Tivoli (Vaudeville Circuit)
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
Load more
Recommended publications
-
Australian Radio Series
Radio Series Collection Guide1 Australian Radio Series 1930s to 1970s A guide to ScreenSound Australia’s holdings 1 Radio Series Collection Guide2 Copyright 1998 National Film and Sound Archive All rights reserved. No reproduction without permission. First published 1998 ScreenSound Australia McCoy Circuit, Acton ACT 2600 GPO Box 2002, Canberra ACT 2601 Phone (02) 6248 2000 Fax (02) 6248 2165 E-mail: [email protected] World Wide Web: http://www.screensound.gov.au ISSN: Cover design by MA@D Communication 2 Radio Series Collection Guide3 Contents Foreword i Introduction iii How to use this guide iv How to access collection material vi Radio Series listing 1 - Reference sources Index 3 Radio Series Collection Guide4 Foreword By Richard Lane* Radio serials in Australia date back to the 1930s, when Fred and Maggie Everybody, Coronets of England, The March of Time and the inimitable Yes, What? featured on wireless sets across the nation. Many of Australia’s greatest radio serials were produced during the 1940s. Among those listed in this guide are the Sunday night one-hour plays - The Lux Radio Theatre and The Macquarie Radio Theatre (becoming the Caltex Theatre after 1947); the many Jack Davey Shows, and The Bob Dyer Show; the Colgate Palmolive variety extravaganzas, headed by Calling the Stars, The Youth Show and McCackie Mansion, which starred the outrageously funny Mo (Roy Rene). Fine drama programs produced in Sydney in the 1940s included The Library of the Air and Max Afford's serial Hagen's Circus. Among the comedy programs listed from this decade are the George Wallace Shows, and Mrs 'Obbs with its hilariously garbled language. -
Keith Connolly
KEITH CONNOLLY (1897-1961) Keith Connolly performed with his parents' variety troupe from age seven and while in his teens was a member of the Young Australia League. In 1916 he enlisted with the A.I.F. and went on to serve with the Mining Corps. After returning home in 1919 he and his sister Gladys Shaw toured with such troupes as the Royal Strollers (1919) and Nat Phillips' Stiffy and Mo Company (1921-25) before forming Keith's Syncopating Jesters (1925-27). Connolly's career, which continued well into the 1950s, included engagements with George Wallace (1930), Nat Phillip's Whirligigs, Fullers All-American Revue Co (including New Zealand, 1939) and in companies featuring Roy Rene, Stud Foley, Nellie Kolle and his wife, Elsie Hosking. 1897-1918 Keith Connolly’s earliest engagements earned him enthusiastic reviews: ….absolutely the youngest character comedian on the vaudeville stage, 'Master Keith' (who is only 8 years of age)…gives remarkable imitations of the leading English and American character comedians such as Little Tich, Dan Leno etc.…1 The Sydney Daily Telegraph in speaking of this item says: - 'His songs and imitations, as well as his comic make-up, kept the audience in roars of laughter, and he was recalled again and again. We have listened to many adult comedians and have enjoyed their performances, but the extreme youth of this clever performer, coupled with his marvellous power of imitation, at once captivated all hearts.'2 Keith Warrington Connolly's father was Gerald Shaw (aka Harry Thomson) an enthusiastic basso and theatrical manager with an early interest in moving pictures. -
Melbourne Suburb of Northcote
ON STAGE The Autumn 2012 journal of Vol.13 No.2 ‘By Gosh, it’s pleasant entertainment’ Frank Van Straten, Ian Smith and the CATHS Research Group relive good times at the Plaza Theatre, Northcote. ‘ y Gosh, it’s pleasant entertainment’, equipment. It’s a building that does not give along the way, its management was probably wrote Frank Doherty in The Argus up its secrets easily. more often living a nightmare on Elm Street. Bin January 1952. It was an apt Nevertheless it stands as a reminder The Plaza was the dream of Mr Ludbrook summation of the variety fare offered for 10 of one man’s determination to run an Owen Menck, who owned it to the end. One years at the Plaza Theatre in the northern independent