Ziegfeld Follies

Ziegfeld Follies is the title of an annual revue on Broadway, the (annually until 1931 ) took place from 1907 to 1957 and had a decisive influence between 1910 and 1930 on the local show scene.

The Ziegfeld Follies were named after her producer Florenz Ziegfeld Jr. and had the Parisian Folies Bergère as an example ( cf. Music Hall ). They had not an act but a compiled from numbers program that changed annually. In the center was a dance leggy chorus girls who danced synchronous figures. Because the theater was still the primary distribution medium for music, many famous songs were originated by such revues (see Tin Pan Alley ).

The " Follies " was a larger -scale, less disreputable kind of stage spectacle as the American vaudeville and burlesque. Florenz Ziegfeld was with his rival George M. Cohan Revue of the most influential producer on Broadway. Revues of this kind there was anywhere in the world, in Germany as in Berlin with Erik Charell.

Significant mostly female stars such as Sophie Tucker, Fanny Brice, Dorothy Dickson and Barbara Stanwyck emerged from the Ziegfeld Follies. Entertainers like Eddie Cantor and WC Fields found a platform here.

Josephine Baker joined in 1936 as part of a revue and fell through.

With the increasing influence of the talkies and the more action-oriented " book musicals " on Broadway (see Musical Comedy and Musical Play) Ziegfeld Follies lost from the end of the 1920s in importance. The Shubert Organization sought a longer time for their preservation, but in the age of television, it was with this kind of stage entertainment over.

A whole series of film musicals - The Great Ziegfeld (1936 ), Ziegfeld Follies (1946 ) - and stage musicals - Funny Girl (1964 ), Follies (1971 ) - deals with the history and aesthetics of the Ziegfeld Follies.

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