Minsky's Burlesque
stage shows popular in the early 20th century
Minsky's Burlesque was a brand of American burlesque presented by four sons of Louis and Ethel Minsky: Abraham "Abe" Bennett Minsky (1880–1949), Michael William "Billy" Minsky (1887–1932), Herbert Kay Minsky (1891–1959), and Morton Minsky (1902–1987). They were Jewish. They started in 1912 and ended in 1937 in New York City. Although the shows were declared obscene and outlawed, they were rather tame by modern standards.
History
The eldest brother, Abe, launched the business in 1908 with a Lower East Side nickelodeon showing racy films. His own father shut him down and bought the National Winter Garden (originally, the National Theater) on Houston Street near Second Avenue, which had a theater inconveniently located on the sixth floor. He gave the theater to Abe and his brothers Billy and Herbert. At first they tried showing respectable films but could not compete with the large theater chains. The Minskys tried to bolster their shows by bringing in vaudevillians but could not afford good acts.
Then they considered burlesque.
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This entry incorporates text from “Minsky's Burlesque” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.