Old-time fun!

Puppets, pantomimes, comedy and jugglers are just some of the acts Vermont Vaudeville will bring to the Spruce Peak Performing Arts Center Saturday.

The Hardwick-based company combines old-school vaudeville entertainment with new comedy, music and stunts. The result is a family-friendly production that changes from one show to the next.

It was “the great void of good, live entertainment in the Northeast Kingdom” that led Justin Lander to found Vermont Vaudeville seven years ago with his wife, Rose Friedman, and their friends, Brent and Maya McCoy.

Both couples live in Greensboro and wanted to do something locally.

Their first show, in 2008, filled 120 seats.

“We felt like that was the best success we could have hoped for,” Lander said.

He sees things differently now. Most Vermont Vaudeville shows sell out. Last weekend, a Saturday evening show in Hardwick sold out so quickly that a matinee was added. Ticket sales for the Spruce Peak show have been brisk.

Vermont Vaudeville performs its annual spring and fall shows at the Hardwick Town House, which began life as a school in the 1860s, then was used as a vaudeville house and for opera and theatrical performances.

“It’s right next to the train tracks,” Lander said. “Trains would pull up and entertainers would get out.”

Last year, Vermont Vaudeville presented shows at nine places throughout the state, including the FlynnSpace in Burlington, Town Hall Theater in Middlebury, the New England Youth Theater in Brattleboro, and the Big Picture Theater in Waitsfield.

Though the company no longer sells tickets on a sliding fee scale, it works to keep prices affordable so entire families of modest means can come out together to enjoy the show.

Why vaudeville?

Lander, who grew up in northern New Jersey, majored in neuroscience at Bates College in Maine before deciding he wanted to pursue a more creative career.

His lifelong fascination with object manipulation and being on stage eventually led him to Bread and Puppet Theater in Glover, where he met Maya.

“Bread and Puppet is a place where people of all abilities can come together and make theater collaboratively,” Lander said. “I came as a summer intern and didn’t leave for five years. I saw it as an old-fashioned apprenticeship where you’re learning from an old master. It’s an all-consuming life.”

Puppeteering offers more versatility than acting, he said.

The puppets themselves “can be versatile, but their physical body narrows who they can play,” Lander said. “Puppeteers have no limitations that way. You can play males, females, old people and young people. As a performer, that’s very enticing.”

Vaudeville, known for its relatively short, disconnected acts, provides a good venue for melding Justin and Rose’s background with puppeteering and Brent and Maya’s experience with circus acts, according to Lander.

“Somewhere between the two entities is vaudeville,” Lander said.

When he’s not producing or performing, Lander works for a sugarmaker and Friedman does homeschool evaluations. They manage a homestead where they grow most of the food they eat and conduct children’s workshops.

“Rose and I do puppet shows and music workshops with kids where we make instruments out of garbage and household items and learn to play them together,” Lander said. “It’s lots of fun.”

The McCoys are full-time performers, working mostly the street-performer circuit. You can find them in Boston many weekends, performing at Faneuil Hall.

Favorite acts

Vermont Vaudeville’s regular performers include a house band — piano, drum and bass. There’s also a “gorilla” that serves as a stagehand roustabout.

The company creates new material each season and invites two to four guest performers from different entertainment backgrounds.

“It brings us an opportunity to bring in all of these fantastic performers,” Lander said. “We have a place to showcase world-class performances.”

Guest performers have included Tom Murphy, the physical comedian from Waterbury; Rob Mermin, the founder of Circus Smirkus; and Melissa Knowles, who calls herself “a juggler, aerialist, acrobat, hula hooper, stilter, hand-balancer, contortionist, musician, artist, and circus instructor.”

“It was inspiring to be able to share the stage with Tom and Rob and to invent something they were able to drop into,” Lander said.

The company actively seeks out performers and is willing to take a chance on new acts.

“We often have a local act, a musical group or a dance company,” Lander said. “They’re often kids or teenagers. Those acts usually approach us and, if it’s a good fit, we try to put them in.”

The company tries to balance a mix of seasoned and new guest performers in each show.

“An amateur act in front of a professional act can be nice,” Lander said. “We’re always looking for a way to share the stage with local people.”

While audiences will always be treated to new acts, the company brings back some old favorites in every show.

The McCoys perform a comedy act in which they portray Charlie and Margaret, a husband and wife with heavy Vermont accents.

“They’re really great, versatile characters,” Lander said. “We use them to make fun of everything. They make fun of themselves. They make fun of non-Vermonters.”

Lander and Friedman perform an uproariously funny pantomime dubbed “The Flatlanders.”

“They’re the opposite of Charlie and Margaret,” Lander said. “They wear a suit and cocktail dress. We play the two sides of Vermont, make fun of both sides, and use each side to prop each other up. The audience seems to enjoy it.”

What’s in store for the audience at Spruce Peak this weekend?

“They can expect to laugh so hard that the next day their face is going to hurt,” Lander said. “They can expect to see world-class entertainers and some things they’ve never seen before. I don’t think I’m overstating it.”