60 free Burlesque trivia questions with answers — entertainment quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
Burlesque started as a literary joke, became a Victorian pun-fest in tights, crossed the Atlantic with Lydia Thompson's British Blondes and turned into the striptease circuit that made Gypsy Rose Lee a star before Mayor La Guardia shut it down. This quiz has 47 free burlesque trivia questions with answers spanning all of it, plus the neo-burlesque revival and the 2010 film with Cher and Christina Aguilera. Expect a mix: easy questions on who owns the lounge in the movie and what prop Dita Von Teese fills, harder ones on the Chicago editor Lydia Thompson horsewhipped, the burlesque circuit that folded in 1931, the young comedian who wrote Dream Follies, and where the Burlesque Hall of Fame ended up. There are questions on the word's Italian roots and the literary high and low burlesque of Pope and Butler too. Every answer was checked against Wikipedia's articles on burlesque, its performers and the film, and each question carries a citation. Good for a themed pub quiz, a cabaret night warm-up or settling a backstage argument.
30 of 60 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01The word 'burlesque' ultimately derives from an Italian word meaning what?
A joke or mockery
It came into English via French from the Italian burlesco, rooted in burla, a jest or ridicule.
Q 02Whose early-16th-century Opere burlesche is the first title to use the word?
Francesco Berni
Burlesque verses were known for a time as poesie bernesca in his honour.
Q 03Alexander Pope's The Rape of the Lock is the classic example of which type of literary burlesque?
High
High burlesque applies an elevated literary manner to a trivial subject: in Pope's case, a snipped curl.
Q 04Samuel Butler's Hudibras, which mocks a Puritan knight in satiric doggerel, is an example of what?
Low
Low burlesque takes a serious subject and treats it in an irreverent, mocking style.
Q 05Which 1974 Tom Stoppard play is cited as a full-length work drawing on the burlesque tradition?
Travesties
It throws James Joyce, Lenin and Tristan Tzara together in Zurich by way of The Importance of Being Earnest.
Q 06Which composer wrote an 1890 Burleske for piano and orchestra?
Richard Strauss
From the early 18th century, 'burlesque' was also used across Europe for musical works.
Q 07Victorian burlesque was popular in London theatres between which decades?
1830s to 1890s
Madame Vestris kicked it off at the Olympic Theatre in 1831 with Olympic Revels.
Q 08How was the dialogue of Victorian burlesque generally written?
In rhyming couplets full of puns
W. S. Gilbert and F. C. Burnand were among the pun-happy authors before Gilbert teamed up with Sullivan.
Q 09Which two London theatres became the home of burlesque from the 1860s to the early 1890s?
The Gaiety and the Royal Strand
House stars there included Nellie Farren, Edward Terry and Fred Leslie.
Q 10Which troupe led by Lydia Thompson launched the burlesque craze in New York in 1868?
The British Blondes
Their show was the most popular entertainment in the city that season.
Q 11What was Lydia Thompson's first American show, in 1868?
Ixion
It was her version of F. C. Burnand's 1863 burlesque of the Greek myth.
Q 12In 1870 Lydia Thompson and colleagues did what to Wilbur Storey, owner of the Chicago Times?
Horsewhipped him at gunpoint
She said he had called her the most odious epithet that could be applied to a woman; she was arrested and fined.
Q 13Which 1866 musical extravaganza is remembered as an early American 'leg show'?
The Black Crook
It is often called the first American musical, and it ran for over a year in New York.
Q 21Which film director was the father of Gypsy Rose Lee's son Erik?
Otto Preminger
She was married to actor Alexander Kirkland at the time, and the boy went by three surnames over his life.
Q 22Which Rodgers and Hart number satirised Gypsy Rose Lee's highbrow musings while stripping?
Zip!
It comes from Pal Joey, in which a reporter recalls interviewing her.
Q 23Sally Rand's most famous fan dance appearances were at which event?
The 1933 Chicago World's Fair
She was arrested four times in a single day during the Century of Progress fair.
Q 14Which family ran the famously racy burlesque theatre at New York's National Winter Garden?
The Minskys
Their name lives on in the 1968 film The Night They Raided Minsky's.
Q 15By roughly when had striptease become the dominant ingredient of American burlesque?
The mid-1920s
By 1932 there were at least 150 strip principals working in the US.
Q 16Which New York mayor's crackdown from 1937 effectively killed burlesque in the city?
Fiorello La Guardia
Prohibition had already hurt the business, since its atmosphere depended on flowing liquor.
Q 17Which of the two national burlesque circuits collapsed in 1931 during the Depression?
Mutual
Mutual's shows were racier than Columbia's, but tamer than the local stock houses.
Q 18What was Gypsy Rose Lee's surname at birth?
Hovick
Her younger sister became the actress June Havoc.
Q 19Which 1959 Broadway musical was based on a burlesque star's 1957 memoir?
Gypsy
The 1959 production ran 702 performances, and its Rose is one of musical theatre's great monster mothers.
Q 20What was the title of Gypsy Rose Lee's 1941 mystery novel?
The G-String Murders
It was filmed in 1943 as Lady of Burlesque, starring Barbara Stanwyck.
Q 24The fan dancer born Helen Gould Beck took her stage name from what?
A Rand McNally atlas
Cecil B. DeMille gave Helen Gould Beck the name; her later 'bubble dance' was invented partly to cope with wind outdoors.
Q 25Which of these comedy duos got their start in burlesque before teaming up?
Abbott and Costello
Their films recycle classic burlesque bits like 'Slowly I Turned' and 'The Lemon Bit'.
Q 26Which 1929 backstage musical is cited as the first dramatic film to depict burlesque?
Applause
Rouben Mamoulian's early talkie starred Helen Morgan as a fading burlesque queen.
Q 27Who starred as the burlesque comic in the 1951 Broadway musical Top Banana?
Phil Silvers
Johnny Mercer wrote the songs; the title comes from burlesque slang for the lead comedian.
Q 28Which 1979 Broadway musical recreated a 1920s-circuit burlesque show?
Sugar Babies
Ann Miller and Mickey Rooney headlined it for years.
Q 29Which stripteaser assembled the nostalgic 1962 off-Broadway show This Was Burlesque?
Ann Corio
Corio had been a headliner on the Mutual circuit in its heyday.
Q 30Which pin-up star headlined Irving Klaw's burlesque films Striporama, Varietease and Teaserama?
Bettie Page
Klaw's cheaply made features were hugely profitable in the 1950s.