Tent show

the long version

"Before movie screens filled the country and television screens filled our homes, entertainment had to travel to the people. The traveling tent show was a popular form of melodrama and variety entertainment through much of the nineteenth and into the twentieth century. One of the last of these belonged to Art Names and His Famous Players, a show that played to venues in Kansas, western Oklahoma, eastern Colorado, and West Texas from about 1920 to 1945.". "Tent Show captures both the glamour the shows held for the audiences and the hard work and financial jeopardy those who performed in them faced. Donald Whisenhunt, whose father was one of Names's partners during part of the period covered, draws on family papers, letters and other original documents, and interviews, shedding light on the role this form of entertainment played in the communities it visited, the very unglamorous business that underlay the show, and the kinds of people who chose this way of life."--BOOK JACKET.