cinema in the face of powerful of his partners in the variety venture later Melbourne suburb of Northcote. opposition, and then boldly break with the described him as ‘a little elderly gentleman The shell of the old theatre still stands on past and turn to live variety shows. It was about to expand his horse breeding interests the west side of bustling High Street, on the a unique and quixotic venture for 1950s and invest in show business’. Mr Menck was corner of Elm Street. It’s a time-worn façade, Melbourne, but it survived for as long as consistent about his twin interests. Twenty but distinctive; the Art Deco tower now a many theatres with better pedigrees and years earlier, when he opened the Plaza as a convenient perch for telecommunication richer backers. -
(Negative No.) (Print Available) Organisation Photograph Title Or
ON 192 PXA 739 Organisation Photograph title or subject Date (Negative no.) (Print available) 1-7 Radio 2UE Anne Richards, WA OIdfield, Todd Duncan, Will Mahoney, Evie 2/7/46 Hayes, Bebe Scott 8-22 JCW "Follow the girls" Joy Nicholson, Mr Carpenter 17/9/46 23-30 Radio 2UE "Follow the girls" Bebe de Roland, Lois Green, Freddie Carpenter, NZ 3/10/46 group 31-119 JCW "Follow the girls" Title card, Theatre Royal, Ormonde Douglas, 1946 Keating-Murray, stage sets 120-132 120-122, 124- JCW Bebe de Roland in "Follow the girls" 1946 132 133-148 135-141 JCW "Follow the girls" Ormonde Douglas, Shirley Rivett, Arthur Taylor, Don 1946 Nicol 149-151 JCW at 2UE Elliot & Ritchard with E Wahlquist, Brian & Marge 152-157 JCW Lois Green 158 JCW Neville Dunn "Smilin' thru" 159-160 JCW-Legacy Madge Elliot, Shirley Everingham, Lois Green, Lorna King, Gloria Club Lynch, Don Nicol 161 JCW Ron Folkard 162-167 JCW "As you like it" 168-181 JCW "Follow the girls" Don Nicol, Bebe de Roland, Shirley Anderson, 1946 Ormonde Douglas 182-214 JCW-Borovansky "Gay Rosalinda" Tara Barry, Max Oldaker, Cyril Ritchard, Edna Busse, 2/1947 Serge Bousloff and others 215 JCW Architectural drawing of planned His Majesty's Theatre 216 JCW-Borovansky "Gay Rosalinda" Title card 2/1947 217 JCW Irene Bevans 218-219, 223 219, 223 JCW Muriel Howard 220-222 JCW-Borovansky "Gay Rosalinda" Max Oldaker 224-241 233-236, 239- ." " Tamara, Lorna King, Muriel Howard 2/1947 241 242 JCW Henry Mienouski 25/3/47 243-246 243-246 JCW-Borovansky Muriel Howard 9/4/47 247-254 247-254 JCW-Borovansky Tara -
Vivat Regina! Melbourne Celebrates the Maj’S 125Th Birthday
ON STAGE The Spring 2011 newsletter of Vol.12 No.4 Vivat Regina! Melbourne celebrates The Maj’s 125th birthday. he merriment of the audience was entrepreneur Jules François de Sales — now, of course, Her Majesty’s — almost continuous throughout.’ Joubert on the corner of Exhibition and celebrated its birthday by hosting the third TThat was the observation of the Little Bourke Streets. The theatre’s début Rob Guest Endowment Concert. The Rob reporter from M elbourne’s The Argus who was on Friday, 1 October 1886. Almost Guest Endowment, administered by ANZ ‘covered the very first performance in what exactly 125 years later — on Monday, Trustees, was established to commemorate was then the Alexandra Theatre, the 10 October 2011 the merriment was one of Australia’s finest music theatre handsome new playhouse built for similarly almost continuous as the theatre performers, who died in October 2008. * The Award aims to build and maintain a This year’s winner was Blake Bowden. Mascetti, Barry Kitcher, Moffatt Oxenbould, appropriate time and with due fuss and ‘“Vivat Regina!” may be a bit “over the Clockwise from left: Shooting the community for upcoming music theatre He received a $10 000 talent development the theatre’s archivist Mary Murphy, and publicity, as well as the final casting, but I top” — but then, why not?’ commemorative film in The Maj's foyer. Mike Walsh is at stairs (centre). artists and to provide one night every year grant, a media training session, a new theatre historian Frank Van Straten. am thrilled that they are spearheaded by a Why not, indeed! when all facets of the industry join to headshot package and a guest performance Premier Ted Baillieu added a special brand new production of A Chorus Line — as Rob Guest Endowment winner Blake Bowden welcome a new generation of performers. -
