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'''Shuffle Along''' was the first major African American hit musical. Written by Flournoy Miller and Aubrey Lyles, with music and lyrics by Noble Sissle and Eubie Blake. The musical premiered on Broadway in 1921 and ran for 504 performances.

Contents

Plot

Performers

Songs

Historical Effect

Attempted Revivals

Trivia

External links

Plot

There was a slip of a plot involving a mayoral race in "Jim Town," but it was essentially a revue showcasing songs by Noble Sissle and Eubie Blake. Judged by contemporary standards, much of Shuffle Along would seem offensive. Each of the leading male characters was out to swindle the other, and the show closed with one character explaining that the lighter the skin, the more desirable a African American woman was.

Performers

★ Florence Mills (lead)

★ Adelaide Hall

★ Paul Robeson

★ Josephine Baker (chorus)

★ William Grant Still (orchestra)

★ Hall Johnson (orchestra)

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 - 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

Historical Effect

According to the Harlem chronicler James Weldon Johnson, the 1921 musical revue 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 passed away. Shuffle Along also brought black audiences to the orchestra rather than being relegated to the balcony, and featured the first sophisticated African-American love story. Moreover, Shuffle Along laid the foundation for public acceptance of African-American performers in other than burlesque 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 ''Blackbirds'' featured Bill "Bojanles" Robinson as the first black dance star on Broadway. In 1929, Harlem, a drama by Wallace Thurman and William Rapp, introduced the Slow Drag, the first African-American social dance 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 Renaissance.

Attempted Revivals

★ Road versions toured successfully throughout the country up to 1924.

★ In 1932, the show was revived at the Mansfield Theatre but closed 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, was also unsuccessful.

Trivia

President Harry Truman picked a Shuffle Along song for his campaign anthem, "I'm Just Wild about Harry."

External links

★ Musicals 101 listing

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