Darktown Follies
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Darktown Follies
''The Darktown Follies'' were a series of musical revues staged in Harlem at the Lafayette Theatre from 1913 through 1916. All of the revue's creators were black, and it was one of the earliest musical revues to feature an all-black cast. Most of the music and lyrics written for the various reviews were created by J. Leubrie Hill and Will Vodery. Hill was also a major contributor to the musical books written for the revues, along with the writer Alex C. Rogers. Part of the age leading up to the Harlem Renaissance, the revue attracted diverse audiences from all over the city of New York. The theatre impresario Florenz Ziegfeld Jr. attended performances, and purchased some of the content of the ''Darktown Follies'' for use in his Broadway musical revue, ''Ziegfeld Follies''. The first ''Darktown Follies'' revue was staged in 1913 under the title ''The Darktown Follies in 'My Friend from Kentucky' ''. This was followed by ''The Darktown Follies in 'My Friend From Dixie' '' and ''T ...
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Revue
A revue is a type of multi-act popular theatrical entertainment that combines music, dance, and sketches. The revue has its roots in 19th century popular entertainment and melodrama but grew into a substantial cultural presence of its own during its golden years from 1916 to 1932. Though most famous for their visual spectacle, revues frequently satirized contemporary figures, news or literature. Similar to the related subforms of operetta and musical theatre, the revue art form brings together music, dance and sketches to create a compelling show. In contrast to these, however, revue does not have an overarching storyline. Rather, a general theme serves as the motto for a loosely-related series of acts that alternate between solo performances and dance ensembles. Owing to high ticket prices, ribald publicity campaigns and the occasional use of prurient material, the revue was typically patronized by audience members who earned more and felt even less restricted by middle-class ...
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Lindy Hop
The Lindy Hop is an American dance which was born in the Black communities of Harlem, New York City, in 1928 and has evolved since then. It was very popular during the swing era of the late 1930s and early 1940s. Lindy is a fusion of many dances that preceded it or were popular during its development but is mainly based on jazz dance, jazz, tap dance, tap, breakaway (dance), breakaway, and Charleston (dance), Charleston. It is frequently described as a jazz dance and is a member of the swing (dance), swing dance family. In its development, the Lindy Hop combined elements of both partnered and solo dancing by using the movements and improvisation of African-American dances along with the formal eight-count structure of European partner dances – most clearly illustrated in the Lindy's basic step, the swingout. In this step's open position, each dancer is generally connected hand-to-hand; in its closed position, leads and follows are connected as though in an embrace on one ...
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Revues
A revue is a type of multi-act popular theatrical entertainment that combines music, dance, and sketches. The revue has its roots in 19th century popular entertainment and melodrama but grew into a substantial cultural presence of its own during its golden years from 1916 to 1932. Though most famous for their visual spectacle, revues frequently satirized contemporary figures, news or literature. Similar to the related subforms of operetta and musical theatre, the revue art form brings together music, dance and sketches to create a compelling show. In contrast to these, however, revue does not have an overarching storyline. Rather, a general theme serves as the motto for a loosely-related series of acts that alternate between solo performances and dance ensembles. Owing to high ticket prices, ribald publicity campaigns and the occasional use of prurient material, the revue was typically patronized by audience members who earned more and felt even less restricted by middle-class ...
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Musical Comedy Plays
Musical is the adjective of music. Musical may also refer to: * Musical theatre, a performance art that combines songs, spoken dialogue, acting and dance * Musical film and television, a genre of film and television that incorporates into the narrative songs sung by the characters * MusicAL, an Albanian television channel * Musical isomorphism, the canonical isomorphism between the tangent and cotangent bundles See also * Lists of musicals * Music (other) * Musica (other) * Musicality Musicality (''music -al -ity'') is "sensitivity to, knowledge of, or talent for music" or "the quality or state of being musical", and is used to refer to specific if vaguely defined qualities in pieces and/or genres of music, such as melodiousnes ...
, the ability to perceive music or to create music * {{Music disambiguation ...
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1913 Musicals
Events January * January 5 – First Balkan War: Battle of Lemnos (1913), Battle of Lemnos – Greek admiral Pavlos Kountouriotis forces the Turkish fleet to retreat to its base within the Dardanelles, from which it will not venture for the rest of the war. * January 13 – Edward Carson founds the (first) Ulster Volunteers, Ulster Volunteer Force, by unifying several existing Ulster loyalism, loyalist militias to resist home rule for Ireland. * January 23 – 1913 Ottoman coup d'état: Ismail Enver comes to power. * January – Stalin (whose first article using this name is published this month) travels to Vienna to carry out research. Until he leaves on February 16 the city is home simultaneously to him, Hitler, Trotsky and Josip Broz Tito, Tito alongside Alban Berg, Berg, Freud and Jung and Ludwig Wittgenstein, Ludwig and Paul Wittgenstein. February * February 1 – New York City's Grand Central Terminal, having been rebuilt, reopens as the ...
