The vaudeville bills: what played here

The Palace from 1915 — the Emboyd from 14 May 1928

The houses' comedy content: Fort Wayne's vaudeville houses are carried as buildings in the Theaters record — the Lyric on South Calhoun (opened October 12, 1908, a vaudeville-and-pictures house that by 1929 had become a burlesque house), the Palace (dedicated January 25, 1915, devoted at its opening exclusively to vaudeville), and the Emboyd, opened May 14, 1928. What belongs to this section is the comedy on their bills, and the surviving record names remarkably little of it bill by bill. The Embassy Theatre's own account of the Emboyd describes the stage's fare generically — its stage "featured comedians, musicians, acrobats, and magicians" — and names, among the stars the house hosted, the comedian Red Skelton. Generic as it is, that is the honest bulk of the local vaudeville-comedy record: the bills were printed in the daily papers and are recoverable in principle from them, but no compiled record of touring comedy acts at Fort Wayne houses reached this section's sources, and none is invented here.

The Hope claim, attributed: The Embassy's own information page makes one specific claim that outruns the generic record: that the Emboyd "played host to Bob Hope's first emcee job." It is printed here as the theatre's own claim, attributed to the house, and it is chronologically plausible — Hope's first work as an emcee belongs to the late 1920s, after his start as a Charlie Chaplin imitator, and the Emboyd opened in May 1928 as a full-time vaudeville house on the circuits Hope was then working. No independent confirmation reached this record, and the claim is carried at the strength of its source. The modern tail is brief: the Embassy, saved and restored, still books stand-up and comic acts as a touring room — Jerry Seinfeld and David Sedaris are among the comedy names its modern record carries — but the palace's comedy history after vaudeville is a booking list, and it is left at that.

Sources:

1. Embassy Theatre, house history and information pages (fortwaynetheatre.com) — the Emboyd's stage fare of "comedians, musicians, acrobats, and magicians"; Red Skelton among the stars the house hosted; the claim that the Emboyd hosted Bob Hope's first emcee job — all carried here as the theatre's own account.
2. Theaters section of this history — the Lyric (opened October 12, 1908; later the burlesque Riley, then the Wayne), the Palace (dedicated January 25, 1915, vaudeville at its opening), and the Emboyd (opened May 14, 1928), carried there in full and cross-referenced here by agreement.
3. Embassy Theatre modern program record, as carried in travel and house listings (leisuregrouptravel.com; fortwaynetheatre.com) — Jerry Seinfeld and David Sedaris among the comedy acts booked at the modern Embassy.