A Revolution in Three Acts: The Radical Vaudeville of Bert Williams, Eva Tanguay, and Julian Eltinge

At the turn of the twentieth century, vaudeville stars Bert Williams, Eva Tanguay, and Julian Eltinge defied societal norms and stereotypes to revolutionize American culture. Their performances challenged the boundaries of race, gender, and sexuality, and their impact is still felt today. "A Revolution in Three Acts" is a graphic nonfiction book that explores their lives and work, showcasing their powerful portrayals and the transformative power of their performances.

Format: Paperback / softback
Length: 176 pages
Publication date: 14 February 2023
Publisher: Columbia University Press

Winner of the 2022 Deems Taylor/Virgil Thomson Book Award in Pop from the American Society of Composers, Authors, and Publishers, Bert Williams was a Black man who was compelled to perform in blackface and who challenged the conventions of minstrelsy. Eva Tanguay was an entertainer who sang the iconic song "I Don't Care" and defied social conventions to redefine womanhood for the modern age. Julian Eltinge was a female impersonator who mesmerized and unsettled audiences by embodying the feminine ideal that Tanguay rejected. At the turn of the twentieth century, they became three of the most provocative and popular performers in vaudeville, the form in which American mass entertainment first took shape.

A Revolution in Three Acts delves into how these vaudeville stars defied the norms of their time to revolutionize how their audiences perceived what it meant to be American, Black, a woman, or a man. This work of graphic nonfiction is a collaboration between writer David Hajdu and artist John Carey, who create powerful portrayals of Williams, Tanguay, and Eltinge to showcase how they transformed American culture. Hand-drawn images bring the lives and work of the book's subjects to vivid life, while the text offers a deft telling of three interconnected stories, a lush evocation of a performance milieu with unabashed entertainment value, and an eye-opening account of a pivotal moment in American cultural history with striking parallels to contemporary questions of race, gender, and sexual identity.

Dimension: 279 x 216 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9780231191838