Theatre Owners Booking Association, or T.O.B.A., was the
vaudeville
Vaudeville (; ) is a theatrical genre of variety entertainment born in France at the end of the 19th century. A vaudeville was originally a comedy without psychological or moral intentions, based on a comical situation: a dramatic composition ...
circuit for
African American
African Americans (also referred to as Black Americans and Afro-Americans) are an ethnic group consisting of Americans with partial or total ancestry from sub-Saharan Africa. The term "African American" generally denotes descendants of ens ...
performers in the 1920s. The theaters mostly had white owners, though there were exceptions, including the recently restored
Morton Theater in
Athens, Georgia
Athens, officially Athens–Clarke County, is a consolidated city-county and college town in the U.S. state of Georgia. Athens lies about northeast of downtown Atlanta, and is a satellite city of the capital. The University of Georgia, the sta ...
, originally operated by "Pinky" Monroe Morton, and
Douglass Theatre in Macon, Georgia owned and operated by Charles Henry Douglass. Theater owners booked
jazz
Jazz is a music genre that originated in the African-American communities of New Orleans, Louisiana in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, with its roots in blues and ragtime. Since the 1920s Jazz Age, it has been recognized as a m ...
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.
History
The association was established following the work of vaudeville performer
Sherman H. Dudley. By 1909, Dudley was commonly known as the "Lone Star Comedian" and had begun an attempt to have a black-owned and operated string of venues around the United States.
By 1911, Dudley was based in Washington, D.C. as general manager and treasurer of the
Colored Actors' Union, and set up S. H. Dudley Theatrical Enterprises, which began buying and leasing theaters around Washington and Virginia.
By 1916, the "Dudley Circuit" had extended into the south and Midwest, enabling black entertainers to secure longer-term contracts for an extended season; this circuit provided the basis for T.O.B.A.
[ His circuit was advertised in a weekly column published in black newspapers, "What's What on the Dudley's Circuit", and by 1914 it included over twenty theaters, "all owned or operated by blacks and as far south as Atlanta."
T.O.B.A. was formally established in 1920 by people associated with Dudley's circuit.] Its President was Milton Starr, owner of the Bijou Theatre in Nashville; its chief booker was Sam Reevin of Chattanooga. The organization had more than 100 theaters at its peak in the early to mid 1920s.
Often referred to by the black performers as Tough on Black Artists (or, by Gertrude "Ma" Rainey, as Tough on Black Asses), the association was generally known as Toby Time (''Time'' was a common term for vaudeville circuits). It booked only black artists into a series of theatres on the East Coast and as far west as Oklahoma. T.O.B.A. venues were the only ones south of the Mason-Dixon line that regularly sought black audiences, according to one reference. T.O.B.A. paid less and generally had worse touring arrangements, which the performers had to pay for themselves, than the white vaudeville counterpart. T.O.B.A. became less successful as the Great Depression struck, collapsing in late 1930 when Dudley sold his chain of theaters to a cinema company.[Lauterbach, p.38]
Operations and performers
Its earliest star performers included singers Ethel Waters
Ethel Waters (October 31, 1896 – September 1, 1977) was an American singer and actress. Waters frequently performed jazz, swing, and pop music on the Broadway stage and in concerts. She began her career in the 1920s singing blues. Her no ...
, Gertrude Ma Rainey
Gertrude "Ma" Rainey ( Pridgett; April 26, 1886 – December 22, 1939) was an American blues singer and influential early blues recording artist. Dubbed the "Mother of the Blues", she bridged earlier vaudeville and the authentic expression of s ...
, Bessie Smith
Bessie Smith (April 15, 1894 – September 26, 1937) was an American blues singer widely renowned during the Jazz Age. Nicknamed the " Empress of the Blues", she was the most popular female blues singer of the 1930s. Inducted into the Rock a ...
, Edmonia Henderson
Edmonia Henderson (December 25, 1898 or 1900 – February 17, 1947) was an American classic female blues singer. She was active as a recording artist in the mid-1920s, recording at least 14 songs between 1924 and 1926. She later became an evan ...
, Mamie Smith
Mamie Smith (née Robinson; May 26, 1891 – September 16, 1946) was an American vaudeville singer, dancer, pianist, and actress. As a vaudeville singer she performed in multiple styles, including jazz and blues. In 1920, she entered blues histor ...
