Early History

Before the late 1890s, the image portrayed of African-Americans on Broadway was a "secondhand vision of black life created by European-American performers." Stereotyped "coon song

Coon song

Coon songs were a genre of music popular in the United States and around the English-speaking world from 1880 to 1920, that presented a racist and stereotyped image of blacks.-Rise and fall from popularity:...

s" were popular, and blackface

Blackface

Blackface is a form of theatrical makeup used in minstrel shows, and later vaudeville, in which performers create a stereotyped caricature of a black person. The practice gained popularity during the 19th century and contributed to the proliferation of stereotypes such as the "happy-go-lucky darky...

 was common.

Will Marion Cook

Will Marion Cook

William Mercer Cook , better known as Will Marion Cook, was an African American composer and violinist from the United States. Cook was a student of Antonín Dvořák and performed for King George V among others...

 and Bob Cole

Bob Cole (composer)

Robert Allen "Bob" Cole was an American composer, actor, playwright, and stage producer and director.In collaboration with Billy Johnson, he wrote and produced A Trip to Coontown , the first musical entirely created and owned by black showmen. The popular song La Hoola Boola was also a result of...

 brought black-written musical comedy to Broadway in 1898. Cook's Clorindy; or, The Origin of the Cakewalk, an hour-long sketch that was the first all-black show to play in a prestigious Broadway house, Casino Theatre's Roof Garden. Cole's A Trip to Coontown was the first full-length New York musical comedy written, directed and performed exclusively by blacks. The approach of the two composers were diametrically opposed: Cole believed that African Americans should try to compete with European Americans by proving their ability to act similarly on- and offstage, while Cook thought African Americans should not imitate European Americans but instead create their own style.

Bob Cole and brothers John Rosamond Johnson and James Weldon Johnson

James Weldon Johnson

James Weldon Johnson was an American author, politician, diplomat, critic, journalist, poet, anthologist, educator, lawyer, songwriter, and early civil rights activist. Johnson is remembered best for his leadership within the NAACP, as well as for his writing, which includes novels, poems, and...

 focused on elevating the lyrical sophistication of African American songs. Their first collaboration was Louisiana Lize, a love song written in a new lyrical style that left out the watermelons, razors, and "hot mamas" typical of earlier "coon song

Coon song

Coon songs were a genre of music popular in the United States and around the English-speaking world from 1880 to 1920, that presented a racist and stereotyped image of blacks.-Rise and fall from popularity:...

s."

Cole and the Johnson brothers went on to create musicals such as The Belle of Bridgeport, The Red Moon (with Joe Jordan

Joe Jordan (musician)

Joe Jordan was an African American musician and composer. Jordan was born in Cincinnati, Ohio, grew up in St...

), The Shoo-Fly Regiment, In Newport, Humpty Dumpty, and Sally in Our Alley (featuring Bob Cole's "Under The Bamboo Tree"). Bob Cole's suicide in 1911 ended "one of the promising musical comedy teams yet seen on Broadway".

National Recognition

Bert Williams

Bert Williams

Egbert Austin "Bert" Williams was one of the preeminent entertainers of the Vaudeville era and one of the most popular comedians for all audiences of his time. He was by far the best-selling black recording artist before 1920...

 and George Walker

George Walker (vaudeville)

George Walker was an African American vaudevillian. In 1893, in San Francisco, Walker met Bert Williams, who became his performing partner. Walker and Williams appeared in The Gold Bug , Clorindy , The Policy Player , Sons of Ham , In Dahomey , Abyssinia , and Bandanna Land...

, called the "Two Real Coons", found fame in 1896 with a musical farce called The Gold Bug. The duo's performance of the cakewalk

Cakewalk

The Cakewalk dance was developed from a "Prize Walk" done in the days of slavery, generally at get-togethers on plantations in the Southern United States. Alternative names for the original form of the dance were "chalkline-walk", and the "walk-around"...

 captured the audience's attention, and they soon became so closely associated with this dance that many people think of them as its originators. Williams met Walker in San Francisco in 1893, while they played Dahomeyans in an exhibit of the California Midwinter International Exposition of 1894

California Midwinter International Exposition of 1894

The California Midwinter International Exposition of 1894, commonly referred to as the "Midwinter Exposition" or the "Midwinter Fair", was a World's Fair that operated from January 27 to July 5 in San Francisco's Golden Gate Park. In 1892, U.S. President Benjamin Harrison appointed M. H...

