Shuffle Along

Shuffle Along stands as one of the first successful " all-black musical" on Broadway at the beginning of an era of African American emancipation in the field of visual arts and culture industry, which is called the Harlem Renaissance.

Shuffle Along was premiered on 23 May 1921 in the 63rd Street Music Hall, New York, reaching 484 performances. In that theater season only the Jerome Kern musical Sally was successful. The show was written exclusively by African Americans, directed and recorded ( the producer John Cort and Harry were white ) and there was the black audience allowed to sit in the stalls, rather than as before. In the stands The music was composed by Eubie Blake, Noble Sissle wrote the song texts, the book Flournoy E. Miller and Aubrey L. Lyles. Many later well-known African-American artists were - either on Broadway or in the "post -Broadway " tours - among the performers: Josephine Baker, Paul Robeson, Florence Mills, Adelaide Hall, Fredi Washington, Elida Webb, Caterina Jarboro.

About the play

The book is based on Miller and Lyles in the vaudeville skits The Mayor of Dixie and The Mayor of Jimtown played characters, Steve Jenkins and Sam Peck: The two operate together a grocery store and counterparties in a civil championship campaign in the American South. They promise in the case of the choice to use each other as police chief; third, hopeless candidates for the position is Harry Walton. The burlesque act - it comes to fraud and mutual distrust, a love story, a fight and the triumph of justice, defeating Harry - joined the various song and dance numbers.

The musical introduced near traditional black and early forms of jazz music, such as blues, boogie -woogie and ragtime to Broadway and thus a white audience. Jazz dance and tap dancing, especially the girls chorus line made ​​for excitement and as a model for white choreographers. Producers like Florenz Ziegfeld and George White introduced Shuffle Along chorus dancers to teach white dancers.

Following the prevailing cliché, the characters depicted spoke broken and had a penchant for theft, fraud and trouble with the law. The two heroes of the piece wore, as in minstrel shows, black makeup - while the chorus girls were light-skinned. However, a taboo was broken by the appearance of a black love story.

The success of Shuffle Along opened the door for other African-American shows on Broadway: 1922 Plantation Review of J. Russel Robinson and Roy Turk, Strut, Miss Lizzie J. Turner Layton and Henry Creamer, Liza Maceo Pinkard; 1923 How Come? by Ben Harris, Go-Go Luckey Roberts and Alexander Rogers Or in Broadway near 1921 Put and Take by Spencer Williams, Perry Bradford and Tim Brymn; 1922 Oh, Joy! Salem Tutt Whitney and J. Homer Tutt. Miller and Lyles brought 1923 Runnin 'Wild with the music of James P. Johnson and produced out of George White; Blake and Sissle brought musicals 1923 and 1924 Elsie The Chocolate Dandies out.

Well-known musical numbers

• I'm Just Wild About Harry
• Shuffle Along
• Love Will Find A Way
• Bandana Days
• In Honeysuckle Time
• Gypsy Blues

Others

The song " I'm Just Wild About Harry " was used in the 1948 presidential election campaign, Harry S. Truman.