Shuffle Along Debuts
One hundred years ago today … Shuffle Along debuted at the 63rd Street Theater, between Broadway and Central Park West. The all-Black musical revue was an instant hit, and would become a touchstone in the history of Black theater and Black music.
Billy Rose Theatre Division, The New York Public Library. "A Publicity photo from the stage production Shuffle Along." The New York Public Library Digital Collections. 1921.
New York Herald, 17 May 1921, p. 8. Newspapers.com
Note: This post commemorates the first New York performance of Shuffle Along, which had debuted in Washington, D.C. in March. NY1920s will offer a more thorough treatment of the play and its significance from guest-poster Zachary Price (UC Irvine) this summer.
Brooklyn Life offered a favorable review typical of the show’s reception:
“Shuffle Along," the big colored musical melange will enter upon the second big week of its summer engagement at the 63rd Street Theatre tomorrow night. This all-negro show has proved one of the biggest drawing attractions New York has had in some time. With its exceedingly funny comedy by Miller and Lyles, and its scintillating melodies by Sissle and Blake, “Shuffle Along" has amused hundreds of people within the past week. The same big cast remains intact, which includes Miller & Lyles, Sissle & Blake, Lottie Gee, Roger Matthews, Gertrude Saunders, Lawrence Deas, Mattie “Onion” Jeffrey, The Palm Beach Four and a big singing and dancing chorus of Creole beauties.
(“SIXTY-THIRD STREET MUSIC HALL.”Brooklyn Life, 28 May 1921, p. 15.)
Billy Rose Theatre Division, The New York Public Library. "Lyricist Noble Sissle and cast members from the musical "Shuffle Along," ca. 1921" The New York Public Library Digital Collections. 1921.
A Daily News review (with an unsurprisingly infelicitous title) lauded the music and panned the acting. As was standard, it listed the cast. Note that Shuffle Along creators Eubie Blake and Noble Sissle appeared in the production.
Daily News, 26 May 1921, p. 15. Newspapers.com
Despite the Daily News’s enthusiasm for the music, it did not run a photo related to the play until July 17, when Adelaide Hall, future jazz legend, moved from the chorus to a larger role.
Daily News, 17 July 1921, p. 21 Newspapers.com
The News frequently ran photos of current stage performers, so it is noteworthy that it was slow to do so for Shuffle, and that the feature above complicates its own racial implications by focusing on Hall’s trappings of Chinoiserie, and viewing her outfit as a commodity.
The plot of the play focused on a crooked mayoral race, which must have struck a nerve in an NYC that had a mayoral election coming up that year.
Further reading:
Hill, Anthony. “Shuffle Along” (1921). Blackpast, 16 March, 2008.
Young, Catherine M. "The Performance and Politics of Concurrent Temporalities in George C. Wolfe’s Shuffle Along". Race and Performance after Repetition, ed. by Soyica Diggs Colbert, Douglas A. Jones Jr. and Shane Vogel, New York: Duke University Press, 2020, pp. 46-70.
– Jonathan Goldman, May 23, 1921
TAGS: Black arts, entertainment, African American history, theater, jazz, blues, vaudeville, musicals, Orientalism, race, racism, fashion, media