Black Musical Theater

Shuffle Along is a musical with music and lyrics by Noble Sissle and Eubie Blake, and a thin revue-style connecting plot about the mayoral race, written by Flournoy Miller and Aubrey Lyles. The piece premiered on Broadway in 1921, running for 504 performances – an unusually long run during that decade. Written, staged, and performed entirely by African Americans, Shuffle Along was the first show to make African-American dance an integral part of American musical theatre. The African-American musicals of this era, especially Shuffle Along are of great importance to the history of American musical theatre. 
It launched the careers of Josephine Baker, Adelaide Hall,Florence Mills, Fredi Washington and Paul Robeson, and became such a hit that it caused “curtain time traffic jams” on West 63rd Street. It had brief revivals in 1933 and 1952. Shuffle Along marked the first full-fledged Broadway musical with an all-blackcast, playwright, composer and lyricist. The show was a hit, running for about 484 nights on Broadway, a record at the time, according to The New York Times.

 

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