Tent show

Tent shows have been an important part of American history since the mid-to-late nineteenth century. In 1927, Don Carle Gillette gave “statistical evidence that the tented drama constituted “a more extensive business than Broadway and all the rest of the legitimate theatre industry put together””. The shows first began “In regions which couldn’t support full-time playhouses”. Men such as Fayette Lodowick, one of the earliest tent show entrepreneurs, would travel around river towns all over the US making money on traveling tent shows. These shows “were utilized for a variety of amusements including medicine shows, moving picture shows, vaudeville shows, circuses, musicals, concert companies, and any number of one-night stand dramatic troupes”. Tent theatre played a critical role in the American entertainment industry. It first grew out of opera houses, which were in almost every major city until the end of the nineteenth century. The opera houses were very poorly ventilated at the time which did not appeal to the audiences. The tents were outdoors and therefor had no problem with overheating or poor ventilation because the winds would provide a nice way of cooling down the audiences. Tent theatre boomed by the 1920s, when the industry for outdoor entertainment was at its peak, and declined shortly after. From the origins of tent shows, to its decline and fall, tent theatre had a major influence on American culture and left a legacy for tent shows everywhere.