Category Archives: The Life Fantastic

The Beginnings of the NAACP

The Life Fantastic is set in 1913, by which time the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People had established branch offices in such cities as Boston, Massachusetts; Baltimore, Maryland; Kansas City, Missouri; Washington, D.C.; Detroit, Michigan; and St. Louis, Missouri. They believed strongly in local organizing. When Pietro Jones discusses W.E.B. DuBois’ writing with Teresa, it’s likely that he was familiar with this organization.

As their website states, “The NAACP seeks to remove barriers of racial discrimination.”

“The NAACP was formed partly in response to the continuing horrific practice of lynching and the 1908 race riot in Springfield, the capital of Illinois and resting place of President Abraham Lincoln. Appalled at the violence that was committed against blacks, a group of white liberals that included Mary White Ovington and Oswald Garrison Villard, both the descendants of abolitionists, William English Walling and Dr. Henry Moscowitz issued a call for a meeting to discuss racial justice. Some 60 people, seven of whom were African American (including W. E. B. Du Bois, Ida B. Wells-Barnett and Mary Church Terrell), signed the call, which was released on the centennial of Lincoln’s birth.”

Learn more about the NAACP, which continues its work today.

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W.E.B. DuBois

In The Life Fantastic, Pietro Jones is inspired by the writing of W.E.B. DuBois. From the PBS show, “The Rise and Fall of Jim Crow,” DuBois is described in this way:

W.E.B. DuBois, 1868-1963

For many young African Americans in the period from 1910 through the 1930s, Du Bois was the voice of the black community. He attacked Woodrow Wilson when the president allowed his cabinet members to segregate the federal government. He continued to fight against the demand by many whites that black education be primarily industrial and that black students in the South learn to accept white supremacy. Du Bois emphasized the necessity for higher education in order to develop the leadership capacity among the most able 10 percent of black Americans, whom he dubbed “The Talented Tenth.”

Du Bois was a co-founder of the Niagara Movement, which addressed inequality, and the NAACP, which is still active today.

This “mini biography” from Biography.com elucidates several of the remarkable accomplishments from DuBois’ life.

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Vaudeville in the South

Ethel Waters

Kate Tuttle wrote these words for Boston.com: “The early 1920s black vaudeville scene was dominated by the Theatre Owners Booking Association, familiarly known as TOBA. TOBA acts toured the segregated South, where performers slept at local people’s homes and took their meals at the back doors of restaurants. Wherever they went, they performed for black audiences, a memory that [Ethel] Waters “would always cherish’’ for “the way they sent those enthusiastic messages of approval and adulation through their wild applause, their laughter, their screams and shouts of joy. No white audience could ever show that kind of enthusiasm.’’ The first time Waters sang for a white audience, she later wrote, she thought she was “a dead duck’’ because “no one tried to tear the house down. They merely clapped their hands.’’ Although white audiences loved her, their praise often came with predictable prejudices. One reviewer who called Waters “the most remarkable woman of her race that I have seen in the theater,’’ pointed out that she “neither moaned, groaned nor raved her ‘Georgia Blues’; she only sighed with satanic rhythm.’’ (Kate Tuttle, Boston.com, reviewing the biography Heat Wave: the Life and Career of Ethel Waters by Donald Bogle.)

To learn more about Ethel Waters, read her 1951 memoir, His Eye Is On the Sparrow.

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Join us for a lively discussion!

SCRIBBLERS THREE: How does being in a writer’s group expand and sustain your work? Eileen Christelow, Karen Hesse, and Liza Ketchum, authors for young readers, have been in a critique group for more than thirty years. They will discuss how their writing changed and developed as the group evolved, and will share their most recent books: Robins! How They Grow Up! (Christelow), My Thumb (Hesse); and The Life Fantastic (Ketchum).

Join the discussion on April 29, 2017, 4:00 pm at the. Northshire Bookstore, Manchester, Vermont.

Northshire Bookstore, Manchester, VT

Another Cultural Experience

Turkish Dance, Ella Lola
Thomas A. Edison, Inc., 1898

The film features Ella Lola, a popular performer on the vaudeville stage, performing her rendition of a “belly dance.” This type of performance was not uncommon and points to vaudeville’s roots in earlier forms of burlesque. Ms. Lola’s routine, although bordering on risqué, far from violates any accepted standards of decency. Presentations of dance, or other ‘dumb’ acts [such as animal acts and acrobats], generally opened or closed performances to give audiences time to filter in and out of the theatre.

—University of Virginia, American Studies Department, Vaudeville website

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The Birth of Vaudeville

Tony Pastor, from The Billy Rose Theatre Collection, The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts

“In the early 1880’s, Tony Pastor, a former ringmaster with the circus turned theatre manager, capitalized on middle class sensibilities and spending power when he began to feature “polite” variety programs in several of his New York theatres. Hoping to draw a potential audience from female and family-based shopping traffic uptown, Pastor barred the sale of liquor in his theaters, eliminated questionable material from his shows, and offered gifts of coal and hams to attendees. Pastor’s experiment proved successful and other managers soon followed suit.”

