Shuffle Along, or, the Making of the Musical Sensation of 1921 and All That Followed | |
---|---|
Music | Eubie Blake Noble Sissle |
Lyrics | Eubie Blake Noble Sissle |
Book | George C. Wolfe |
Basis | Shuffle Along by Eubie Blake Noble Sissle Flournoy Miller Aubrey Lyles |
Premiere | April 28, 2016 : Music Box Theatre |
Productions | 2016 Broadway |
Awards | 2016 Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Musical 2016 New York Drama Critics Circle Award for Best Musical |
Shuffle Along, or, the Making of the Musical Sensation of 1921 and All That Followed is a musical with a score by Eubie Blake and Noble Sissle and a libretto by George C. Wolfe, based on the original book of the 1921 musical revue Shuffle Along , by Flournoy Miller and Aubrey Lyles. The story focuses on the challenges of mounting the original production of Shuffle Along and its effect on Broadway and race relations.
The musical played on Broadway in 2016 and starred Audra McDonald, Brian Stokes Mitchell, Brandon Victor Dixon and Billy Porter. The initial critical response was mostly positive, with special praise from many critics for McDonald's performance. The production was nominated for ten Tony Awards but did not win any; it won four Drama Desk Awards, including Outstanding Musical. Shuffle Along closed on July 24, 2016 after 38 previews and 100 regular performances. [1]
When Blake, Sissle, Miller and Lyles decided to collaborate on Shuffle Along , they were all Vaudeville veterans, but none of them had ever written a musical or appeared on Broadway. [2] After finding a small source of funding, Shuffle Along toured through New Jersey and Pennsylvania. However, with little funding, it was difficult to meet travel and production expenses, and the cast rarely got paid. The show came back to New York about a year later, during the Depression of 1920–21. The production owed $18,000 and faced strong competition in a Broadway season full of spectacles, such as Sally – a Ziegfeld musical – and another edition of George White's Scandals . It was only able to book a remote theater on West 63rd Street. [2] [3]
Nevertheless, Shuffle Along was a surprise hit, running for 504 performances, turning a substantial profit and spawning tours and spin-offs. [2] [3] [4] The show introduced several innovations; [5] launched or greatly boosted the career of cast members including Josephine Baker, Paul Robeson, Florence Mills, Fredi Washington and Adelaide Hall; and the song "I'm Just Wild About Harry" became a popular standard. [6] The show's energetic dancing and catchy jazz score drew enthusiastic repeat audiences of all races, and celebrities such as George Gershwin, Fanny Brice, Al Jolson, Langston Hughes and critic George Jean Nathan, helping to unite the white Broadway and black jazz communities and improve race relations in America. [2] [3] [7]
Wolfe's book includes a white character who embodies the comments by white critics and other outsiders on Shuffle Along. [4]
This section needs expansion. You can help by adding to it. (March 2016) |
Flournoy "F. E." Miller and his vaudeville partner Aubrey Lyles conceive the show that was to become Shuffle Along. They meet fellow vaudevillians Noble Sissle and Eubie Blake and decide to team up to create the all-black production. They tour the show, playing one-night stands in Maryland, Washington, D.C., and Pennsylvania, packing the cast into cheap motels and selling their personal possessions to pay for train fare. A romance develops between the married Eubie Blake and the show's leading lady, Lottie Gee, a veteran vaudeville performer who finally got her chance to star in the show. The creatives discuss whether or not to include a love song and embrace between the two black leads, a controversial experiment that had been received with tar and feathers in the few instances where it had been tried before; fortunately, the audiences accept it. Arriving in New York during the Depression of 1920–21, Shuffle Along is deep in debt and struggles to raise money. It faces stiff competition on Broadway in a season that includes surefire hits from Florenz Ziegfeld Jr. and George White, and it was relegated to a remote theater on West 63rd Street with no orchestra pit. Opening night is a hit!
