"From Pauline Elizabeth Hopkins's 1879 musical Peculiar Sam to Lynn Nottage's 2021 musical MJ , the 'Black musical' does not get the credit it deserves for sustaining the genre we know and love. This introductory book is devoted to representative African-American perspectives in musical theatre from the literature of slavery and freedom, 1746-1865, to the contemporary period, offering the reader case studies of what the 'Black musical' is, how it works, and why it matters. Based on Glover's experience teaching Black musical theatre at a conservatory and in the liberal arts, he draws his close readings of Eubie Blake, Pauline Elizabeth Hopkins, and Charlie Smalls from theory and practice. Moreover, Glover investigates how the ballet, the musical comedy, the opera, the play with music, and the revue are similar and different narrative sub-genres. Finally, the book reflect on issues such as blackface minstrelsy, "the Chitlin Circuit", non-traditional casting, and yellowface. Published in the Topics in Musical Theatre series, this short book gives the reader new ways of seeing the aesthetically and politically capacious category of Black musical theatre from an anti-racist approach."--

From Pauline Elizabeth Hopkins's 1879 musical Peculiar Sam to Lynn Nottage's 2021 musical MJ, the 'Black musical' does not get the credit it deserves for sustaining the genre we know and love. This introductory book is devoted to representative African-American perspectives in musical theatre from the literature of slavery and freedom, 1746-1865, to the contemporary period, offering the reader case studies of what the 'Black musical' is, how it works, and why it matters. Based on Glover's experience teaching Black musical theatre at a conservatory and in the liberal arts, he draws his close readings of Eubie Blake, Pauline Elizabeth Hopkins and Charlie Smalls from theory and practice. Moreover, Glover investigates how the ballet, the musical comedy, the opera, the play with music and the revue are similar and different narrative sub-genres. Finally, the book reflect on issues such as blackface minstrelsy, 'the Chitlin Circuit', non-traditional casting and yellowface. Published in the Topics in Musical Theatre series, this short book gives the reader new ways of seeing the aesthetically and politically capacious category of Black musical theatre from an anti-racist approach.

Table of contents

This new edition provides an expanded, comprehensive history of African American theatre, from the early nineteenth century to the present day. Including discussions of slave rebellions on the national stage, African Americans on Broadway, the Harlem Renaissance, African American women dramatists, and the New Negro and Black Arts movements, the Companion also features fresh chapters on significant contemporary developments, such as the influence of the Black Lives Matter movement, the mainstream successes of Black Queer Drama and the evolution of African American Dance Theatre. Leading scholars spotlight the producers, directors, playwrights, and actors who have fashioned a more accurate appearance of Black life on stage, revealing the impact of African American theatre both within the United States and around the world. Addressing recent theatre productions in the context of political and cultural change, it invites readers to reflect on where African American theatre is heading in the twenty-first century.

This directory includes over 500 African American performers and theater people who have made a significant contribution to the American stage from the early 19th century to the beginning of the civil rights movement of the 1960s. Entries provide succinct biographical and theatrical information gathered from a variety of sources including library theater and drama collections, dissertations and theses, newspaper and magazine reviews and criticism, theater programs, theatrical memoirs, and earlier performing arts directories. Among the professional artists included in this volume are performers, librettists, lyricists, directors, producers, choreographers, stage managers, and musicians. The individuals profiled represent almost every major category and genre of the professional, semiprofessional, regional, and academic stage including minstrelsy, vaudeville, musical theater, and drama. Persons of historical significance are included as well as those stars and theatrical personalities that were well known during their time but who are relatively forgotten today. This comprehensive volume will appeal to theater and musical theater, Black studies, and American studies scholars. Cross-referenced throughout, this reference also includes an extensive bibliography and appendices of other theater personalities excluded from the main text. Separate indexes list the personalities, teams and partnerships, and performing groups, organizations, and companies.

While theatregoers are generally familiar with the names of such pioneers as George M. Cohan, Irving Berlin and Jerome Kern, the names of their black counterparts - Will Marion Cook, George Walker and Bob Cole, among others - are virtually unknown today. Allen Woll aims to remedy that neglect in this book, offering a thoroughly researched account of the evolution of black musical theatre from the turn of the century to the present day.

Seminar paper from the year 2011 in the subject Didactics for the subject English - History of Literature, Eras, grade: 2,0, Free University of Berlin, language: English, abstract: [...] When Gilda Gray performed "It's Getting Dark on Old Broadway" in the opening show of the song-and-dance revue Ziegfeld Follies on 5 June 1922 she eternalized Broadway's latest trend (Woll 76). Black entertainment proliferated in the Theatre District along Broadway in the 1920s and it seemed that black shows had made it into the limelight of success. There was, however, a different 'dark' side to the developments of the black performance scene. To many leading intellectuals of the Harlem Renaissance, the new darkness on Broadway looked rather bleak. Important figures like W. E. B. Du Bois who campaigned for a new racial identity through cultural creation (cf. Du Bois “Criteria of Negro Art”) feared that the new phenomenon of black productions reaching out for mainstream success would betray their cause. In his speech at the NAACP's annual conference, he famously claimed that "all Art is propaganda and ever must be" (Du Bois par. 29). Catering to the white public's demands (pars. 33, 35), as the successful Black Broadway musicals did, would mean failing the cause, according to Du Bois. While some scholars argue that theatre and performance in the New Negro era played "a pivotal role in the evolution of Black Nationalism" (Krasner 1), those are opposed by a number of authors who look upon the Harlem Renaissance as a failure (cf. Baker xiii, Neal 39, Krasner 95f.). In the following paper, I will look into the question of whether the performers and artists of the Harlem Renaissance really failed to contribute to a change of white America's attitude toward the African American race (Krasner 14). One point at issue will be whether the increasing success and commercialisation of Black theatre counteracted the objectives of racial renewal or if on the contrary, they were a means to an end. [...]