"This and That" at the Lafayette
One Hundred years ago today … This and That debuted at the Lafayette Theater, 2225 Seventh Avenue at 132nd Street in Harlem. An advertisement described the show as a “musical medley de luxe” that featured “40 of the best race artists.”
The New York Age Jan. 31, 1920, p. 6. Newspapers.com.
This and That writer Alex Rogers (who also performed) had a distinguished career in New York theater. His Dahomey (1903) is considered the first musical by an African American to play on Broadway. He appears in the top right of the photo below, a 1908 picture of “the Frogs,” an informal group of influential African American musical theater creators.
New York Public Library: The Frogs, an organization for African American theater professionals: (standing, left to right) Bob Cole, Lester A. Walton, Sam Corker, Bert Williams, James Reese Europe and Alex Rogers; (seated, left to right) Tom Brown, J. Rosamond Johnson, George W. Walker, Jesse A. Shipp and R.C. McPherson (Cecil Mack), 1908.
The Lafayette Theatre opened in 1910 and, in 1913, became one of the the first venues in the U.S. to desegregate its audience, if not the first.
The Lafayette Theatre, 1936. Municipal Archives.
The building was demolished in 2013.