Shuffle Along becomes a long-running success, with popular songs like "I'm Just Wild About Harry". [6] [8] The partners do not have the same success during the following years and argue about royalties. Lyles announces that he is moving to Africa, and the creators go their separate ways. The romance between Blake and Gee ends. Everyone wants to be remembered for having done something important, but over the decades, the show fades into obscurity.
|
|
The show was given two workshops in the fall 2015; there was no out-of-town tryout. [10] The production began previews on Broadway on March 15 and opened officially on April 28, 2016, at the Music Box Theatre, directed by Wolfe, with choreography by Savion Glover. [11] The two worked together two decades earlier, with great success, on Bring in 'da Noise, Bring in 'da Funk . [4] Due to McDonald's pregnancy, the producers planned to replace her beginning July 26. [12] Producer Scott Rudin later reversed course, saying McDonald's prolonged absence would make it too difficult to continue running the show, which was already running at a loss. [13] The musical closed with McDonald's departure on July 24, 2016, after 38 previews and 100 regular performances. [1] [14]
Character | Cast [15] [16] |
---|---|
Lottie Gee | Audra McDonald |
F. E. Miller | Brian Stokes Mitchell |
Aubrey Lyles | Billy Porter |
Eubie Blake | Brandon Victor Dixon |
Noble Sissle | Joshua Henry |
Al, Izzy, Mr. Broadway, Carlo | Brooks Ashmanskas |
Gertrude Saunders, Florence Mills | Adrienne Warren |
Opening night reviews were mostly positive, especially with respect to the songs and dancing, with nearly all reviewers giving Audra McDonald rave notices. Ben Brantley of The New York Times calls it an "intoxicating and sobering concoction", writing: "Often you sense that Mr. Wolfe has a checklist of historic points he must, but must, cover. ... The clunky, shoehorned-in exposition doesn't overwhelm the sweeping grace of "Shuffle Along" whenever it sings or dances." [17]
Terry Teachout, reviewing for The Wall Street Journal , wrote: "The first half of ... Shuffle Along is to 2016 what Hamilton was to 2015: It's the musical you’ve got to see. ... The cast, led by Audra McDonald, Brian Stokes Mitchell and Billy Porter, is as charismatic as you’d expect, and Savion Glover's near-nonstop choreography explodes off the stage with the unrelenting impact of a flamethrower. But then comes intermission, and what had looked like a masterpiece goes flat and stays that way." [18]
In her review for Variety , Marilyn Stasio wrote that the show "is to die for" and is "ebullient", and that an "incoherent book" is a "small price to pay for the joy of watching Audra McDonald cut loose." [19]
James Hubert "Eubie" Blake was an American pianist and composer of ragtime, jazz, and popular music. In 1921, he and his long-time collaborator Noble Sissle wrote Shuffle Along, one of the first Broadway musicals written and directed by African Americans. Blake's compositions included such hits as "Bandana Days", "Charleston Rag", "Love Will Find a Way", "Memories of You" and "I'm Just Wild About Harry". The 1978 Broadway musical Eubie! showcased his works, and in 1981, President Ronald Reagan awarded Blake the Presidential Medal of Freedom.
Noble Lee Sissle was an American jazz composer, lyricist, bandleader, singer, and playwright, best known for the Broadway musical Shuffle Along (1921), and its hit song "I'm Just Wild About Harry".
Audra Ann McDonald is an American actress and singer. Primarily known for her work on the Broadway stage, she has won six Tony Awards, more performance wins than any other actor, and is the only person to win in all four acting categories. In addition to her six Tony Awards she has received numerous accolades including two Grammy Awards, and an Emmy Award. She was honored with the National Medal of Arts in 2016 from President Barack Obama, and was inducted into the American Theater Hall of Fame in 2017.
Shuffle Along is a musical composed by Eubie Blake, with lyrics by Noble Sissle and a book written by the comedy duo Flournoy Miller and Aubrey Lyles. One of the most notable all-Black hit Broadway shows, it was a landmark in African-American musical theater, credited with inspiring the Harlem Renaissance of the 1920s and '30s.
African-American musical theater includes late 19th and early 20th century musical theater productions by African Americans in New York City and Chicago. Actors from troupes such as the Lafayette Players also crossed over into film. The Pekin Theatre in Chicago was a popular and influential venue.
Eubie! Is a revue featuring the music of jazz/swing composer Eubie Blake, with lyrics by Noble Sissle, Andy Razaf, Johnny Brandon, F. E. Miller, and Jim Europe. As with most revues, the show features no book, but instead showcases 23 of Eubie Blake's best songs. The idea of the show was conceived by Julianne Boyd. It opened in 1978, receiving positive reviews from Time, Newsweek, Variety, Backstage, and The Today Show.
Flournoy Eakin Miller, sometimes credited as F. E. Miller, was an American entertainer, actor, lyricist, producer and playwright. Between about 1905 and 1932 he formed a popular comic duo, Miller and Lyles, with Aubrey Lyles. Described as "an innovator who advanced black comedy and entertainment significantly," and as "one of the seminal figures in the development of African American musical theater on Broadway", he wrote many successful vaudeville and Broadway shows, including the influential Shuffle Along (1921), as well as working on several all-black movies between the 1930s and 1950s.