. They played different venues while putting together their act.

Williams and Walker were dropped from "Isham's Octoroons", one of the first African American companies to break from the minstrel style performance. They then put together a number of small productions including A Lucky Coon, Sons of Ham, and The Policy Players, but their ultimate goal was to produce and star in their own Broadway musical. So they thought back to the times in San Francisco and produced In Dahomey

In Dahomey

In Dahomey was a landmark American musical comedy, in that it was "the first full-length musical written and played by blacks to be performed at a major Broadway house." It featured music by Will Marion Cook, book by Jesse A. Shipp, and lyrics by Paul Laurence Dunbar...

(1903) alongside Paul Lawrence Dunbar, Jesse Shipp, and Will Marion Cook. Abyssinia (1906) and Bandanna Land (1908) also stood high in the Williams and Walker claim to fame. Their dreams of stardom come to life and they took musicals in a new direction, back to Africa

Africa

Africa is the world's second largest and second most populous continent, after Asia. At about 30.2 million km² including adjacent islands, it covers 6% of the Earth's total surface area and 20.4% of the total land area...

. George Walker died during the run of Bandanna Land and his wife Ada Overton Walker

Ada Overton Walker

Aida Overton Walker , also billed as Ada Overton Walker and as "The Queen of the Cakewalk", was an African-American vaudeville performer and wife of George Walker. She appeared with her husband and his performing partner Bert Williams, and appeared in groups such as Black Patti's Troubadours...

 substituted for him during the final week of the run.

Crossover Shows

By 1911, Ernest Hogan

Ernest Hogan

Ernest Hogan was the first African American entertainer to produce and star in a Broadway show and helped create the musical genre of ragtime....

, Bob Cole, and George Walker had died. Will Marion Cook and the Johnson brothers, James and J. Rosamond, had pursued new careers and Bert Williams moved to the Ziegfeld Follies

Ziegfeld Follies

The Ziegfeld Follies were a series of elaborate theatrical productions on Broadway in New York City from 1907 through 1931. They became a radio program in 1932 and 1936 as The Ziegfeld Follies of the Air....

and black musical theater went into a hiatus.

In 1915 ragtime

Ragtime

Ragtime is an original musical genre which enjoyed its peak popularity between 1897 and 1918. Its main characteristic trait is its syncopated, or "ragged," rhythm. It began as dance music in the red-light districts of American cities such as St. Louis and New Orleans years before being published...

 composer Scott Joplin

Scott Joplin

Scott Joplin was an American composer and pianist. Joplin achieved fame for his ragtime compositions, and was later dubbed "The King of Ragtime". During his brief career, Joplin wrote 44 original ragtime pieces, one ragtime ballet, and two operas...

 attempted to stage an opera

Opera

Opera is an art form in which singers and musicians perform a dramatic work combining text and musical score, usually in a theatrical setting. Opera incorporates many of the elements of spoken theatre, such as acting, scenery, and costumes and sometimes includes dance...

 Treemonisha

Treemonisha

Treemonisha is an opera composed by the famed African-American ragtime composer Scott Joplin. Though it encompasses a wide range of musical styles other than ragtime, and Joplin did not refer to it as such, it is sometimes incorrectly referred to as a "ragtime opera"...

 in Harlem but the show was a financial and critical failure and Joplin was ruined and retreated into retirement until his death in 1917.

In May 1921, the surprising hit Shuffle Along made its way to New York City

New York City

New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...

 with almost $18,000 in debt. "One of the most popular black shows of the 1920’s; began to tinker with the pattern of segregation". The creators of the astronomical point in history are The Dixie Duo, Noble Sissle

Noble Sissle

Noble Sissle was an American jazz composer, lyricist, bandleader, singer and playwright.-Early life:...

 and Eubie Blake

Eubie Blake

James Hubert Blake was an American composer, lyricist, and pianist of ragtime, jazz, and popular music. In 1921, Blake and long-time collaborator Noble Sissle wrote the Broadway musical Shuffle Along, one of the first Broadway musicals to be written and directed by African Americans...

, who met at a party in Baltimore

Baltimore

Baltimore is the largest independent city in the United States and the largest city and cultural center of the US state of Maryland. The city is located in central Maryland along the tidal portion of the Patapsco River, an arm of the Chesapeake Bay. Baltimore is sometimes referred to as Baltimore...

