Sandy Burns was a comedian. He toured on the T.O.B.A. circuit.
Burns led the Sandy Burns Stock Company. [1] He was married to fellow performer Gretchen Burns. [2]
He was born in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma and grew up in Huntsville, Texas. [3]
He performed with Ferdinand “Jelly-Roll” Morton. [4] He performed with Sam “Bill” Russell. [3] [5]
Quintart Miller met his future performing partner Marcus Slayter when both were part of the Burns’ stock company. [6]
Abriea "Abbie" Mitchell Cook, also billed as Abbey Mitchell, was an American soprano opera singer. She performed the role of Clara in the premiere production of George Gershwin's Porgy and Bess in 1935, and was also the first to record "Summertime" from that musical.
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 there were exceptions, 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.
Salem Tutt Whitney and J. Homer Tutt, known collectively as the Tutt Brothers, were American vaudeville producers, writers, and performers of the late 19th and early 20th century. They were also known as Whitney & Tutt, Tutt & Whitney and the Whitney Brothers. They were prominent in black vaudeville and created over forty revues for black audiences.
The Ethiopian Art Theatre — originally called the Chicago Folk Theatre, later the Colored Folk Theatre, also referred to as The Ethiopian Art Players — was an African American theatre company based out of Chicago, Illinois. The company was an influential albeit short-lived (1922/1923–1925) group founded during the Harlem Renaissance. There are differing views over the precise year that the company was founded, 1922 or 1923. The founder was Raymond O'Neil, a white theatre director, and its principal sponsor was Mrs. Sherwood Anderson, also white; though all its performers were African American. The organization was unique and controversial during its era, primarily for being one of the few African American Theatre Companies to perform European theatrical works, but also, among other things, for producing theatrical works of African American playwrights for both African American and Non-African American audiences.
A number of theatre companies are associated with the Harlem Renaissance.
Raymond O'Neil was a European-trained American theater director.
Jesse Allison Shipp, Sr. was an American actor, playwright, and theatrical director, who is best remembered as a pioneer African-American writer of musical theater in the United States, and as the author of the book upon which the landmark play In Dahomey was based. Shipp played an influential role in expanding black theater beyond its minstrel show origins and is recalled as perhaps the first African-American director of a Broadway performance.
Ruth Attaway was an American film and stage actress. Among the films she appeared in are Raintree County (1957), Porgy and Bess (1959) and Being There (1979).
Hilda Perleno was an American blues and jazz singer, known for her Broadway appearances in the 1920s and 1930s.
Jean Starr was an actress, dancer, and trumpeter who became a Chicago society figure after marrying Chicago numbers racket tycoon and Jones brothers, McKissack "Mack" McHenry Jones, and becoming Jean Starr Jones.
Cleo Desmond was an American actress and vaudeville performer who had a long career on the stage and screen.
Hattie McIntosh was a vaudeville performer who toured with successful shows and her husband, fellow performer Tom McIntosh (comedian).
James Loften Mitchell was an American playwright and theatre historian who was part of the black American theatre movement of the 1960s.
Emmett Anthony was an American vaudeville comedian who appeared on stage in various revues and shows. In December 1915 he arrived in New Orleans on the S.S. Brunswick to perform at the Iroquis Theater. He was also in the film Son of Satan and was part of Blackville Corporation's 1915 touring revival, The Mayor of Jimtown touring show in 1923, and Harlem Darlings revue in 1929. He featured as a regular at the Crescent Theatre in 1913. He was in Liza in 1923. He received a favorable assessment for his part in Put and Take.
Lionel John Monagas was an American actor originally from Caracas, Venezuela. A member of the original Lafayette Players company of Harlem, he appeared in theatrical and film productions.
A. B. DeComathiere was an actor in the United States. He had a leading role in The Brute (1920). He also starred in the race film The Black King (1932), a satire of Marcus Garvey and his followers.
Broadway Rastus was a 1915-1928 revue written by Irvin Miller. It toured for several years at various venues with casts including many successful performers. Miller performed in the show. Other cast members included Esther Bigeou and Henry Jines. Lester Walton reviewed a Philadelphia performance of the show lauding many of the performances and calling the show a diamond in the rough that would benefit from more funding.
The McCarver Brothers, Howard McCarver and William McCarver, performed in minstrel and vaudeville shows from the late 19th century into the 20th. William McCarver was lauded for his make-up, contortion, singing, and dancing in his comedy duo performances.
Willis J. Accooe was an American performing musician and composer, mainly of musicals. He was "an important songwriter during the birth of the black musical" according to the Library of Congress website.
George Washington Bullion was a popular and long running three act musical comedy by the Tutt Brothers, Salem Tutt Whitney and J. Homer Tutt that debuted in 1910. Trevor L. Corwell, a white English impresario helped book the show. The storyline featured a black tobacco plantation owner aspiring to join high society. The Tutt brothers’ shows George Washington Bullion Abroad and How Newtown Prepared followed up on the characters in 1915 and 1916. Both shows had the characters of Washington and fellow veterans leaving to fight in foreign wars.
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