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wild animal act

circus

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major reference

  • Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus
    In circus: Wild animal acts

    Until the late 20th century there was a marked difference between European and American styles of presenting wild animal acts. In the 19th century Van Amburgh, believing that the trainer must demonstrate physical superiority over his “pupils,” had customarily beat his animals…

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history of circuses

  • Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus
    In circus: Wild animal acts

    The introduction of wild animals to the circus dates from about 1831, when the French trainer Henri Martin, performing in Germany, presumably entered a cage with a tiger. He was soon followed by the American trainer Isaac A. Van Amburgh, reputedly the…

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afterpiece, supplementary entertainment presented after full-length plays in 18th-century England. Afterpieces usually took the form of a short comedy, farce, or pantomime, and were intended to lighten the solemnity of Neoclassical drama and make the bill more attractive to audiences. Long theatre programs that included interludes of music, song, and dance developed in the first 20 years of the 18th century, promoted primarily by John Rich at Lincoln’s Inn Fields in order to compete with the Drury Lane. The addition of afterpieces to the regular program may also have been an attempt to attract working citizens, who often missed the early opening production and paid a reduced charge to be admitted later, usually at the end of the third act of a five-act play.

Before 1747, afterpieces were generally presented with old plays, but after that date, almost all new plays were accompanied by afterpieces as well. Although farce and pantomime were the most popular forms of afterpiece, other kinds included processions, burlettas or burlesques, music, and ballad operas, which gained popularity after the success of John Gay’s Beggar’s Opera in 1728.