African American Musical Theater

Most believe that the history of black musical theatre begins with loud- laffin' negros who donned blackface makeup and baggy clothes and shuffled around stage eatin' chicken n watermelon. Many forget Clorindy, the Origin of the Cakewalk and A Trip to Coontown, in 1898 and think that the history of black musical theater starts with the ragtime pianist and composer Eubie Blake and his popular 1920s show, Shuffle Along, which attests to early black influence in American musical theater. However prior to the 1920s, black musical theater was enriched by Walker and Williams, Cole and Johnson, Miller and Lyles, and Ernest Hogan. Even white producers and composers such as George Gershwin (Porgy and Bess) who were deeply involved in black musicals also contributed to the history of black musical comedy and the history of musical theater as a whole. Some of the most amazings talents were found in show such as the Hot Mikado, Carmen Jones, and The Wiz. The tap dance, gospel songs, jazz and other elements of musical theater were perfected by black performers and composers, and were an intricate part of the Broadway tradition that has since extended its influence into television, popular music, and film.

African-American people have forgotten the true history of black musical theater and the truth about how it has influenced American Theater as a whole. Ben Vereen’s controversial performance at President Ronald Reagan’s Inaugural Gala in 1981 ia a prime example. The performance involved a “character that wore baggy clothes and blackface makeup, and shuffled about the stage.”(Woll,xii) The performance was a tribute to Bert Williams, one of black musical theaters founding fathers. However, African-American were so busy finding fault with Ben Vereen that “Williams’ contributions to black musical theater was again hushed up.” (Woll, xiii) So many prominent African-American figures have been forgotten, not only in musical theater but also in history as a whole. Few remember anyone before Eubie Blake and Noble Sissle, figures such as Walker and Williams, Cole and Johnson, Miller and Lyles, and Ernest Hogan are often not acknowledged for their awesome contribution to the creative art form we call musical theater.

“ Before 1895, Broadway experienced only the image of the Afro-American and rarely the reality.”(Woll,1)

White America used blackface makeup to actively portray African-American in the same way that men and young boys played female roles in Greek Theater. It later became a disrespectful and derogatory analysis of the African- Americans. “ From the moment T.D. Rice donned brunt cork and ‘jumped Jim Crow’ in a New York City minstrel show in 1832, Broadway audiences saw a secondhand vision of black life created by white performers”. (Woll,1) In 1890 Ernest Hogan’s All Coons Look Alike to Me started a domino effect that had every composer, black and white trying to surpass one another to create similar styles at the time were once known, as ragtime became coon songs. All due to the lack of attention paid to the lyrics.

Two composers, Will Marion Cook and Bob Cole, with different ideas on the role of the Negro in this art form gave birth to black musical comedy in 1898. Cook believed that African- Americans should not do what the whites do but venture of into our own style. This lead to an hour-long sketch that was the first all-black show to play in a prestigious Broadway house, Clorindy, the Origin of the Cakewalk which opened at the Casino Theatre's Roof Garden. On the other hand, Cole looked at it like a competition and thought that African- Americans were just as capable as whites and should act accordingly on and offstage. Thus Cole composed and produced the first full-length New York musical comedy written, directed and performed exclusively by blacks, A Trip to Coontown.

The end of the coon songs started with the beginning of Bob Cole and the music conservatory trained Johnson brothers, John Rosamand Johnson and James Weldon Johnson, relationship which was focused on elevating the lyrical sophistication of Negro songs. The team's 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 coon songs. (Wol,15) Between these three extraordinary men we have musicals such as The Belle of Bridgeport, The Red Moon, and The Shoo-Fly Regiment. Also In Newport, Humpty Dumpty, and Sally in Our Alley Featuring Bob Cole’s "Under The Bamboo Tree." The suicide of a healing sick Bob Cole ended “one of the promising musical comedy teams yet seen on Broadway.

Bert Williams and George Walker, the “Two Real Coons” found fame in 1896 with a musical farce called The Gold Bug. The duo's performance of the cakewalk 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 exposition in the Midwinter Fair. They played different venues while putting together their act. After being dropped from Isham's Octoroons, one of the first African-American companies to break from the minstrel style performance. (Woll,33-41) Williams and Walker 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 alongside Paul Lawrence Dunbar, Jesse Shipp, and William 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. George Walker died in the run of Bandanna Land his wife Ada Overton Walker substituted for him during the final week of the run. (Woll,48)

By 1911 Ernest Hogan, 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 Ziegfield Follies and black musical theater went a hiatus. (Woll,50) Until May of 1921when the surprising hit Shuffle Along made its way to New York City 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 and Eubie Blake who met at a party in Baltimore, Maryland 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.”(Woll,73)

In 1926, white producer and director Lew Leslie staged a popular series of Blackbirds revues, featuring such talents as singers Florence Mills, Ethel Waters and Lena Horne, and dance legend Bill "Bojangles" Robinson. 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.”(Woll,98) 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."(Woll,97)

Porgy and Bess is known as the best 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”(Woll,175) and the need for Works Progress Administration to start the Federal Theater Project that established the Negro Unit with programs in twenty-two cities. This gave a new breath though the struggling artist. 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 lessen hope for the Federal Theater Project. However one black musical comedy succeed and twisted the new realm of musical theater, The Swing Mikado, which is a “modernization “of Gilbert and Sullivan’s classic operetta, The Mikado.(Woll,178-184) This became the time of the reincarnation and restoration of the classics. Oscar Hammerstein II decided to try his hand in remaking a classic and he succeed with the black version of Bizet and Verdi’s Carmen. He gave it an all black cast of Southern Negroes called it Carmen Jones, feeling that both black and the original Spanish are “ emotional, colorful, and passionate.”(Woll,189) From this period we have today some of the greatest musical written.

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African American Musical Theater