Aubrey Lee Lyles, sometimes credited as A. L. Lyles, was an American vaudeville performer, playwright, songwriter, and lyricist. He appeared with Flournoy E. Miller as Miller and Lyles as a popular African-American comedy duo from 1905 until shortly before his death. in 1929 they appeared on film as grocers in the Vitaphone Varieties short comedy film They Know Their Groceries.
"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.
Mark Gross is an American jazz alto saxophonist of the hard bop tradition. He studied at the Berklee College of Music, graduating in 1988, then worked in the band of Lionel Hampton and performed in Five Guys Named Moe on Broadway. He has since worked with a variety of other artists, including the bands of Delfeayo Marsalis, Nat Adderley and the Dave Holland Big Band. Gross first recorded as a solo act with 1997's Preach Daddy, followed in 2000 by The Riddle of the Sphinx, in 2013 with "Blackside", Mark Gross + Strings (2018) and The Gospel According to Mark: A Jazz Suite (2024).
Daly's 63rd Street Theatre was a Broadway theatre, which was active from 1921 to 1941. It was built in 1914 as the 63rd Street Music Hall and had several other names between 1921 and 1938. The building was demolished in 1957.
Ragtime is a musical with music by Stephen Flaherty, lyrics by Lynn Ahrens, and a book by Terrence McNally. It is based on the 1975 novel of the same name by E.L. Doctorow.
Brandon Victor Dixon is an American actor, singer and theatrical producer. As a musical theatre actor, he is known for Tony Award-nominated Broadway performances as Harpo in the 2005 musical The Color Purple and Eubie Blake in Shuffle Along, or, the Making of the Musical Sensation of 1921 and All That Followed (2016). He originated both roles, as well as the leading role of Berry Gordy Jr. in Motown: The Musical (2013) on Broadway, which earned a nomination for a Grammy Award for Best Musical Theater Album. In 2016, Dixon assumed the role of Aaron Burr in the Broadway company of Hamilton. Off-Broadway as well as in London's West End, Dixon played the role of Hayward Patterson in The Scottsboro Boys and was nominated for a 2014 Laurence Olivier Award for Best Actor in a Leading Role in a Musical.
Lady Day at Emerson's Bar and Grill is a jukebox musical featuring several of Billie Holiday's most famous songs. The play was written by Lanie Robertson and recounts some events in the life of Holiday. It premiered in 1986 at the Alliance Theatre in Atlanta, Georgia, and soon played Off-Broadway. The play opened on Broadway in 2014, and also played in London's West End in 2017.
The Humans is a one-act play written by Stephen Karam. The play opened on Broadway in 2016 after an engagement Off-Broadway in 2015. The Humans was a finalist for the 2016 Pulitzer Prize for Drama and won the 2016 Tony Award for Best Play.
Spamilton: An American Parody is a musical parody of the Broadway show Hamilton. Written by Gerard Alessandrini, creator of the parody revue Forbidden Broadway, Spamilton also parodies several other musicals, including Gypsy, Chicago, The King and I, Assassins, Camelot, The Book of Mormon and Sweeney Todd, and personalities, like Patti LuPone, Audra McDonald, Stephen Sondheim, Stephen Schwartz, Barbra Streisand, Bernadette Peters, Carol Channing and Liza Minnelli.
Lottie Gee(néeCharlotte O. Gee; 17 August 1886 Millboro, Virginia – 13 January 1973 Los Angeles) was an American entertainer who performed in shows and musicals during the Harlem Renaissance. She is perhaps best known as a performer in the 1921 Broadway hit, Shuffle Along, the show that launched the careers of Josephine Baker and Florence Mills.
Gertrude C. Saunders was an American singer, actress and comedian, active from the 1910s to the 1940s.
Caroline “Lynnie” Godfrey is an American actress, singer, author, director and producer.
Evelyn Anderson (1907–1994) was an American dancer. She appeared in productions by Eubie Blake and Noble Sissle and on Broadway in the revue Blackbirds of 1928. She was 18 years old when she was selected for an all-Black vaudeville troupe due to perform in Paris. La Revue Negre was headlined by Josephine Baker and toured both Germany and Belgium. After La Revue Negre broke up, Anderson stayed in Europe for 15 years. She performed alongside Florence Mills and Hattie King Reavis.
Notes
Sources
Further reading