Shuffle Along is the first major successful
African AmericanAfrican Americans are citizens or residents of the United States who have origins in any of the black populations of Africa. In the United States, the terms are generally used for Americans with at least partial Sub-Saharan African ancestry...
musicalMusical theatre is a form of theatre combining music, songs, spoken dialogue and dance. The emotional content of the piece – humor, pathos, love, anger – as well as the story itself, is communicated through the words, music, movement and technical aspects of the entertainment as an...
. Written by Flournoy Miller and Aubrey Lyles, with music and lyrics by Noble Sissle and Eubie Blake, the musical premiered on
BroadwayBroadway Theatre, commonly called simply Broadway, is the theatre associated with the 40 large professional theaters with 500 seats or more located in the Theatre District, New York in Manhattan, New York City...
in 1921.
The plot centers on the characters Sam and Steve who run for mayor in Jimtown, USA. If either one wins, he will appoint the other his chief of police. Sam wins with the help of a crooked campaign manager.
Shuffle Along is the first major successful
African AmericanAfrican Americans are citizens or residents of the United States who have origins in any of the black populations of Africa. In the United States, the terms are generally used for Americans with at least partial Sub-Saharan African ancestry...
musicalMusical theatre is a form of theatre combining music, songs, spoken dialogue and dance. The emotional content of the piece – humor, pathos, love, anger – as well as the story itself, is communicated through the words, music, movement and technical aspects of the entertainment as an...
. Written by Flournoy Miller and Aubrey Lyles, with music and lyrics by Noble Sissle and Eubie Blake, the musical premiered on
BroadwayBroadway Theatre, commonly called simply Broadway, is the theatre associated with the 40 large professional theaters with 500 seats or more located in the Theatre District, New York in Manhattan, New York City...
in 1921.
Plot
The plot centers on the characters Sam and Steve who run for mayor in Jimtown, USA. If either one wins, he will appoint the other his chief of police. Sam wins with the help of a crooked campaign manager. Sam keeps his promise to appoint Steve as chief of police, but they begin to disagree on petty matters. They resolve their differences in a rousing, humorous 20-minute fight scene. As they fight, their opponent for the mayoral position, Harry Walton, vows to end their corrupt regime, underscored in the song “I’m Just Wild about Harry.” Harry wins the next election as well as the girl and runs Sam and Steve out of town.
As the show closed, one character explains that the
lighter the skinHigh yellow, occasionally simply yellow , is a term for very light-skinned African Americans. It is a reference to the golden yellow skin tone of some mixed-race people...
, the more desirable an
African AmericanAfrican Americans are citizens or residents of the United States who have origins in any of the black populations of Africa. In the United States, the terms are generally used for Americans with at least partial Sub-Saharan African ancestry...
woman was.
Songs
Act I
- I'm Simply Full of Jazz - Ruth Little and Syncopation Steppers
- Love Will Find a Way - Jessie Williams and Harry Walton
- Bandana Days - Alderman and Company
- Sing Me to Sleep, Dear Mammy - Harry Walton and Board of Aldermen
- (In) Honeysuckle Time (When Emmaline Said She'd Be Mine) - Tom Sharper
- Gypsy Blues - Jessie Williams, Ruth Little and Harry Walton
Act II
- Shuffle Along - Jimtown Pedestrians and Traffic Cop
- I'm Just Wild About Harry
"I'm Just Wild About Harry" is a song written in 1921 with lyrics by Noble Sissle and music by Eubie Blake for the Broadway show Shuffle Along. "I'm Just Wild About Harry" was the most popular number of the production, which which was the first financially successful Broadway play to have...
