Abstract: The low literary requirements of vaudeville would seem to make it accessible to any dramatist who might turn their hand to it. Only a minimal rhetorical apparatus seems necessary to organize an action, arrange verses, and scatter a work with a few witty remarks. Does vaudeville, then, attract a particular type of artist who could compensate for cultural shortcomings with something else, something that could be learned outside the classroom? Despite the diversity of the numerous vaudevillians in the nineteenth century, it is possible to establish a few model pathways.
