Vaudeville's My Home
1973 · Chapin "Theatre" (Chapin High School), Chapin, Illinois
Vaudeville's My Home was Ken Bradbury's original musical comedy at Triopia High School in 1973 — a pair of con-men on the lam take to a vaudeville stage. Newly hired at Triopia, Ken wrote and directed the show, and with about four songs it became the first Triopia production to include music. It was the final show staged in the old Chapin "Theatre." Ken later published it through Eldridge Publishing Company (Eldridge Plays and Musicals), and it remains available here.
Songs
Four songs from the show survive as recordings in an archived audio album named, like the show, Vaudeville's My Home. In album order:
- V'vile Home (Vaudeville's My Home) — the title song
- Guts
- Afraid
- Welcome
Cast
- Bruce Charlesworth — con-man
- Jim Nergenah — con-man
- Jeff Wessler — onstage pianist
Production Notes
- The two con-men on the lam were played by Bruce Charlesworth and Jim Nergenah.
- About four songs made this Triopia's first musical.
- Jeff Wessler became the first person to play piano onstage in a Triopia show; the piano keys were marked with numbers in the order he was to hit the notes.
- The show ran two nights — Triopia's first multi-night run. The superintendent thought it would be a waste of time but let them try.
- Distinct from Ken's later vaudeville works (Ah, Vaudeville; Vaudeville '82; Vaudeville '84; Tah-Dah! Vaudeville '91).
- The four surviving songs are preserved as stereo WAV recordings, digitized into an iTunes album folder named exactly Vaudeville's My Home and dated April 5, 2014. The recordings preserve only the songs themselves — no script, program, or title cards accompany them.