Artists, Managers and Employees
APPENDIX A HARRY CLAY'S VAUDEVILLE COMPANY SURVEY OF ARTISTS, MANAGERS, PARTNERS AND EMPLOYEES: 1901-1929 NB: An updated and revised version of this Appendix is presented in Clay Djubal's 2005 Ph D thesis "What Oh Tonight" (see Appendix H). That version includes several hundred new entries. The list is also regularly updated in the Australian Variety Theatre Archive. See: http://ozvta.com/research-lists/ (or at Pandora: http://nla.gov.au/nla.arc-143747) The following list has been compiled during the course of research undertaken for this dissertation. While every attempt has been made to locate the names and information regarding artists and employees engaged by Harry Clay’s organisation during the period 1901 to 1929, it must be conceded that the greater portion of this list has been compiled from available sources between the years 1914 and 1925. As discussed in Chapter Three of this thesis, there was little in the way of advertising or magazine reviews concerning Harry Clay’s operations during the years 1901-1913, other than in relation to the NSW/Qld tours reported in various country newspapers. While these sources have provided the survey with data concerning the tours, it is likely that many more artists were employed during those years. This situation, too, has caused some confusion as to whether several leading entertainers during this period, artists such as Jim Gerald and Clyde Cook,1 for example, were or were not associated with Clay's. Research for this thesis has so far failed to locate any definite primary evidence to support the claims that these two performers were engaged by Clay, and hence they have been left out of the survey. -
International & Australian Posters
International & Australian Posters Collectors’ List No. 157, 2012 Josef Lebovic Gallery 103a Anzac Parade (cnr Duke Street) Kensington (Sydney) NSW Ph: (02) 9663 4848; Fax: (02) 9663 4447 Email: [email protected] Web: joseflebovicgallery.com JOSEF LEBOVIC GALLERY Australian & International Events, Performances... Established 1977 1. “The Recruiting Officer,” 1790. Letterpress 103a Anzac Parade, Kensington (Sydney) NSW handbill, 25.1 x 17.2cm (paper). Laid down on acid- free paper. Post: PO Box 93, Kensington NSW 2033, Australia $1,250 Text includes “Theatre Royal, Covent Garden… This present Tel: (02) 9663 4848 • Fax: (02) 9663 4447 • Intl: (+61-2) Thursday, February 25, 1790, will be presented a comedy, called The Recruiting Officer. After which will be performed, Email: [email protected] • Web: joseflebovicgallery.com for the 39th time, a pantomime, called Harlequin’s Chpalet Open: Wed to Fri 1-6pm, Sat 12-5pm, or by appointment • ABN 15 800 737 094 [sic]…” A cast list for both plays is included. Written by George Farquhar in 1706, The Recruiting Officer was the Member of • Association of International Photography Art Dealers Inc. first play performed in Australia, in June 1789 in Sydney. This International Fine Print Dealers Assoc. • Australian Art & Antique Dealers Assoc. handbill is for the London performance of 1790. 2. George E. Mason (Brit.). Mason’s Instructions For COLLECTORS’ LIST No. 157, 2012 Fingering The Fretted Violin. A Diagram For The Use Of Students, c1890. Lithograph, International & Australian Posters 64.6 x 25cm. Foxing and stains overall, repaired tears, creases, pinholes, and missing portions. On exhibition from Wednesday, 13 June to Saturday, 4 August. -
PROMPT): JC Williamson (Opera, Comic Opera, Operetta
