action and a series of short acts constantly changing all have similarities between circuses and vaudeville.

With the growth of radio shows, a different type of entertainment gradually evolved. Many typical vaudeville acts did not translate well to the medium of radio. Animal acts, acrobats, physical humor such as slapstick had limited application for radio audiences.

The popularity of vaudeville decreased as motion picture theaters became more common in small towns. The decrease in vaudeville accelerated with the growth of television. Many of the early television shows were variety type venues, so the viewer with a television set could see the best of performers doing the same type of acts that would have been appearing in vaudeville. At the same time as television was becoming more common, the stars of vaudeville were aging. Traveling the local circuits was physically demanding at best and many individuals retired out of the business.

By the early 1940s with a wartime mentality, travel was limited and mostly focused on entertaining the troops locally and overseas. Gradually, vaudeville acts disappeared except where they were transitioned into television variety shows. The variety show in turn nearly disappeared by the end of the 1960 when people were much more likely to attend a big name music concert or music festival with many live bands and performers.

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