- Jessie Williams and Jimtown Sunflowers
- Syncopation Stenos - Mayor's Staff
- Good Night Angeline - Board of Aldermen
- If You Haven't Been Vamped by a Brownskin, You Haven't Been Vamped at All - Steve Jenkins, Sam Peck and Jimtown Vamps
- Uncle Tom and Old Black Joe - Uncle Tom and Old Black Joe
- Everything Reminds Me of You - Jessie Williams and Harry Walton
- Oriental Blues - Tom Sharper and Oriental Girls
- I Am Craving for That Kind of Love/ Daddy (Won't You Please Come Home) - Ruth Little
- Baltimore Buzz - Tom Sharper and Jimtown's Jazz Steppers
- African Dip - Steve Jenkins and Sam Peck
Productions
The musical premiered on Broadway at the 63rd Street Music Hall on May 23, 1921 and closed on July 15, 1922 after 484 performances. It was directed by Walter Brooks, with Eubie Blake playing the piano. The cast included Lottie Gee as Jessie Williams,
Adelaide HallAdelaide Hall was an American-born British jazz singer and entertainer.Hall was born in Brooklyn, New York, and was taught to sing by her father...
as Jazz Jasmine, Gertrude Saunders as Ruth Little,
Roger MatthewsRoger Matthews is a British criminologist. He is currently Professor of Criminology at London South Bank University.Matthews is one of the key figures in left realism, a criminological critique of both the dominant administrative criminology and the left idealism associated with the criminologists...
as Harry Walton, and Noble Sissle as Tom Sharper. Gertrude Saunders was replaced by
Florence MillsFlorence Mills, born Florence Winfrey , known as the "Queen of Happiness," was an American cabaret singer, dancer, and comedian known for her effervescent stage presence, delicate voice, and winsome, wide-eyed beauty...
.
Josephine BakerJosephine Baker was an American expatriate entertainer and actress. She became a French citizen in 1937. Most noted as a singer, Baker also was a celebrated dancer in her early career. She was given the nicknames the "Bronze Venus" or the "Black Pearl", as well as the "Créole Goddess" in...
, who was deemed too young at age 15 to be in the show, joined the touring company in Boston, and then joined the Broadway cast when she turned 16.
Other productions
- Road versions toured successfully throughout the country up to 1924.
- The show was revived at the Mansfield Theatre, New York City, from December 26, 1932 to January 7, 1933, closing after seventeen performances.
- In 1933 Blake, Sissle, Miller, and Lyles reunited but the production was not met with critical success.
- A 1952 revival, starring Sissle and Blake and choreographed by Henry LeTang
Henry LeTang was an American theatre,film, and television choreographer and a dance instructor.-Biography:Born in the Harlem neighbourhood of Manhattan, LeTang was the second son of Clarence, born in Dominica, and his wife Marie, who emigrated from St. Croix. The couple owned and operated a radio...
, was also unsuccessful. It opened at the Broadway TheatreThe Broadway Theatre is a Broadway theatre located at 1681 Broadway in midtown-Manhattan....
on May 8, 1952 and closed after 4 performances.
Historical effect and response
According to the
HarlemHarlem is a neighborhood in the New York City borough of Manhattan, long known as a major African-American residential, cultural, and business center. Originally a Dutch village, formally organized in 1658, it is named after the city of Haarlem in the Netherlands.Harlem has been defined by a series...
chronicler
James Weldon JohnsonJames Weldon Johnson was an American author, politician, diplomat, critic, journalist, poet, anthologist, educator, lawyer, songwriter, and early civil rights activist. Johnson is remembered best for his writing, which includes novels, poems, and collections of folklore. He was also one of the...
, the 1921 musical
revueA revue is a type of multi-act popular theatrical entertainment that combines music, dance and sketches. The revue has its roots in 19th-century American popular entertainment and melodrama but grew into a substantial cultural presence of its own during its golden years from ca. 1916-32...
Shuffle Along marked a breakthrough for the African-American musical performer and made musical theatre history. This revue legitimized the African-American musical, proving to producers and managers that audiences would pay to see African-American talent on Broadway.
The musical brought black actors back to Broadway after a 10-year absence during a time when the prominent black actors and producers of the day had retired and/or died.
