Groucho Marx undistinguished vaudeville singing group billed as "The Four Nightingales". The brothers Julius, Milton (Gummo Marx) and Arthur (originally Adolph, but Harpo Mark from 1911) and another boy singer, Lou Levy, traveled the U.S. vaudeville circuits to little fanfare. After exhausting their prospects in the East, the family moved to La Grange, Illinois, to play the Midwest. After a particularly dispiriting performance in Nacogdoches, Texas, Julius, Milton, and Arthur began cracking jokes onstage for their own amusement. Much to their surprise, the audience liked them better as comedians than as singers. They modified the then-popular Gus Edwards comedy skit "School Days"
Vaudeville in the Philippines outside the Philippines were brought in to provide entertainment. As early as 1901, a leading Manila theater, the "Teatro Zorilla", would promote some of these visiting vaudeville troupes as "Novelties in Manila". During these early years of vaudeville in the Philippines, most of the featured entertainers were non-Filipinos. By the middle of the 1910s, a few Filipino performers would begin to appear in vaudeville acts as well. The zarzuela star Atang de la Rama was among the first of such performers, as well as the singer Katy de la Cruz, who first appeared on Manila stages aged 7. The routines