Variety show n. A stage entertainment, live or televised, of successive separate performances, usually songs, dances, acrobatic feats, dramatic sketches, exhibitions of trained animals, or any specialties. When performed live in a theater, it was often called a vaudeville show, but when television became a dominant form of entertainment live vaudeville performances almost completely ceased.
... purity of the musical sound, and jars on refined ears like the filing of a saw. If demonstrativeness is to be taken as a test of feeling, then the ignorant audiences who stamp and roar over the vulgar horse-play in a variety show have deeper feelings than the educated reader who, in his room, enjoys the exquisite works of humor of the great writers without any other expression than ... — Chopin and Other Musical Essays • Henry T. Finck
...
