Journal Article

David N. Martin and the post-war 'acts and actors' of Australian variety

Veronica Kelly

2015

نظرة عامة

The variety firm of Tivoli Australia Pty Ltd dominated the industry from the late nineteenth century up to its closure in 1966, in lively competition and collaboration with many other variety firms. While its own management consciously professionalised their operations in accord with international post-war organisational principles, it also seeded the new thrusting breed of international commercial entrepreneurs who would replace it. The Tivoli's great assets were its long-standing institutional prestige and iconic status as Australia's major variety house; its chain of theatre buildings built or acquired in the capital cities; and a managerial culture which increasingly stressed the international, the excellent and the 'family' audience. Of particular interest are the decades after World War II, which comprise Australian variety's loss of the large and predominantly masculinised audience of American and Australian servicemen; the international competition for acts caused by the renewed availability of communications and travel; the introduction of television in Australia for the 1956 Melbourne Olympics; and television's successorship as one of the nation's dominant popular entertainment media. Whereas neither film nor radio had made much of a sustained impression on live variety attendance, the advent of television would help to turn the Tivoli's residual nineteenth-century assets and skill sets into potential weak spots.

• الناشر: La Trobe University at Bundorra
• موضوع: 20th century / Actors / Advertisements / Archives & records / Audiences / Autobiographies / Baby boom generation / Biographies / Chinese / Comedians / Comedies / Creativity / Dance / Dancers & choreographers / Entertainers / Fairs & exhibitions / Negotiation / Performing arts / Production and direction / Singers / Theater / Tivoli Australia Pty Ltd (company) / Tourism / War