Gifts of coal? And ham?

Read more about the beginnings of Vaudeville from the University of Virginia, American Studies department, from which this is quoted.

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One of Vaudeville’s Biggest Stars

A truly fascinating woman, Fania Borach, whom we know as Fanny Brice, worked hard to turn her talents into stardom. Born in 1891, she performed on the burlesque stage, vaudeville, stage, film, musical revues (nine Ziegfield Follies), and, most famously, radio. She is perhaps best known for her radio character Baby Snooks, but she honed her comedic skills as a vaudeville performer. She was a female comedian in a profession usually reserved for men. You may know her as the woman who inspired the movie Funny Girl. Read about her life on the Jewish Women’s Archive.

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Culturally Diverse

“Vaudeville’s attraction was more than simply a series of entertaining sketches. It was symbolic of the cultural diversity of early twentieth century America. Vaudeville was a fusion of centuries-old cultural traditions, including the English Music Hall, minstrel shows of antebellum America, and Yiddish theater. Though certainly not free from the prejudice of the times, vaudeville was the earliest entertainment form to cross racial and class boundaries. For many, vaudeville was the first exposure to the cultures of people living right down the street.”

—American Masters, “About Vaudeville,” October 8, 1999, PBS

While anti-Semitism was common during vaudeville’s heyday, many Jewish performers had starring roles in theater as well as in film and television in later years. Yiddish theater had an enormous influence on the cultural life of Jews throughout America and abroad. In this film clip, Molly Picon, the most famous actress in Yiddish theater, is seen singing “Abi Gezunt (As long as you’re healthy),” from the 1938 film, “Mamele.” Molly Picon, born Margaret Pyekoon in 1898, “performed with Michael Thomashefsky’s Yiddish repertory troupe at the Arch Street Theater (including, at age fifteen, Uncle Tom’s Cabin, with alternate performances in Yiddish and English) and in cabaret from 1912 to 1915.” [Jewish Women’s Archive] Like Teresa in The Life Fantastic, Picon started to perform at an early age. She gave her first performance on a stage at age five!

Here are several sites which give a sense of the importance of Yiddish theater to Jews throughout the world and specifically in America.

On the occasion of the 100th birthday of the National Yiddish Theater, Folksbiene, this video talks about the history of the theater. Note how Yiddish theater influenced composers on the broader stage, including George Gershwin and the Sherman brothers, composers of Mary Poppins.
Michael Tilson Thomas, the conductor, created this homage to his grandparents, early and influential actors in the Yiddish theater, The Thomashefskys.
These two biographies of the most famous actress and theater owner in Yiddish theater, Molly Picon, one from Masterworks Broadway and the other from the Jewish Women’s Archives

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Helen Keller on stage

From Helen Keller Kids Museum Online, American Foundation for the Blind, Braille Bug

Celebrities appeared on the vaudeville stage, even those who weren’t considered performers. It was a place for the community to hear famous speakers and noteworthy people of their day.

Here’s Helen (Keller) in her dressing room in a vaudeville theatre. She is sitting at a makeup table (which does not have a mirror), brushing her cheek with a giant powder puff. Behind her, hanging on the wall, are many elaborate outfits, including a silk robe, a dark evening dress, and a full-length fur coat. Helen has on a sleeveless, patterned dress that goes down to her toes and shiny high-heeled shoes.

View more photos of Helen Keller, and Anne Sullivan, at the Helen Keller Kids Museum Online on the American Federation for the Blind website.

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Q&A with Liza K, part 3

What propelled you to write a story based in show business?

Vaudeville has fascinated me since I was little girl. That’s when my father told me the romantic story about my great-grandparents, who eloped and ran away to join a traveling theater troupe. My great-grandmother was a singer and pianist, and her husband played the fiddle. The couple’s elopement—and their divorce later on—caused a scandal in the small town of Shreve, Ohio, where my great-grandmother grew up. Because some people considered vaudeville as “one step up from burlesque,” my grandmother was ashamed of her history. She refused to answer my questions about her parents and their stage careers.

I have always loved live theater, and once considered becoming an actor. In high school I acted in plays and I spent the summer before college studying acting at The Neighborhood Playhouse in New York City. Though I didn’t pursue a stage career, that summer taught me invaluable lessons about creating characters.

Interior of the Tabor Opera House today. For more about this theater, visit taboroperahouse.net.

Many years later, I visited the Tabor Opera House in Leadville, Colorado, a restored and spectacular vaudeville theater. As I walked down the silent aisle between rows of plush seats, I thought about my great-grandparents and their story, which had never been told. Though the characters in The Life Fantastic are invented, and though it takes place in a different time and place, my great-grandparents’ adventure in the theater inspired me to write the novel.

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