AUSTRALIAN EPHEMERA COLLECTION FINDING AID J.C. WILLIAMSON OPERA, COMIC OPERA, OPERETTA PROGRAMS PERFORMING ARTS PROGRAMS AND EPHEMERA (PROMPT) PRINTED AUSTRALIANA JANUARY 2015 James Cassius Williamson was an American actor who immigrated to Australia in the 1870s. Along with business partners, such as William Musgrove, his theatre company became one of the most dominant in colonial Australia. After his death in 1913 the company, now named J.C. Williamson Ltd. continued under the direction of George Tallis and the Tait brothers (who remained involved in the company until the 1970s). J.C. Williamson continued to be one of the biggest theatre companies in Australia throughout the first three quarters of the 20th century. J.C. Williamson held the license for theatres in Melbourne, Sydney, Brisbane, Adelaide and New Zealand (at times more than one theatre in each city). In 1976 the company closed, but the name was licensed until the mid 1980s. This list includes productions of Gilbert and Sullivan operettas held in J.C. Williamson theatres, as well as those produced by J.C. Williamson and performed in other theatres under venue hire arrangements. CONTENT Printed materials in the PROMPT collection include programs and printed ephemera such as brochures, leaflets, tickets, etc. Theatre programs are taken as the prime documentary evidence of a performance staged by the J.C. Williamson company. In a few cases however, the only evidence of a performance is a piece of printed ephemera. In these cases the type of piece is identified, eg, brochure. The list is based on imperfect holdings and is updated as gaps in the Library’s holdings for these artists are filled. -
Bert Button Comments on Radio – 1985
BERT BUTTON COMMENTS ON RADIO – 1985 Willie Fennell: actor of radio, films, theatre. In the post war years over 60% of radio features were imported from America and the United Kingdom. A Parliamentary Standing Committee on Broadcasting was concerned about Australian artists only participating in about 30% of locally recorded programs. It was about that time that the “Colgate Palmolive Show” was formed, which included Jack Davey, Bob Dyer, Roy Rene, Joy Nicholls, Kitty Bluett, Hal Lashwood, Dick Bentley, George Foster and Willie Fennell. Willie’s main claim to popularity was the expression “Ow are yer mate” and it could be claimed that his being typed this way did not do justice to the real ability he possessed. Perhaps the first public indication of this was when he starred in “Life with Dexter” and since then he has successfully participated in a number of TV and theatrical productions. Willie was always a fairly quiet unassuming person; not easily cultivated as a friend, but an individual who would always leave his mark in the field of entertainment. Whilst he recollects with pleasure his participation in several top rating radio shows such as “Calling The Stars” (his first appearance in radio), “Ada and Elsie”, and “The Cashmere Bouquet Show”, I’ve always felt that Willie Fennell obtained more satisfaction from his association with theatrical and film productions, although he also obviously enjoyed facing up to large audiences in club shows. Now in his sixties, Willie Fennell has been associated with several commercial and ABC TV programs such as “No. 96” and “Young Doctors”, and also stars in theatrical productions and the occasional film. -
Clay's Vaudeville Company: Artists, Managers and Employees
HARRY CLAY'S VAUDEVILLE COMPANY Survey of Artists, Managers, Partners and Employees (1901-1930) Harry Clay's Bridge Theatre, Newtown From the Newtown Diamond Jubilee Souvenir: 1862-1922 INTRODUCTION The following list was originally compiled during the course of research undertaken Clay Djubal' 1998 MA dissertation, "Harry Clay and Clay's Vaudeville Company, 1865-1930." An updated and revised version, with several hundred new entries, was published in the appendices of his 2005 Ph D dissertation, "What Oh Tonight: The Methodology Factor and Pre-1930s Australian Variety Theatre." This AVTA list carries on from those two versions and as the now definitive version will subsequently updated and revised as new information is found. Check the citation details at the end of the list for Last Updated details. While every attempt has been made to locate the names and information regarding artists and employees engaged by Harry Clay's organisation during the period 1901 to 1929, it must be conceded that the greater portion of this list has been compiled from available sources between the years 1914 and 1925. The primary reason for this is that Harry Clay did not always depend on newspaper advertising (particularly the Sydney Morning Herald) for his Sydney suburban circuit, relying to a large extent on dodgers (leaflets) and adverting both in the local area and at the venues his companies played at. Most of our information for the period 1901-1913 actually comes from his New South Wales and Queensland tours, which were given reasonable coverage in various country newspapers. It is likely, then, that many more artists were employed during those years, especially from around 1904 onwards when Clay stopped travelling with these tours and concentrated on his Sydney circuit. -
