Backlighting
A light placed behind or at right angles to a person or scene to give the illusion of greater depth and/or to help separate the main subject from the background.

Backdrop
See Drop.

Backstage
Any place in the stage area that is not before the audience. That could include being just behind a curtain to being in a dressing room.

Ballyhoo
(1) To advertise in a loud splashy way. Comes from sideshow barkers shouting patter to potential customers while a free sample of the inside show is being performed.
(2) To swing a spotlight around in a figure eight pattern, as it is done in circuses or carnivals.

Barnstorm
To act in traveling plays in small rural towns that had no theaters. Often the only structures big enough to house a play was a farmer's barn.

Bathos
(1) A ludicrous descent from the exalted to the commonplace and trite. An Anti-Climax.
(2) Excessive or false pathos, often unintentionally funny or mawkish.

Batten
A length of metal pipe hung from the gridiron for suspending scenery and equipment such as lights, drops, etc. Also called a pipe batten.

Belaying Pin
A short rounded bar of wood or metal, inserted into a pin rail, in which lines are tied. Cleats often are used instead of belaying pins.

Big Time
First class vaudeville productions with a program usually consisting of a series of acts, an intermission and another series of acts. Big time meant playing in major cities, better salaries and working only two shows a day. Theaters in the big time were the best in the circuits.

Billing
In a vaudeville show, the billing or placement of an act on a program determined the success... or lack of success... of that act. Vaudeville shows usually consisted of eight to twelve acts, ten minutes in length, with an intermission in the middle.

The first or opening act was generally a dumb act because late arriving theatergoers made it difficult for the rest of the audience to hear what was being performed on stage. Theater managers put the most easily ignored acts on first... which was why performers hated being first. Because of stragglers, being the second act was almost as bad as being the opening act. Usually it consisted of female singers, solo or in pairs, doing simple numbers before a curtain.

On the first half of the bill was generally a dramatic narration or a tragic scene from a play. These edited down bits habitually had their melodramatic aspect played up so much that they weren't especially good nor representative of the original work.

In the spot before intermission, second level headliners performed. They were people either on their way up or down the show business ladder. That was also the spot where individuals with a non-show business level of celebrity performed. Newsmakers like Helen Keller or Babe Ruth would lecture for causes or tell anecdotes.

Directly after intermission, big splashy acts with major production numbers were performed. The following acts could be almost anything but, whatever they were, they were superior to what was seen before intermission.

The next to last act was the place for the stars, the main headliners. They were the best acts of the entire show. People that we remember today, such as Burns & Allen or W.C. Fields, occupied that position in the billing.

The closing act, on the other hand, was regularly the worst on the bill. Called 'playing to the haircuts', those performers saw the back of the audience's heads as they exited the theater during their act. Theater managers would purposely book dreadful acts for the final segment to drive the old audience out of the theater faster to make room for the new audience of the next show. Naturally, performers hated being the closing act.

Note: On the white vaudeville circuit, only one Black or 'colored' act was allowed on the bill. This, of course, was not the case on the Negro circuit.

Bit
A rehearsed or familiar sketch or routine within a sketch.

Bit Part
A small role in a play or theatrical production which consists of only a couple of lines. In stock companies, often stage managers or members of the crew did them.

Black Comedy
A comedy that emphasizes morbid, grotesque or disastrous subject matter. Death, murder, war and the destruction of the human race being played for laughs are examples of black comedy. At the end of many black comedies, the heroes... if not everyone... end up dead, in prison or in some terrible situation... which they probably deserve.

Blackface
(1) An entertainer, especially one in a minstrel show, made up for the role of a 'Negro'.
(2) The make-up used to make a person appear to be dark or black skinned, such as burnt cork.

Blackout
See Olio.

Blacks
(1) Any rear and wing black-colored general use stage curtains.
(2) Black clothing worn by stagehands during productions so they will be less visible to the audience in dim light.

Blocking
To establish in rehearsal where a performer will be at a particular time and place on stage during a show or play. This is so the performer will be near the right people or props at the proper time, so his or her lighting will be correct, etc.

Boards
(1) The wooden flooring of a stage. All decent stages have wood floors so that flats or other scenery can be nailed down. If a stage wall can tumble over at the worst possible time, it will.
(2) Someone who 'trod the boards' is a person in the performance side of theater, such as an actor, a dancer, etc.

Bones
A simple rhythm instrument consisting of two short strips of curved or flat bone, ivory or wood, held between the fingers of one hand and clacked together for keeping time with the music. Popular in minstrel shows. Similar to a spoon player.

Book
(1) The script or story of a play, especially a musical.
(2) The text of an opera. Also called a Libretto.

Border
Scenery or curtains placed along the top of a stage at proper intervals to prevent the audience from glimpsing into the rafters and lights. Also called a Teaser or a Valance.

Borscht Belt
Resort area in the New York Catskill Mountains known for its distinctive Jewish comedy. All the hotels, theaters, nightclubs and cabaret were Jewishly owned and operated, with many of their acts being performed only in Yiddish. Many early vaudeville performers got their start in the Borscht Belt. Named after the supposedly huge amounts of borscht (beet soup) consumed there. Also known as the Borscht Circuit.

Borscht Circuit
See Borscht Belt.

Boston Version
A less risqué version of a Burlesque or comedy routine. That is because Boston, Massachusetts had the strictest censors and most vocal religious moralists on the circuit.

Burlecue
See Burlesque.

Burlesk
See Burlesque.

Burlesque
(1) A dramatic solemn composition which vulgarizes lofty themes or which treats common material with mock dignity, all for the sake of laughter. Burlesque often used ludicrous parody, grotesque caricatures and lighthearted music to make a travesty of a serious play or subject.
(2) A provocative comic stage show featuring slapstick humor, low comedy skits, bawdy jokes, striptease acts and semi-nude to completely naked singing and/or dancing chorus girls. Burlesque was geared towards an adult male audience while vaudeville was for family audiences. Sometimes spelled Burlecue, Burleycue or Burlesk, especially when strippers were the main attractions and comics were employed mostly to be risqué Master of Ceremonies.

Burleycue
See Burlesque.

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Glossary Index - Main Menu - Overture

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