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36-490: The Hyers Sisters , Anna Madah (ca. 1855 – 1929) and Emma Louise (ca. 1857 – 1901), were singers and pioneers of black musical theater . With Joseph Bradford and Pauline Hopkins , the Hyers Sisters produced the "first full-fledged musical plays... in which African Americans themselves comment on the plight of the slaves and the relief of Emancipation without the disguises of minstrel comedy." Their first play

72-527: A "modernization" of Gilbert and Sullivan ’s classic operetta, The Mikado . This was followed by The Hot Mikado (1939). Another modern version of the classics was Oscar Hammerstein II 's Broadway musical Carmen Jones (1943), a version of Georges Bizet ’s Carmen with an all-black cast. In the late 20th and 21st century, predominantly Black musical theatre shows became more common. Notable shows include Once on This Island , The Color Purple , MJ

108-632: A black theater circuit, in which theaters were owned or operated by African Americans and provided entertainment by and for African Americans. He created the first black operated vaudeville circuit and led the way for what became the Theatre Owners Booking Association (T.O.B.A.). Reportedly, Dudley was born in 1872 in Dallas , Texas (some sources list his year of birth as around 1870 or 1873 ), "of humble parentage". A jockey early in his youth, he turned to theater and gained

144-769: A black-owned and operated string of venues around the United States, a dream of his since at least 1907. By about 1910 Dudley was based in Washington D.C., where he served as general manager and treasurer of the Colored Actors' Union . In 1911 he set up S. H. Dudley Theatrical Enterprises, and began buying and leasing theaters to develop the first black vaudeville circuit, initially around Washington and Virginia; he had bought his first theater, in Baltimore, in 1912. In August 1912, he played his last season with

180-471: A farm in Maryland where he bred thoroughbred racehorses. In 1903 Dudley married Alberta Ormes, with whom he'd been performing since at least 1901, and was on tour the following year with Richard and Pringle's Georgia Minstrels . Alberta was murdered in 1926 by Police George S. Davis. Articles stated the couple had been in the midst of a divorce, but had recently reconciled. Actor Sherman H. Dudley Jr.

216-474: A hiatus. In 1915 ragtime composer Scott Joplin attempted to stage an opera Treemonisha 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 with almost $ 18,000 in debt. "One of the most popular black shows of the 1920s; began to tinker with

252-537: A horse on stage, and when in October 1906 a donkey named Shamus O'Brien was added (though another source lists the donkey's name as "Patrick" ), the donkey and Dudley received high praise from critics, even from Russell. In 1909, the Smart Set split up in a Northern and a Southern Smart Set, the first being directed by Dudley and the latter by his understudy, Salem Tutt Whitney ; their 1909-10 production, His Honor,

288-539: A new direction, back to Africa . George Walker died during the run of Bandanna Land and his wife Ada Overton Walker substituted for him during the final week of the run. 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 Ziegfeld Follies and black musical theater went into

324-566: A number of minstrel comedians in shows in the same vein, including A Holiday in Coonville (his own production) and Coontown Golf Club (a production by Tom Brown and Sam Cousins ). When he toured with Tom Brown and Billy Kersands in 1902, it was clear that he was a popular, well-known artist in the South, and was billed as "the Lone-Star comedian". By 1903, he received star billing. In

360-503: A reputation by singing in a medicine show on a Dallas street corner, singing " Dese Bones G'wine Rise Again ". By 1897 he had his own show, the "S. H. Dudley's Georgia Minstrels", who were performing in Galveston ; later that same year he was on tour with P. T. Wright 's Nashville Students Company. He gained a reputation for writing popular coon songs (including a hit song called "Mr. Coon, You'se Too Black For Me"), and performed with

