Download history of black theatre - The SOURCE Theatre Company

Updated: 8/12/2015
THE SOURCE LIBRARY: HISTORY OF BLACK THEATRE
Bob Cole and William Johnson conceived, wrote, produced
and directed one of the first black musical comedies in
1898. The show was called A Trip to Coontown. With JR
Johnson, Bob Cole created The Shoo-Fly Regiment in 1906
and The Red Moon in 1908, both of which were more
successful. These shows helped to establish a trend of black
performers moving away from the previous standard of
minstrelsy and into sophisticated themes and lyrics. Bob Cole
was a performer and composer who greatly influenced the
development of the black musical.
Bert Williams ans George Walker starred in the first black
musical to perform on Broadway- In Dahomey (1903). The
successful production later moved to London. The duo
performed together for several vaudevillian shows including
The Gold Bug (1895), Clorindy (1897), The Policy Player
(1899), Sons of Ham (1900), Abyssinia (1906) and Bandanna
Land (1906). It was after the latter performance that George
Walker fell ill and retired from performing. Bert Williams was
one of the most famous comedic performers for all audiences
of the era.
William Brown and James Hewlett founded the first formal
black theatre company in New York City in 1821- The African
Company of The African Grove Theatre, while slavery was still
legal in the state of New York. There had been two previous
unsuccessful attempts to create a black theatre company in
New York City. Brown & Hewlett's venture proved to be the
most commercially successful. However, the theatre was
burned down in 1826 after city officials shut it down due to
complaints of "improper conduct" among the theatre's black
audience (conduct that was acceptable and common among
white theatre goers of the time). The African Grove launched
the prestigious career of one of the 19th century's leading
Shakespearean actors: Ira Aldridge. Aldridge went on to have
greater success in Russia and England.
Updated: 8/12/2015
In 1915, black theatre pioneer Anita Bush- a frequent player in
the shows of Bert Williams and George Walker, formed the
Anita Bush All-Colored Dramatic Stock Company and
performed shows that were considered "white" plays. This
effort proved that blacks can perform serious drama and also
introduced Broadway to the African-American community. The
company began its life at the Lincoln Theatre in Harlem, and
later moved to the Lafayette Theatre and became the
Lafayette Players. The Lafayette Players proved that a black
theatre company can sustain itself over a long period of time,
lasting all the way until 1932 when the Great Depression
brought the venture to an end. Bush had left the company in
1920 to pursue a career in the burgeoning motion-picture
industry.
In 1905, Robert Motts opened Chicago's first black theatrethe Pekin Theatre, which not only featured black
entertainment, but was also open to interracial
audiences. The turn of the century was a time when America
did not believe that blacks could successfully operate and
sustain a theatrical enterprise. It is theorized that Motts
named the theatre "Pekin"- an oriental-sounding name, in
order to prevent white audiences from automatically
associating it as a black theatre and dismiss its
legitimacy. The theatre was home of the Pekin Theatre Stock
Company and featured Jesse Shipp as its resident
playwright. Motts passed away in 1911, by which time the
theatre was in decline. Shipp took over operations of the
theatre and renamed its company the Jesse Shipp Stock
Company.
Founded in 1963 by John O'Neal, Doris Derby, and Gilbert
Moses at Tougaloo College in Mississippi, the Free Southern
Theater was designed as a cultural and educational extension
for the civil rights movement in the South. Closely aligned
with the Black Arts Movement - and more specifically the
Black Theatre Movement - several members of the Free
Southern Theater were figures of national prominence. The
leaders aimed to introduce theater to the Deep South - free of
charge - to communities which had no theater in their
communities and little in the way of cultural production. With
both political as well as aesthetic objectives, the group aspired
to validate positive aspects of African American culture and to
act as a voice for social protest. The legacy of Free Southern
Theater serves as a model for other community theater groups
across the nation.