, Maryland

Maryland

Maryland is a U.S. state located in the Mid Atlantic region of the United States, bordering Virginia, West Virginia, and the District of Columbia to its south and west; Pennsylvania to its north; and Delaware to its east...

 in 1915. Their career was brief but successful. "Shuffle Along was a milestone in the development of the black musical, and it became the model by which all black musicals were judged until well into the 1930s." F. E. Miller

F. E. Miller

Flournoy Earkin Miller was an African American composer, singer, writer, and actor who appeared in vaudeville with Aubrey Lyles as Miller and Lyles....

 and Aubrey Lyles

Aubrey Lyles

Aubrey Lyles was an African American songwriter, lyricist, and vaudeville performer, appearing with F. E. Miller as Miller and Lyles...

, who wrote the book for Shuffle Along

Shuffle Along

Shuffle Along is the first major successful African American musical. Written by Flournoy Miller and Aubrey Lyles, with music and lyrics by Noble Sissle and Eubie Blake, the musical premiered on Broadway in 1921.-Plot:...

(1921) had met in 1906, and began performing at the "Pekin Theater Stock Company" near Chicago

Chicago

Chicago is the largest city in the US state of Illinois. With nearly 2.7 million residents, it is the most populous city in the Midwestern United States and the third most populous in the US, after New York City and Los Angeles...

 from 1906 to 1909, along with other African American stars such as Harry Lawrence Freeman

Harry Lawrence Freeman

Harry Lawrence Freeman was a United States opera composer, conductor, impresario and teacher...

.

In 1921, Miller and Lyles appeared in a short film made in Photokinema

Photokinema

Photo-Kinema was a sound-on-disc system for motion pictures invented by Orlando Kellum.-1921 introduction:The system was first used for a small number of short films, mostly made in 1921...

, a sound-on-disc

Sound-on-disc

The term Sound-on-disc refers to a class of sound film processes using a phonograph or other disc to record or playback sound in sync with a motion picture...

 process, singing their composition "De Ducks", while Sissle and Blake made three films in the Lee De Forest

Lee De Forest

Lee De Forest was an American inventor with over 180 patents to his credit. De Forest invented the Audion, a vacuum tube that takes relatively weak electrical signals and amplifies them. De Forest is one of the fathers of the "electronic age", as the Audion helped to usher in the widespread use...

 Phonofilm

Phonofilm

In 1919, Lee De Forest, inventor of the audion tube, filed his first patent on a sound-on-film process, DeForest Phonofilm, which recorded sound directly onto film as parallel lines. These parallel lines photographically recorded electrical waveforms from a microphone, which were translated back...

 sound-on-film

Sound-on-film

Sound-on-film refers to a class of sound film processes where the sound accompanying picture is physically recorded onto photographic film, usually, but not always, the same strip of film carrying the picture. Sound-on-film processes can either record an analog sound track or digital sound track,...

 process in 1923. These short films are a record of music similar to the work these four men were doing on stage at the time...

Lew Leslie's Blackbirds

In 1928, white producer and director Lew Leslie

Lew Leslie

Lew Leslie was a Broadway writer and producer. Although white, he was the first impressario to present black artists on stage...

 staged the first of a popular series of Blackbirds

Blackbirds of 1928

Blackbirds of 1928 was a hit Broadway revue with music by Jimmy McHugh and lyrics by Dorothy Fields. It contained the songs "Diga Diga Do", the duo's first hit, "I Can't Give You Anything But Love", and "I Must Have That Man" all sung by Adelaide Hall....

revues, featuring such talents as singers Ethel Waters

Ethel Waters

Ethel Waters was an American blues, jazz and gospel vocalist and actress. She frequently performed jazz, big band, and pop music, on the Broadway stage and in concerts, although she began her career in the 1920s singing blues.Her best-known recordings includes, "Dinah", "Birmingham Bertha",...

 and Lena Horne

Lena Horne

Lena Mary Calhoun Horne was an American singer, actress, civil rights activist and dancer.Horne joined the chorus of the Cotton Club at the age of sixteen and became a nightclub performer before moving to Hollywood, where she had small parts in numerous movies, and more substantial parts in the...

, and dance legend Bill "Bojangles" Robinson and top-flight funnymen like Tim Moore (comedian)

Tim Moore (comedian)

Tim Moore was a celebrated American vaudevillian and comic actor of the first half of the 20th century. He gained his greatest recognition in the starring role of George "Kingfish" Stevens in the CBS television series, Amos 'n' Andy...