, Minto Cato
Minto Cato (born La Minto Cato, August 23, 1900 – October 26, 1979) was a mezzo-soprano opera singer and show performer during the Harlem Renaissance from the 1920s to the late 1940s.
Life and career
Minto Cato was born in Little Rock, Arkan ...
and Adelaide Hall; comedian Tim Moore with his Chicago Follies company (which included his wife Gertie); the Whitman Sisters and their Company; musicians Fletcher Henderson, Fats Waller, Louis Armstrong, Noble Sissle
Noble Lee Sissle (July 10, 1889 – December 17, 1975) 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".
Ea ...
, Eubie Blake
James Hubert "Eubie" Blake (February 7, 1887 – February 12, 1983) 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 B ...
, Joe "King" Oliver
Joseph Nathan "King" Oliver (December 19, 1881 – April 8/10, 1938) was an American jazz cornet player and bandleader. He was particularly recognized for his playing style and his pioneering use of mutes in jazz. Also a notable composer, he wr ...
, and Duke Ellington; comedians Sandy Burns
Sandy Burns was a comedian. He toured on the T.O.B.A. circuit.
Burns led the Sandy Burns Stock Company. He was married to fellow performer Gretchen Burns.
He was born in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma and grew up in Huntsville, Texas
Huntsville is a ...
, Salem Whitney Tutt, Boots Hope, Seymour James, and Tom Fletcher
Thomas Michael Fletcher (born 17 July 1985) is an English singer, musician, songwriter, composer, author and vlogger. He is one of the lead vocalists and rhythm guitarist of English pop rock band McFly, in addition to being the group's founder ...
; future Paris sensation Josephine Baker
Josephine Baker (born Freda Josephine McDonald; naturalised French Joséphine Baker; 3 June 1906 – 12 April 1975) was an American-born French dancer, singer and actress. Her career was centered primarily in Europe, mostly in her adopted Fran ...
; songwriter and pianist Perry Bradford
Perry Bradford (February 14, 1893, Montgomery, Alabama – April 20, 1970, New York City) was an American composer, songwriter, and vaudeville performer. His most notable songs included "Crazy Blues," "That Thing Called Love," and "You Can't Kee ...
, the mime Johnny Hudgins; dancers U. S. Thompson, Walter Batie
Walter may refer to:
People
* Walter (name), both a surname and a given name
* Little Walter, American blues harmonica player Marion Walter Jacobs (1930–1968)
* Gunther (wrestler), Austrian professional wrestler and trainer Walter Hahn (born 19 ...
, Earl "Snakehips" Tucker, and Valaida Snow
Valaida Snow (June 2, 1904. Other presumed birth years are 1900, 1901, 1903, 1905, and 1907 – May 30, 1956) was an American jazz musician and entertainer who performed internationally. She was also known as "Little Louis" and "Queen of the Tr ...
; and many others. In addition, later well-known names such as Florence Mills
Florence Mills (born Florence Winfrey; January 25, 1896 – November 1, 1927), billed as the "Queen of Happiness", was an American cabaret singer, dancer, and comedian.
Life and career
Florence Mills (Florence Winfrey) was born a daughter of for ...
, Lincoln "Stepin Fetchit
Lincoln Theodore Monroe Andrew Perry (May 30, 1902 – November 19, 1985), better known by the stage name Stepin Fetchit, was an American vaudevillian, comedian, and film actor of Jamaican and Bahamian descent, considered to be the first black a ...
" Perry, Hattie McDaniel
Hattie McDaniel (June 10, 1893October 26, 1952) was an American actress, singer-songwriter, and comedian. For her role as Mammy in ''Gone with the Wind (film), Gone with the Wind'' (1939), she won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress, ...
, Mantan Moreland
Mantan Moreland (September 3, 1902 – September 28, 1973) was an American actor and comedian most popular in the 1930s and 1940s. He starred in numerous films. His daughter Marcella Moreland appeared as a child actress in several films.
E ...
, Jackie "Moms" Mabley, Dewey Pigmeat Markham
Dewey "Pigmeat" Markham (April 18, 1904 – December 13, 1981) was an American entertainer. Though best known as a comedian, Markham was also a singer, dancer, and actor. His nickname came from a stage routine, in which he declared himself to be ...
