travsd

The Silents of the Lambs: My First “Trav Talk” in Three Years

If Ted can have Ted Talks, Trav can have Trav talks.

The title of this post and the atmospheric lighting in the photo above may cause you to believe something creepy is afoot, but I’m delighted to report it’s something quite the opposite. Last night I was privileged to speak at the historic (149 year old) Lambs Club on the topic of club members who appeared in silent comedies, to celebrate the 10th anniversary of the release of my book Chain of Fools: Silent Comedy and Its Legacies from Nickelodeons to Youtube. Believe you me, there were a lot of Lambs in silent movies, vaudeville, and on Broadway!

This was my first public in-person talk in over three years (with the exception of my one person show in 2021) and it proved to be a pleasure from beginning to end, with a full house of friends new and old. In the photo above are a couple of my biggest Travalanche supporters, Tom Racz and Lisa Vogl, David Freeland (author of the terrific Automats, Taxi Dancers and Vaudeville and several other great books) and Dale Davidson, who performed in my own vaudeville show 25 years ago. In the house, a crowd of actors, comedians, singers, historians, musicians, 2 or 3 magicians, a John Barrymore impersonator, and a burlesque photographer, and maybe a few civilians. One special delight is that a couple of old friends are now principal officers of the club (Kevin Fitzpatrick as “Shepherd” and Don Spiro as “Boy”) and all signs point to things starting to hop around the ghostly old joint ere long.

By the way, they do events like this all the time; you should join! Learn about the club here, and how to join here.

And lest we forget, get your copy of Chain of Fools here.

Published by travsd

Writer and performer Trav S.D. (www.travsd.com) is best known for his books "No Applause, Just Throw Money: The Book That Made Vaudeville Famous" (2005) and "Chain of Fools: Silent Comedy and Its Legacies from Nickelodeons to Youtube" (2013). He has written for the NY Times, the Village Voice, American Theatre, Time Out NY, Reason, the Villager and numerous other publications. Trav has been in the vanguard of New York’s vaudeville and burlesque scenes since 1995 when he launched his company Mountebanks, presenting hundreds of acts ranging from Todd Robbins to Dirty Martini to Tammy Faye Starlite to the Flying Karamazov Brothers. He has directed his own plays, revues and solo pieces at such venues as Joe’s Pub, La Mama, HERE, Dixon Place, Theater for the New City, the Ohio Theatre, the Brick, and 6 separate shows in the NY International Fringe Festival. In 2014 he produced and directed the smash-hit "I’ll Say She Is", the first ever revival of the Marx Brothers hit 1924 Broadway show in the NY International Fringe Festival.