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Shuffle Along
''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. The show premiered at the 63rd Street Music Hall in 1921, running for 504 performances, a remarkably successful span for that decade. It launched the careers of Josephine Baker, Adelaide Hall, Florence Mills, Fredi Washington and Paul Robeson, and was so popular it caused "curtain time traffic jams" on West 63rd Street.Kenrick, John"History of The Musical Stage, 1920s Part III: Black Musicals" musicals101.com. Retrieved August 22, 2009. A 2016 adaptation ''Shuffle Along, or, the Making of the Musical Sensation of 1921 and All That Followed'' focused on the challenges of mounting the original production, as well as its lasting effects on Broadway and ...
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Broadway Rastus (revue)
''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. Lillyn Brown eventually succeeded Esther Bigeou in the show's starring role. Maceo Pinkard's work was in the show. Cast *Esther Bigeou Esther Bigeou (1892 – November 15, 1936) was an American vaudeville and blues singer. Billed as "The Girl with the Million Dollar Smile", she was one of the classic female blues singers popular in the 1920s. Biography She was born in New Orlean ... (later succeeded in the show by Lillyn Brown * Edna Alexander * Billy Cumby * James Woodson References {{Reflist Revues 1915 in theatre ...
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A Trip To Coontown
A Trip to Coontown is an American musical comedy. It was performed, directed, and produced by African-Americans. It was written and performed in by Bob Cole (composer), Bob Cole and Billy Johnson. and debuted it New Jersey in 1897 before touring in the U.S. and internationally. Its New York City debut was at the Third Avenue Theatre on April 4, 1898. The musical was a reworking of Cole and Johnson's skit "At Jolly Coon-ey Island" which was written by Cole for an operatic variety company called Black Patti’s Troubadours (formed by Sissieretta Jones). ''A Trip to Coontown'' spoofed the popular musical ''A Trip to Chinatown'' (1891). In the early 20th century the musical was staged in European cities. Cast According to an October 1899 advertisement in ''The Allentown Leader'', the show featured: *Coontown Sextette *Carter and Hillman's Bowery Spielers *Alice MacKay, Contralto *Freeman Sisters, acrobatic dancers *Billy Johnson, "the Luckiest Coon in Town" *Lloyd G. Gibbs, "Famous Co ...
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Coon Song
Coon songs were a genre of music that presented a stereotype of black people. They were popular in the United States and Australia from around 1880 to 1920, though the earliest such songs date from minstrel shows as far back as 1848, when they were not yet identified with "coon" epithet. The genre became extremely popular, with white and black men giving performances in blackface and making recordings. Women known as coon shouters also gained popularity in the genre. Rise and fall from popularity Although the word "coon" is now regarded as racist, according to Stuart Flexner, "coon" was short for "raccoon", and it meant a frontier rustic (someone who may wear a coonskin cap) by 1832. By 1840 it also meant a Whig as the Whig Party was keen to be associated with rural white common people. At that time, "coon" was typically used to refer someone white, and a coon song referred to a Whig song. it was only in 1848 when the first clear case of using "coon" to refer to a black person ...
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Minstrel Show
The minstrel show, also called minstrelsy, was an American form of racist theatrical entertainment developed in the early 19th century. Each show consisted of comic skits, variety acts, dancing, and music performances that depicted people specifically of African descent. The shows were performed by mostly white people wearing blackface make-up for the purpose of playing the role of black people. There were also some African-American performers and black-only minstrel groups that formed and toured. Minstrel shows caricatured black people as dim-witted, lazy, buffoonish, superstitious, and happy-go-lucky.The Coon Character
, Jim Crow Museum of Racist Memorabilia, Ferris State University. Retrieved 29 January 2016.
John Kenrick

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Texas Tommy (dance)
The Texas Tommy is a vigorous social dance for couples that originated in San Francisco in the early twentieth century. History After the great 1906 San Francisco earthquake and fire, the Barbary Coast, the red-light district of the city, was rebuilt and given new life as a tourist attraction, a place of dance halls, theaters, shops, and restaurants. Dance exhibitions and variety shows designed to attract tourists replaced prostitution as the chief business of the area. Many of the dance crazes that swept America during the 1900s and 1910s originated in this section of San Francisco. The Thalia, the largest and most popular dance hall on the Pacific coast, was the birthplace of the Texas Tommy. ("Tommy" was a slang term for prostitute.) Around 1910, the Texas Tommy was a hit at a lowlife hot spot called Purcell's, a Negro cabaret, but it became respectable when it was danced at the upscale Fairmont Hotel, the most popular venue for ballroom dancing in San Francisco. Who invented t ...
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Harlem
Harlem is a neighborhood in Upper Manhattan, New York City. It is bounded roughly by the Hudson River on the west; the Harlem River and 155th Street (Manhattan), 155th Street on the north; Fifth Avenue on the east; and 110th Street (Manhattan), Central Park North on the south. The greater Harlem area encompasses several other neighborhoods and extends west and north to 155th Street, east to the East River, and south to Martin Luther King, Jr., Boulevard (Manhattan), Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard, Central Park, and 96th Street (Manhattan), East 96th Street. Originally a Netherlands, Dutch village, formally organized in 1658, it is named after the city of Haarlem in the Netherlands. Harlem's history has been defined by a series of economic boom-and-bust cycles, with significant population shifts accompanying each cycle. Harlem was predominantly occupied by Jewish American, Jewish and Italian American, Italian Americans in the 19th century, but African-American residents began to ...
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