Shuffle Along also brought black audiences to the
orchestraAn orchestra is an instrumental ensemble, usually fairly large with string, brass, woodwind sections, and possibly a percussion section as well. The term orchestra derives from the name for the area in front of an ancient Greek stage reserved for the Greek chorus...
rather than being relegated to the
balconyIn architecture, a mezzanine or entresol is an intermediate floor between main floors of a building, and therefore typically not counted among the overall floors of a building. Often, a mezzanine is low-ceilinged and projects in the form of a balcony...
, and featured the first sophisticated African-American
love story-Film:*Love Story , an Italian drama*Love Story , a UK film*Love Story , a romantic drama based on Erich Segal's novel *Love Story , an Indian Hindi romance...
. Moreover,
Shuffle Along laid the foundation for public acceptance of African-American performers in other than
burlesqueBurlesque is a humorous theatrical entertainment involving parody and sometimes grotesque exaggeration. In 20th century America, the form became associated with a variety show in which striptease is the chief attraction.-Etymology and early history:...
roles.
The impact of
Shuffle Along rippled through Broadway, with nine African-American musicals opening between 1921 and 1924. For the next few years, black theatre would pioneer several "firsts." In 1928, the first edition of
Lew LeslieLew Leslie was a Broadway writer and producer. Although white, he was the first to present black artists on stage. He became famous for his stage shows at the Cotton Club and later for his Blackbirds revues, which he mounted in 1928, 1930, 1933, and 1939...
's
Blackbirds featured
Bill "Bojangles" RobinsonBill “Bojangles” Robinson was an American tap dancer and actor of stage and film.-Early years:Robinson was born in Richmond, Virginia to Maxwell, a machine-shop worker, and Maria Robinson, a choir singer...
as the first black dance star on Broadway. In 1929, Harlem, a drama by
Wallace ThurmanWallace Henry Thurman was an American novelist during the Harlem Renaissance. He is best known for his novel The Blacker the Berry: A Novel of Negro Life, which explores discrimination among black people based on skin color....
and William Rapp, introduced the
Slow DragSlow Drag can refer to:*Slow drag , a popular American dance*Slow Drag , Donald Byrd album...
, the first African-American
social danceSocial dance is a major category or classification of danceforms or dance styles, where sociability and socializing are the primary focuses of the dancing. Social dances can be danced with a variety of partners and still be lead and followed in a relaxed, easy atmosphere.This compares to other...
to reach Broadway.
As scholar James Haskins noted,
Shuffle Along "started a whole new era for blacks on Broadway, as well as a whole new era for blacks in all creative fields." Loften Mitchell, author of
Black Drama: The Story of the American Negro in the Theatre, credits
Shuffle Along with launching the
Harlem RenaissanceThe Harlem Renaissance refers to the flowering of African American cultural and intellectual life during the 1920s and 1930s. At the time, it was known as the "New Negro Movement", named after the 1925 anthology The New Negro edited by Alain Locke...
.
According to theatre historian and teacher
John Kenrick-Life:He was born on 4 February 1788 at Exeter, the eldest son of Timothy Kenrick, Unitarian minister, and his first wife, Mary, daughter of John Waymouth of Exeter. He was educated at the local grammar school run by the Rev. Charles Lloyd and later at the nonconformist academy conducted by his...
, "Judged by contemporary standards, much of
Shuffle Along would seem
offensiveRacism is the belief that race is the primary determinant of human traits and capacities and that racial differences produce an inherent superiority of a particular race. In the case of institutional racism, certain racial groups may be denied rights or benefits, or get preferential treatment...
...most of the comedy relied on old minstrel show stereotypes. Each of the leading male characters was out to swindle the other."
Trivia
President Harry Truman chose the
Shuffle Along song "
I'm Just Wild About Harry"I'm Just Wild About Harry" is a song written in 1921 with lyrics by Noble Sissle and music by Eubie Blake for the Broadway show Shuffle Along. "I'm Just Wild About Harry" was the most popular number of the production, which which was the first financially successful Broadway play to have...
" for his
campaign anthemA political campaign is an organized effort which seeks to influence the decision making process within a specific group. In democracies, political campaigns often refer to electoral campaigns, wherein representatives are chosen or referendums are decided...
.