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Before the late 1890s, the image portrayed of African Americans on Broadway was a "secondhand vision of black life created by white performers."Woll, 1. Stereotyped " Coon Song s" were popular, and Blackface was common. Will Marion Cook and Bob Cole 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 two composers' approaches were diametrically opposed: Cole believed that African Americans should try to compete with whites by proving their ability to act similarly on- and offstage, while Cook that African Americans should not imitate whites but instead create their own style. Bob Cole and brothers John Rosamond Johnson and James Weldon Johnson 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 s."Woll, 15. Cole and the Johnson brothers created musicals such as ''The Belle of Bridgeport'', ''The Red Moon'', ''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 ended "one of the promising musical comedy teams yet seen on Broadway." Bert Williams and George Walker , called 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 exhibit of the California Midwinter International Exposition Of 1894 . 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 into a hiatus.Woll, 50. Until May of 1921 when 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 lessened hope for the Federal Theater Project. However one black musical comedy succeeded 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 created Carmen Jones , a version of Bizet and Verdi’s Carmen with an all-black cast.Woll, 189. REFERENCES WORKS CITED 1 SEE ALSO |
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