Since 1963, John O'Neal has been a leading advocate of the
view that politics and art are complementary not opposing
terms. His work as a writer, performer and director has been
acclaimed by audiences in the US and worldwide. He is
founder and artistic director of Junebug Productions, the
organizational successor to the Free Southern Theater, of
which O'Neal was also a co-founder and director. He was a
field secretary of the Student Non-Violent Coordinating
Committee (SNCC) and worked as National Field Program
Director with the Committee for Racial Justice.
Updated: 8/12/2015
From 1966 to 1972 one of the most innovative, productive,
and influential groups was the New Lafayette Theatre
Company of Harlem. By 1970, there were approximately 125
black theatres within the United States. The New Lafayette
Theatre's performances served as an inspiration to a number
of artists and organizations while operating it's own literary
and talent agency, developing actors, writers, directors,
designers, and others at The Black Theatre Workshop. They
presented concerts, symposiums, created a film company,
published the nationally renowned Black Theatre Magazine
and introduced the playwright Ed Bullins. Founded by Robert
Macbeth, the NLT was a resurrection of Anita Bush's earlier
Lafayette Players- but with new concepts. Macbeth believed
that the purpose of the NLT was to "show black people who
they were, where they are and what condition they are in".
Ed Bullins was not only a playwright, but also the Minister of
Culture for the Black Panther Party. As a playwright, he was
one of the pioneers of the Black Theatre Movement and had a
style of writing that he described as "natural"- not to be
mistaken for naturalistic. Along with co-managing the New
Lafayette Theatre as associate director alongside artistic
director Robert Macbeth, Bullins also took on the ambitious
project of writing the "Twentieth Century Cycle"- not to be
confused with August Wilson's 'Pittsburgh Cycle'. Bullins
cycle (which does indeed chronicle the black experience, but
within 20 plays as opposed to Wilson's ten) includes the plays
In the Wine Time (1968), In New England Winter (1971), The
Duplex (1970), The Fabulous Miss Marie (1971), and Home
Boy (1976) and Goin' a Buffalo- the play that brought him to
the attention of Robert Macbeth. Like Wilson, Bullins was also
influenced by music in the writing of his plays and was
inspired by Amiri Baraka (then LeRoi Jones). Ed Bullins was
born and raised in North Philadelphia before joining the Navy
and moving first to Los Angeles, then to San Francisco before
ending up in New York.
Updated: 8/12/2015
Butterbeans and Susie, stars of black vaudeville from the
1920s through the '50s, had originated the husband/wife
comedy routine that later got translated into the likes of
George Burns and Gracie Allen.
Jodie Edwards and Susie Hawthorne were both teenage
chorus dancers in a T.O.B.A. (Theatre Owners Booking
Association...also known as Tough On Black Asses)
vaudeville show when a publicity agent offered them $50 each
to get married on stage at the Standard Theatre in
Philadelphia in 1917. It started out as a joke, but they stayed
together for life.
Jodie recalled having launched his performing career as a
child, on a neighborhood street corner: 'Get out there, dance
barefooted, pass the hat.` By the time he was nine or ten,
Jodie was tagging along with a local string band, serenading
the rich white folks of Marietta. For her part, Susie is known to
have appeared in southern vaudeville as early as 1911, when
she was billed as a 'coon shouter' at the Budweiser Theater in
Macon, GA.
Jodie and Susie met in 1915, as teenaged members of the
singing and dancing chorus of Tolliver`s Smart Set, a tented
minstrel variety show that was billed like a circus. Their
relationship began as a publicity stunt, when they were
married on stage with the show, but they did not immediately
team up on stage.
In 1927, Butterbeans and Susie appeared in Jimmy Cooper`s
"Black and White Revue" at the mainstream Columbia Theater
in New York and went on to play some of the biggest spots
that black acts could play in the South.
During the 1930s, with vaudeville in decline, Butter and Sue
diversified, taking up residence in hotel lounges and supper
clubs. They also found a new generation of fans in the
"modern" race theaters of the 1940s and 50s, including the
Apollo Theater in Harlem.