Variety show Stan Laurel revisited his music hall days when he performed at the "Royal Variety" show. In the United States, former vaudeville performers such as the Marx Brothers, George Burns and Gracie Allen, W. C. Fields, and Jack Benny honed their skills in the Borscht Belt before moving to talkies, to radio shows, and then to television shows, including variety shows. Variety shows were among the first programs to be featured on television during the experimental mechanical television era. Variety shows hosted by Helen Haynes and Harriet Lee are recorded in contemporary newspapers in 1931 and 1932; because of technical limits
Ralph Pape York Times", reviewed the 1992 New York production of "Soap Opera", directed by Elizabeth Franzen: In 1983, "Say Goodnight, Gracie" was adapted by the author for a 90-minute teleplay which was seen on Chicago's PBS affiliate WTTW with the original Steppenwolf cast of Joan Allen, Jeff Perry, Glenne Headly, Francis Guinan and John Malkovich. Pape received a 1994 Emmy for his TV adaptation of "Say Goodnight, Gracie". "Girls We Have Known" was a runner-up in Actors Theatre of Louisville's Great American Play Contest. As a result, the theatre commissioned "Warm and Tender Love" and "Soap Opera". "Hearts Beating Faster" prompted