, Johnny Lee, Marshall "Garbage" Rogers, Amanda Randolph
Amanda E. Randolph (September 2, 1896 – August 24, 1967) was an American actress, singer and musician. She was the first African-American performer to star in a regularly scheduled network television show, appearing in DuMont's ''The Laytons' ...
, Chick Webb, Cab Calloway, a young William Basie (before he came to be called "Count") on tour with Gonzelle White, and four-year-old Sammy Davis, Jr. all performed on the T.O.B.A. circuit. The death of White's husband was blamed on poor conditions at the theaters.
According to writer Preston Lauterbach, "a basic TOBA troupe carried about all the variety a single stage could hold, not to mention all the personalities one sleeping car could hold", including tap dancers, comedy teams, actors, and blues singers. Their backdrops, costumes and props moved with them.[
The most prestigious black theaters in ]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 on the north; Fifth Avenue on the east; and Central Park North on the south. The greater Ha ...
, Philadelphia
Philadelphia, often called Philly, is the List of municipalities in Pennsylvania#Municipalities, largest city in the Commonwealth (U.S. state), Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the List of United States cities by population, sixth-largest city i ...
, and Washington, D.C.
)
, image_skyline =
, image_caption = Clockwise from top left: the Washington Monument and Lincoln Memorial on the National Mall, United States Capitol, Logan Circle, Jefferson Memorial, White House, Adams Morgan, ...
, were not part of the circuit, booking acts independently; the T.O.B.A. was considered less prestigious. Many black performers, such as Bert Williams
Bert Williams (November 12, 1874 – March 4, 1922) was a Bahamian-born American entertainer, one of the pre-eminent entertainers of the Vaudeville era and one of the most popular comedians for all audiences of his time. He is credited as being ...
, George Walker, Johnson and Dean, Bill "Bojangles" Robinson
Bill Robinson, nicknamed Bojangles (born Luther Robinson; May 25, 1878 – November 25, 1949), was an American tap dancer, actor, and singer, the best known and the most highly paid African-American entertainer in the United States during the f ...
, Tim Moore, and Johnny Hudgins, also performed in white vaudeville, often in blackface.
Further reading
* Nadine George-Graves, The Royalty of Negro Vaudeville: The Whitman Sisters and the Negotiation of Race, Gender, and Class in African American Theater, 1900–1940, in ''Dance Research Journal
Congress on Research in Dance was a professional organization for dance historians in the United States and worldwide that was founded in 1964 and then merged in 2017 with the Society of Dance History Scholars to form the Dance Studies Associati ...
'', Vol. 33, No. 2, Social and Popular Dance (Winter, 2001), pp. 134–138.
*David Krasner, ''A Beautiful Pageant: African American Theatre, Drama, and Performance in the Harlem Renaissance'', Palgrave Macmillan, 2002, .
*Bernard L. Peterson, Jr., ''Profiles of African American Stage Performers and Theatre People, 1816-1960'', Greenwood Publishing Group
Greenwood Publishing Group, Inc. (GPG), also known as ABC-Clio/Greenwood (stylized ABC-CLIO/Greenwood), is an educational and academic publisher (middle school through university level) which is today part of ABC-Clio. Established in 1967 as Gr ...
, 2000,
*Henry T. Sampson, ''Blacks in Blackface: A Source Book on Early Black Musical Shows'', Scarecrow Press, Second edition, 2013,
*Redd Foxx and Norma Miller, ''The Redd Foxx Encyclopedia of Black Humor'', W. Ritchie Press, 1977,
*Iain Cameron Williams, ''Underneath a Harlem Moon ... the Harlem to Paris Years of Adelaide Hall'', Bayou Jazz Lives, Continuum, 2002,
*James Haskins
''Black Theater in America''.
New York: HarperCollins, 1982.
See also
* Bijou Amusement Company
References
{{Reflist
External links
American Vaudeville Museum pages
on T.O.B.A.
* ttps://www.nytimes.com/1999/01/29/movies/theater-review-replaying-the-days-of-black-vaudeville.html New York Times review of the play, ''Rollin' on the T.O.B.A.''
Letter by Milton Starr, as example of TOBA correspondence
Vaudeville