Theatre Owners Booking Association , or T.O.B.A. , was the vaudeville circuit for African American performers in the 1920s. The theaters mostly had white owners, though about a third of them had Black owners, including the recently restored Morton Theater in Athens, Georgia , originally operated by "Pinky" Monroe Morton, and Douglass Theatre in Macon, Georgia owned and operated by Charles Henry Douglass. Theater owners booked jazz and blues musicians and singers, comedians, and other performers, including the classically trained, such as operatic soprano Sissieretta Jones , known as "The Black Patti", for black audiences.
20-687: The association was established following the work of vaudeville performer Sherman H. Dudley . By 1909, Dudley was commonly known as the "Lone Star Comedian" and had begun an attempt to have a black-owned and operated string of venues around the United States. By 1911, Dudley was based in Washington, D.C. as general manager and treasurer of the Colored Actors' Union , and set up S. H. Dudley Theatrical Enterprises, which began buying and leasing theaters around Washington and Virginia. By 1916,
40-544: A comment about Dudley's son, after which Dudley beat him up "$ 5,000 worth", according to Russell; Dudley 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
60-635: A young William Basie (before he came to be called "Count") on tour with Gonzelle White , and four-year-old Sammy Davis Jr. all performed on the T.O.B.A. circuit. According to writer Preston Lauterbach, "a basic TOBA troupe carried about all the variety a single stage could hold, not to mention all the personalities one sleeping car could hold", including tap dancers, comedy teams, actors, and blues singers. Their backdrops, costumes and props moved with them. The most prestigious black theaters in Harlem , Philadelphia , and Washington, D.C. , were not part of
80-886: The Whitman Sisters and their Company; musicians Fletcher Henderson , Fats Waller , Louis Armstrong , Noble Sissle , Eubie Blake , Joe "King" Oliver , and Duke Ellington ; comedians Sandy Burns , Salem Whitney Tutt , Boots Hope , Seymour James , and Tom Fletcher ; future Paris sensation Josephine Baker ; songwriter and pianist Perry Bradford , the mime Johnny Hudgins ; dancers U. S. Thompson , Walter Batie , Earl "Snakehips" Tucker , and Valaida Snow ; and many others. In addition, later well-known names such as Florence Mills , Lincoln " Stepin Fetchit " Perry, Hattie McDaniel , Mantan Moreland , Jackie "Moms" Mabley , Dewey Pigmeat Markham , Johnny Lee, Marshall "Garbage" Rogers , Amanda Randolph , Chick Webb , Cab Calloway ,
100-479: The "Dudley Circuit" had extended into the south and Midwest, enabling black entertainers to secure longer-term contracts for an extended season; this circuit provided the basis for T.O.B.A. His circuit was advertised in a weekly column published in black newspapers, "What's What on 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.
120-667: 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 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
140-556: The Smart Set for years with great success, though one critic, Sylvester Russell (a writer for 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
160-457: 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 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
180-529: The association was generally known as Toby Time ( Time was a common term for vaudeville circuits). It booked only black artists into a series of theatres on the East Coast and as far west as Oklahoma . T.O.B.A. venues were the only ones south of the Mason-Dixon line that regularly sought black audiences, according to one reference. T.O.B.A. paid less and generally had worse touring arrangements, which
200-543: 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 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
220-481: The circuit, booking acts independently; the T.O.B.A. was considered less prestigious. Many black performers, such as Bert Williams , George Walker, Johnson and Dean , Bill "Bojangles" Robinson , Irving Jones , Tim Moore, and Johnny Hudgins , also performed in white vaudeville, often in blackface . Sherman H. Dudley Sherman Houston Dudley (1872 – March 1, 1940) was an African-American vaudeville performer and theatre entrepreneur. He gained notability in
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#1732773149463240-620: 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 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,
260-490: 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 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
280-528: 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 a black theater circuit, in which theaters were owned or operated by African Americans and provided entertainment by and for African Americans. He created
300-577: The latter by his understudy, Salem Tutt Whitney ; their 1909-10 production, His Honor, 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
320-489: The next Smart Set show, The Black Politician (1906), Dudley got to use his jockey skills riding 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
340-556: The performers had to pay for themselves, than the white vaudeville counterpart. T.O.B.A. became less successful as the Great Depression struck, collapsing in late 1930 when Dudley sold his chain of theaters to a cinema company. Its earliest star performers included singers Ethel Waters , Gertrude Ma Rainey , Bessie Smith , Edmonia Henderson , Mamie Smith , Minto Cato and Adelaide Hall ; comedian Tim Moore with his Chicago Follies company (which included his wife Gertie);
360-697: 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 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
380-536: Was formally established in 1920 by people associated with Dudley's circuit. Its President was Milton Starr, owner of the Bijou Theatre in Nashville ; its chief booker was Sam Reevin of Chattanooga . The organization had more than 100 theaters at its peak in the early to mid 1920s. Often referred to by the black performers as Tough on Black Artists (or, by Gertrude "Ma" Rainey , as Tough on Black Asses ),
400-478: Was widely known as the "Lone Star Comedian" and had begun to expand his business ventures, moving into theater in an attempt to have 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
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