Literary Vaudeville: Lennie Lower's Comic Journalism
Literary Vaudeville: Lennie Lower’s Comic Journalism PETER KIRKPATRICK University of Sydney It is entirely possible that vaudeville never really died—at least not in Australia. Susan Lever, for one, has observed that vaudeville-style, self-consciously performative ‘characters’ have had a surprising afterlife in Australian culture. Against the scarcity of successful home-grown sitcoms, she notes the preference of local audiences for revue-style sketch comedy, as well as ‘character’-based variety shows centred upon such diverse comic figures as Graham Kennedy, Norman Gunston (Garry McDonald), and Roy and HG (John Doyle and Greig Pickhaver)—to which might be added Paul Hogan and Shaun Micallef. Even Jane Turner and Gina Riley’s caricatural Kath & Kim suggests that ‘the Australian taste for comedy remains firmly on the side of vaudeville’ (238). The comic writings of Leonard Waldemere Lower (1903–1947), better known as Lennie Lower, had a role in extending something of the energy and style of vaudeville into later media. Lower was a very popular humorous columnist on Sydney newspapers from the 1920s until his death at the age of forty-three, and he retains a toehold in the annals of Australian literature on the basis of a single novel, Here’s Luck, which has reputedly never been out of print.1 His biographer Bill Hornadge asserted that it was ‘widely acclaimed as Australia’s funniest novel’ (90), while Keith Willey saw it in somewhat more complex terms as a classic example of what he called Australian Humour in Hard Times. Such claims about the representative status of the novel normally avoid saying very much about the precise strategies of Lower’s humour. -
'The Ring in Australia' by Peter Bassett
The RING in Australia Wagner arrived in Australia (metaphorically speaking) on 18 August 1877, one year after the first Bayreuth Festival, when Lohengrin was performed at the Prince of Wales Theatre, Melbourne by William Lyster’s Royal Italian and English Opera Company. Melbourne in those days was the largest, most prosperous and most cosmopolitan of colonial cities, courtesy of the gold rush. The 1877 opera season also included Aida which was, at the time, Verdi’s latest opera. Lohengrin on the other hand was thirty years old and had long been surpassed by Tristan, Meistersinger, and the entire Ring, and yet how avant-garde it must have seemed to those Melbourne audiences. It was sung in Italian, with the principal singers coming from Europe and the United States. The music was under the direction of Alberto Zelman who, lacking a copy of Wagner’s orchestral score, simply took a piano version and orchestrated it himself. Zelman had arrived in Australia six years earlier from Trieste via India and, although he had conducted operas in northern Italy, it seems that he had never actually seen or heard a Wagner production. On his arrival in Sydney, he had joined the Cagli-Pompei Royal Italian Opera Company and toured the Australasian colonies, eventually coming under Lyster’s management. His son, by the way – also called Alberto Zelman – founded the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra. Soon after the Lohengrin performances, a local resident Emil Sander wrote to Wagner to inform him of this noteworthy event – a fact recorded by Cosima in her diary. The entry for 21 October 1877 reads: ‘He receives a letter from a theatre director in Melbourne, according to which Lohengrin last month made its ceremonious entry there, too.’ The following day, Wagner replied to Sander as follows: My very dear Sir, I was delighted to receive your news, and cannot refrain from thanking you for it.