Reconstructing the movements of Schaefer’s Märchen-Stadt Liliput—Data Document

During the second half of the nineteenth and the first half of the twentieth century, travelling Vaudeville and Varieté troupes were a common occurrence providing novelty entertainment to larger and smaller communities. While the existence of itinerant theatre troupes can be readily established through casual mentions in newspapers, the movements of these, like those of other itinerant professions, are notoriously difficult to track. Using the example of ‘Schaefer’s Märchen-Stadt Liliput,’ a troupe of persons of small stature travelling Germany and parts western Europe in the 1920s to 1940s, this paper examines their touring schedule as derived from ‘standard’ newspaper sources