396-586: 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 to start

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432-565: The Indianapolis Freeman ), was hard on him from the beginning, presumably because he felt that Dudley's minstrel show background made him unworthy; in 1906, Russell referred to him as "this loathsome comedian who hails from the Lone Star State." It seems that Dudley took all this in stride until 1911, when Russell made a comment about Dudley's son, after which Dudley beat him up "$ 5,000 worth", according to Russell; Dudley

468-583: The Federal Theater Project that established the Negro Unit with programs in 22 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 (1937),

504-627: The Lee De Forest Phonofilm sound-on-film 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... Rang Tang was premiered July 12, 1927, on Broadway at the Royale Theater and ran for 119 performances, including a 14-week overrun, finishing at the Majestic October 24, 1927. In 1928, white producer and director Lew Leslie staged

540-611: The African Princess written by E. S. Getchell and premiered in 1879, The Underground Railway , by Pauline Hopkins in July 1880, and Hopkin’s stage version of Uncle Tom’s Cabin in March 1880. Additionally, they performed Colored Aristocracy by Hopkins. Overall, they had at least six shows between the late 1870s and 1880s. They set the path for black musical theater and performance in the years that followed. They traveled until

576-621: The Barber was written by a white playwright, Edwin Handford , with music written for the show by black composers James Tim Brymn , Chris Smith , and James Burris . The show opened in New Jersey for a mixed audience, and by the time of the final run Aida Overton Walker had joined the cast. By this time, Dudley was widely known as the "Lone Star Comedian" and had begun to expand his business ventures, moving into theater in an attempt to have

612-749: The Cake Walk , 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 focused on elevating

648-581: The Dudley's Circuit", and by 1914 it included over twenty theaters, "all owned or operated by blacks and as far south as Atlanta." T.O.B.A. was founded by people associated with Dudley's circuit, and while the organization was white-owned it had black regional managers, including Dudley (for the Washington, D.C. area). After 1917 Dudley devoted himself to producing black musicals, including updated Smart Set productions. He sold his theaters around 1930 (due to economic forces "beyond his control" ), and retired to

684-634: The Musical , Dreamgirls , The Lion King , Tina: The Tina Turner Musical , Ain't Too Proud , Passing Strange , and The Wiz . Sister Act is led by a Black character while Hairspray features multiple Black characters, ensemble members and a story about integration. Michael R. Jackson 's A Strange Loop won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 2020, becoming the first African American musical to win this award. Sherman H. Dudley Sherman Houston Dudley (1872 – March 1, 1940)

720-500: The Smart Set, from then on devoting himself to his "circuit of theaters." By 1916 the "Dudley Circuit" had extended into the south and Midwest, enabling black entertainers to secure longer term contracts for an extended season; his circuit provided the basis for the Theater Owners Booking Association (T.O.B.A.). His circuit was advertised in a weekly column published in black newspapers, "What's What on

756-539: The book for Shuffle Along (1921) had met in 1906, and began performing at the "Pekin Theater Stock Company" near Chicago from 1906 to 1909, along with other African American stars such as Harry Lawrence Freeman . In 1921, Miller and Lyles appeared in a short film made in Photokinema , a sound-on-disc process, singing their composition "De Ducks", while Sissle and Blake made three films in

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792-687: 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 (1903) alongside Paul Laurence Dunbar , Jesse A. Shipp , and Will Marion Cook. Abyssinia (1906) and Bandanna Land (1908) were also significant parts of Williams and Walker's claim to fame. Their dreams of stardom come to life and they took musicals in

828-593: The first American musicals in the 1870s. Trained opera singers, they toured the United States for 20 years, performing 'comic operas' that broke with minstrel show stereotypes and told stories about slavery and freedom. Another pioneering Black touring group was Sherman H. Dudley 's Smart Set Company , whose musical comedies in the early 1900s bridged the gap between old Minstrel-style stereotypes and more upscale, authentic and self-referential humour. Will Marion Cook and Bob Cole brought black-written musical comedy to Broadway in 1898. Cook's Clorindy, or The Origin of

