A '''tab show''' was a short, or tabloid version, of various popular musical comedies performed in the United States in the early 20th century.<ref name="PE">{{cite web | title = Tab Show | publisher = Probert Encyclopaedia | url = http://www.probertencyclopaedia.com/cgi-bin/res.pl?keyword=Tab+Show&offset=0 | access-date = 2009-01-18 | url-status = dead | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20100106052517/http://www.probertencyclopaedia.com/cgi-bin/res.pl?keyword=Tab+Show&offset=0 | archive-date = 2010-01-06 }}</ref><ref name="CS">{{cite book |last1= Schaffner | first1= Caroline | editor1-first= Glenn | editor1-last= Loney | title= Musical Theatre in America: Papers and Proceedings of the Conference on the Musical Theatre in America | url= https://www.questia.com/PM.qst?a=o&d=29184569 | access-date= 2009-01-18 | year= 1984 | publisher= Greenwood Press | location= Westport, CT | isbn= 978-0-313-23524-5 | page= 199 | chapter= A Tab Show: The Stepchild of Musical Comedy}}</ref><ref name="VON">{{cite book |last1= Cullen|first1= Frank |last2= Hackman |first2= Florence |last3=McNeilly |first3=Conald |title= Vaudeville, Old & New: An Encyclopedia of Variety Performers in America |url= https://books.google.com/books?id=XFnfnKg6BcAC&pg=PA1083 | access-date= 2009-01-18 | edition= Illustrated | year= 2007 |publisher= Routledge | isbn= 978-0-415-93853-2| page= 1083}}</ref>
==History== The shows were about an hour in length<ref name="JF"/> but could be as short as 25 minutes,<ref name="VON"/> either way being well suited for traveling or road shows.<ref name="VL">{{cite web | title = Vaudeville Lingo | url = http://www.ibmring21.org/lingo.html | access-date = 2009-01-18}}</ref><ref name="VT">{{cite web|title=Vaudeville Terminology |url=http://www.kbrianneel.com/slang.html |access-date=2009-01-18 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20081003215008/http://www.kbrianneel.com/slang.html |archive-date=October 3, 2008 }}</ref> They had lower costs<ref name="VL"/> and fewer logistical complications<ref name="VON"/> than major productions. To achieve this, producers typically eliminated much of the dialogue, plot and chorus of the parent, often Broadway production, reduced the scenery to a few flats and platforms that could be easily transported by rail or roadway, and retained only the hit numbers and the principal characters including the love interests and the chief comic.<ref name="VON"/> With this shortened format, tab shows did not usually serve as an entertainment form in themselves but were adjuncts for at least three other forms of major entertainment. First, they could be the featured act of the second half of a vaudeville bill.<ref name="VON"/> The substitution of these shows for a portion of vaudeville acts in the early 1900s was described as "far-reaching in its scope" in a ''Billboard'' article of 23 December 1911.<ref name="CS"/>
Second, they were often performed in conjunction with silent films for a half hour performance either before the film came on,<ref name="RB">{{cite book |title= When the Smoke Hit the Fan | last= Bellamy | first= Ralph | author-link= Ralph Bellamy |year= 1979 | publisher= Doubleday | isbn= 978-0-385-14860-3 | page= 81 }}</ref> or as a vaudeville act between films.<ref name="CS"/> Show Boat was one Broadway hit that was reduced to a truncated tab show running in movie theaters in the early 1930s.<ref name="PSN">{{cite web | title = About Peggy Stebbins Nelson | url = http://nelsonworks.net/About%20Peggy.html | access-date = 2009-01-18 | url-status = dead | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20110709151941/http://nelsonworks.net/About%20Peggy.html | archive-date = 2011-07-09 }}</ref>
Third, tab shows were closely related to the early, non-stripper versions of burlesque.<ref name="VON"/><ref name="JF">{{cite journal | last = Furlonger | first = Jaye | title = San Diego's Bygone Burlesque: The Famous Hollywood Theatre | journal = The Journal of San Diego History | volume = 51 | issue = 1 & 2 | pages = 18 | publisher = San Diego Historical Society | year = 2005 | url = http://www.sandiegohistory.org/journal/v51-1/pdf/2005-1_hollywood.pdf | access-date = 2009-01-18}}</ref> The girls were 'clean' and did not have bare legs.<ref name="CS"/> By the 1920s, "tab show" was sometimes used to avoid the negative, low-brow connotations of "burlesque".<ref name="JF"/>
There are two suggestions for the origin of the word "tab". It is often said to be derived from "tabloid",<ref name="JF"/><ref name="RB"/> as in the short form of a newspaper.<ref name="VL"/> Alternatively, it could refer to "tableau" as in the tab style of curtain<ref name="sew">{{cite web | title = Tableau or "Tab" Curtain | publisher = Sew What? Inc. | url = http://www.sewwhatinc.com/stage_tableau.php#tableau | access-date = 2009-01-18}}</ref> across the front of a stage, since the curtain and a few pieces of furniture might be the only scenery used by a tab show.<ref name="VL"/>
As variations on these themes, tab shows occasionally were up to two hours in length and with their lower costs and fewer logistic demands, were a popular alternative to vaudeville acts in the 1910s.<ref name="VON"/> Also, while the term "tab show" may have been restricted to the United States, the theme of the vicissitudes of traveling third-rate vaudevillians was presented in 1950 in Federico Fellini's Italian film ''Variety Lights''. It has been described as "wholesome corn".<ref name="NYT">{{cite news | last = Weiler | first = A. H. | title = Variety Lights (1951) Screen: 'Variety Lights':First Fellini Picture Seen on Double Bill | work = The New York Times | date = May 7, 1965 | url = https://movies.nytimes.com/movie/review?res=9400EED81F38E13ABC4F53DFB366838E679EDE | access-date = 2009-01-18}}</ref>
==References== {{reflist}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Tab Show}} Category:Musical theatre Category:Theatre in the United States Category:20th century in the United States Category:Vaudeville tropes Category:20th-century theatre