. Further Blackbirds revues were staged in 1930, 1933, and 1939. The key to Leslie’s success was the awesome talent he found. “Leslie managed to build his black revues around one or more dynamic performers, who could carry a modest show to success.” Although these productions showcased black talent, they were almost completely created by white writers and composers. In an interview, Leslie made a fascinating claim that “They (white men) understand the colored man better than he does himself. Colored composers excel at spirituals, but their other songs are just 'what' (dialect for 'white') songs with Negro words."

Porgy and Bess, the WPA, The Swing Mikado, and Carmen Jones

George Gershwin

George Gershwin

George Gershwin was an American composer and pianist. Gershwin's compositions spanned both popular and classical genres, and his most popular melodies are widely known...

's Porgy and Bess

Porgy and Bess

Porgy and Bess is an opera, first performed in 1935, with music by George Gershwin, libretto by DuBose Heyward, and lyrics by Ira Gershwin and DuBose Heyward. It was based on DuBose Heyward's novel Porgy and subsequent play of the same title, which he co-wrote with his wife Dorothy Heyward...

(1935) -- starring Will Marion Cook's wife Abbie Mitchell

Abbie Mitchell

Abriea "Abbie" Mitchell , also billed as Abbey Mitchell, was an American soprano opera singer who sang the role of "Clara" in the premier production of George Gershwin's Porgy and Bess in 1935....

 among many others -- is the most famous black musical of the 1930s. It is called a black musical because of the African American cast, even though neither the music or plot is of the “Negro inspiration” like the creators proclaim. "Porgy and Bess marked the nadir in the history of black musical comedy, symbolizing the end of tradition and experimentation in black musical theater on Broadway". This also led the Works Progress Administration

Works Progress Administration

The Works Progress Administration was the largest and most ambitious New Deal agency, employing millions of unskilled workers to carry out public works projects, including the construction of public buildings and roads, and operated large arts, drama, media, and literacy projects...

 to start the Federal Theater Project that established the Negro Unit with programs in twenty-two cities. This gave a new break to the struggling artists. The Negro Unit avoided musical comedies, but had a few musicals with black cast including Eubie Blake’s Swing It, which closed in 1937 and lessened hope for the Federal Theater Project.

However, one black musical comedy succeeded and twisted the new realm of musical theater, The Swing Mikado

The Swing Mikado

The Swing Mikado is an operetta in two acts with music arranged by Gentry Warden, based on Gilbert and Sullivan's comic opera, The Mikado. It was first staged by an all-black company in Chicago in 1938, transferring to Broadway, and featured a setting transposed from Japan to a tropical island...

(1937), a "modernization" of Gilbert and Sullivan

Gilbert and Sullivan

Gilbert and Sullivan refers to the Victorian-era theatrical partnership of the librettist W. S. Gilbert and the composer Arthur Sullivan . The two men collaborated on fourteen comic operas between 1871 and 1896, of which H.M.S...

’s classic operetta, The Mikado

The Mikado

The Mikado; or, The Town of Titipu is a comic opera in two acts, with music by Arthur Sullivan and libretto by W. S. Gilbert, their ninth of fourteen operatic collaborations...

. Another modern version of the classics was Oscar Hammerstein II

Oscar Hammerstein II

Oscar Greeley Clendenning Hammerstein II was an American librettist, theatrical producer, and theatre director of musicals for almost forty years. Hammerstein won eight Tony Awards and was twice awarded an Academy Award for "Best Original Song". Many of his songs are standard repertoire for...

's Broadway musical Carmen Jones

Carmen Jones

Carmen Jones is a 1943 Broadway musical starring Muriel Smith in the title role, later made into a 1954 musical film; the play also ran for a season in 1991 at London's Old Vic and most recently in London's Royal Festival Hall in the Southbank Centre in 2007. It is an updating of the Georges Bizet...

(1943), a version of Georges Bizet

Georges Bizet

Georges Bizet formally Alexandre César Léopold Bizet, was a French composer, mainly of operas. In a career cut short by his early death, he achieved few successes before his final work, Carmen, became one of the most popular and frequently performed works in the entire opera repertory.During a...

’s Carmen

Carmen

Carmen is a French opéra comique by Georges Bizet. The libretto is by Henri Meilhac and Ludovic Halévy, based on the novella of the same title by Prosper Mérimée, first published in 1845, itself possibly influenced by the narrative poem The Gypsies by Alexander Pushkin...

with an all-black cast.

Works cited