864-425: The first of a popular series of Blackbirds revues, featuring such talents as singers Adelaide Hall and Aida Ward , dancer extraordinaire Bill "Bojangles" Robinson and top-flight funnyman Tim Moore . Further Blackbirds revues were staged in 1930 with Ethel Waters , Buck and Bubbles , and Flournoy Miller , in 1933 with Edith Wilson , and in 1939 with Lena Horne and Tim Moore. The key to Leslie's success

900-596: 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 songs ." Cole and the Johnson brothers went on to create musicals such as The Belle of Bridgeport , The Red Moon (with Joe Jordan ), 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

936-570: The mid-1880s with their own shows and continued to appear on stage into the 1890s. Though Emma Louise had died, in 1901, Anna Madah continued to travel with a show of John Isham . African American musical theater The African Grove Theatre opened in New York City in 1821. 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 songs " were popular, and blackface

972-493: 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." F. E. Miller and Aubrey Lyles , who wrote

1008-641: 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 was successful. 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. Williams and Walker were dropped from " Isham's Octoroons ", one of

1044-534: The summer of 1904 he left that company and moved to Chicago to take over the leading role in Gus Hill 's Smart Set Company after the death of Tom McIntosh , performing in the show A Southern Enchantment . In 1904 he also opened a cafe and bar on State Street in Chicago with boxer Jack Johnson. Dudley performed with the Smart Set for years with great success, though one critic, Sylvester Russell (a writer for

1080-614: Was Out of Bondage (also known as Out of the Wilderness ). Their father, Samuel B. Hyers, came west to Sacramento, California with their mother, Annie E. Hyers (née Cryer), after the Gold Rush . He made sure his daughters received both piano lessons and vocal training with German professor Hugo Sank and later opera singer Josephine D'Ormy and they performed for private parties before making their professional stage debut on April 22, 1867 at Sacramento’s Metropolitan Theater. Anna

1116-560: Was a soprano and Emma a contralto . Under their father’s management, they embarked on their first transcontinental tour in 1871. On August 12, 1871, they performed in Salt Lake City to much acclaim. They were later called "a rare musical treat" by Saint Joseph, Missouri ’s Daily Herald and earned equal praise in Chicago, Cleveland, and New York City. Their tour reached Worcester and Springfield, Massachusetts , as well as New Haven and Providence . They visited Boston, which

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1152-470: Was an African-American vaudeville performer and theatre entrepreneur. He gained notability in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century as an individual performer, a composer of ragtime songs, and as a member and later owner of various minstrel shows including the Smart Set Company . Dudley is also notable as one of the first African Americans to combine business with theater, by starting

1188-480: Was arrested and fined $ 1 and court costs, after which Russell sued him for $ 5,000. Other critics were less hesitant to praise Dudley's performance, and he is now credited with having brought "the street to the stage": "Dudley revitalized the Smart Set and made it into an enduring classic of the American popular stage." In the next Smart Set show, The Black Politician (1906), Dudley got to use his jockey skills riding

1224-472: Was common. Minstrel shows were often performed in early history and were inspired by black music. These shows were first performed by white people who used black face in the 1800s. Many of these performers wore old ripped clothing, some actually stolen from slaves, to “represent” the enslaved African Americans. Along with the clothing, the white performers portrayed black people out to be lazy, thieves, and dumb. The Hyers Sisters have been credited with creating

1260-404: Was known to be extremely critical of new acts, and were also well-received, performing in the 1872 World Peace Jubilee which was one of, if not, the first integrated major musical production in the country. The Hyers’ family organized a theater company, where they produced musical dramas starring Anna and Emma, including Out of Bondage , written by Joseph Bradford and premiered in 1876, Urlina,

1296-655: Was the exceptional 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 remarkable 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." George Gershwin 's Porgy and Bess (1935) – starring Will Marion Cook's wife Abbie Mitchell among many others –

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