WDH and Vaudeville

From "Vaudeville's brief, shining moment" at City-Journal.org

In the new century, these performances that cost so little—rarely more than $1— and gave so much, beguiled not just the common folk but intellectuals, too. As novelist William Dean Howells wrote in Harper’s, “I am an inveterate vaudeville-goer, for the simple reason that I find better acting, and better drama, than you get on your legitimate stage.”