Lynbrook Students Experience the Art of Vaudeville

Sixth graders at Lynbrook's learned the history and art of vaudeville through a program called the Lincoln Center Experience.

Working with a Lincoln Center teaching artist, students in Dorothea Roper's and Pat Yosca's English classes studied the origins of this special genre of entertainment that was the heart of American show business around the turn of the century through the 1930s.

As the culminating activity for this four-week program, students were able to experience an authentic vaudevillian review performed by a theater troupe called Parallel Exit Physical Comedy Theatre. This one-hour interactive production,
entitled Theater: Exit Stage Left! featured slapstick humor in the style of Buster Keaton and Charlie Chaplin, which brought together a delightful mix of balancing ladders, tap dancing, magic tricks, a musical contraption called a balloon-o-phone, and plenty of audience participation.

This article was submitted by Rosemary Leonetti of Syntax, public relations for the Lynbrook School District.