Knowra Variety show Variety show A performance or program combining distinct acts, often including comedy, music, dance, and sketches. Acts may feature different performers and styles within one bill or broadcast.
Vaudeville : A theatrical entertainment form built from successive short acts, popular in the United States from the late nineteenth century. Its mixed bills established a live-performance model for variety shows.
Television variety show : A television program combining recurring hosts or performers with varied comedy, music, and other acts. It translates the mixed bill into a recurring broadcast format.
Minstrel show : A nineteenth-century American entertainment form involving music, dance, comedy, and racist caricature, often performed by white performers in blackface. It contributed to early American popular entertainment, while its racist conventions mark a defining historical harm.
Musical revue : A staged entertainment built from songs, dances, and comic or topical scenes, usually linked by a theme or style. A revue may use varied acts, but its songs and dances usually form a more unified theatrical production.
Sketch comedy : Comedy made from short, self-contained scenes, usually performed by a recurring group or ensemble. Short sketches are a common comic act within a variety show.
Saturday Night Live : An American live television comedy series, first broadcast in 1975, featuring sketches, a host, and musical guests. Its weekly format combines comedy sketches and musical performances.
Burlesque : A theatrical entertainment form that uses parody, comedy, music, and spectacle; American burlesque later became associated with striptease. Its comic sketches and specialty turns overlapped with variety bills.
Cabaret : An intimate entertainment combining music, comedy, or other performances, typically presented in a nightclub or restaurant setting. Cabaret overlaps with variety but is defined more by its intimate venue and audience relationship.
Stand-up comedy : A comic performance in which a performer addresses an audience directly, typically with prepared jokes and stories. A comedian can supply a single act between musical or theatrical segments.
The Ed Sullivan Show : An American television variety program hosted by Ed Sullivan from 1948 to 1971. It presented performers from music, comedy, and other entertainment traditions to a broad audience.
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