21 important moments in the black history of Broadway
February is the Black History Month. While the nation takes time to think about the achievements that African Americans have achieved, the black artists at Broadway help to tell the story.
Read on to learn about 21 landmark moments that reflect both Broadway and the wider society’s developing appreciation for the African American experience.
1. Bert Williams in The Ziegfeld Follies1910
Bert Williams achieved his first success when he teamed up with George Walker in 1895 in a comedic act that placed Walker’s fast talk-city against Williams’ slow-moving rural Bumpkin. Williams always wore a long and light skin the traditional black-level makeup that carried all mingal (he said it helped him to come into character and carry it through his career), but the mind and dignity he brought to his performances, both blacks and whites appreciated his character as a funny man instead of as a rough carican. By 1903 Williams and Walker were in the main In dahomeythe first whole-black musical comedy that plays in a great Broadway theater. But after Walker became ill of syphilis in 1909 (he would die two years later), Florenz Ziegfeld Williams invited a head liner in his Foolishness of 1910, Make him the first black to act on Broadway as an equal with whites. Although he formed close relationships with fellow stars such as WC fields and Will rogersWilliams is still forced to stay at home than others Foolishness Artists traveled across the segregated South.
2. Charles Gilpin in The Emperor Joneyouth1920
With a few rare exceptions, black roles were performed in dramatic plays on Broadway by white actors who used burnt cork or greasepaint to make themselves look darker. But in 1919, producer William H. Harris, Jr., hired African American actor Charles S. Gilpin to play a character based on black abolition Frederick Douglass in the play Abraham Lincoln. Gilpin’s actions, who were honed in small black businesses during his years, including as director of Harlem’s celebrated Lafayette players, convinced Eugene O’Neill to make him in the title role of The Emperor JonesMake Gilpin the first black man to lead an integrated cast in the great white way. His portrayal of Brutus Jones, an escaped from an American prison that becomes such a despotic ruler of a West Indies that the natives rise up against him, was cited by the critics, but the actor’s dispute with O’Neill over the repeated use of the N-word in the play and his continuous drinking problem caused him to be in the London production of London Paul Robeson.
3. Shuffle along1921
There used to be al-black musicals on Broadway, but it was old-fashioned things like A trip to COOGOWN and lent heavy to the Minstrel tradition. Shuffle together took his inspiration from the new sounds of jazz and Tin pan alley Togits. His book writers Flournoy Miller and Aubrey Lylesformer classmates at All-Black Fiscal University, adapted the story from a comic Vaudeville routine that they once performed about a three-way mayor’s race and then added a romantic subplot. Eubie blake and Noble sissleone of the first African-American performances in the Vaudeville Circuit to forfeit Blackface and adopt a sophisticated clothing style, wrote the score, which includes the Ballad “Love Will Find a Way” and the NOW classic “(I’m just) wildly over Harry.” They Shuffle together Prove that it was not just a huge hit that ran for a then unenforceable 504 performances, but it set the template for a spate of similar shows containing black artists, sunkoped rhythms and flashy dance numbers. It also distinguished that he was the first Broadway show that could put African Americans in the orchestra section.
4. Pgy and Bess, 1935
Certainly the most famous black musical ever played on Broadway, Pgy and Bess was written by a trio of white men: the brothers George and Ira gershwin and Dubose Heywarda Southerner who wrote the novel Porgie About a crippled beggar who lives in the poor black fishing community of Catfish Row and falls for the local Bad-Girl Bess. George Gershwin was fascinated by African American culture for a long time and he was excited to put Heyward’s story on music. But Pgy and Bess was controversial from the beginning. Music critics thought the score was too lightweight. Theater critics believe the operative recitative is unpleasant. And many African Americans have complained that the story, which deals with drugs, gambling and loose sex, stereotypes black people. The original production closed before it could recover its investment, but a Grand Opera production in 1976 restored the reputation of the show. Diane Paul‘Revival in 2012 with Norm Lewis and Audra McDonald In the title roles, a Tony won for best revival and songs like “Summertime” and “My Man’s Gone Now” stay among the best loved one and most staged in the American Songbook.
5. Paul Robeson in Othello, 1943
He was an all-American footballer at university and earned a law degree at the University of Columbia, but Paul Robeson achieved his greatest achievements on stage. Long, charismatic and blessed with a deep melodious voice that made him a favorite on the concert track, he began performing in al-black Harlem productions and also become friendly with members of the Provincetown players, whose resident playwright Eugene O’Neill Robeson in the role of Robeson in All God’s Chillun got wingsThe controversial 1924 play about the bad marriage between a white woman and a black man. That production, which attracted protests and newspaper editions, would help Robeson prepare for his biggest challenge – and the biggest victory – when he took on the title role in Othellowith the man-and-woman team of José Ferrer and Uta Garden As Iago and Desdemona. Robeson played the role in London earlier, but he was dissatisfied with the performance and worked hard to realize a fuller creation of the jealous nut (he and Hagen even embarked on a relationship). The payout was a production that delivered for 296 shows, longer than any previous Shakespeare production on Broadway.
6. A raisin in the sun, 1959
Borrow his title from the rules of a Langston Hughes Poem (“What happens to a dream postponed?/ Aim for a raisin in the sun?”), Lorraine HansBerry’s pioneering drama debuted just five years just five years after the decision of the education board was officially terminated in the US. The legendary production has a leading role Claudia McNeil If the family’s widow matriarch, Sidney Poitier As her adult son, Ruby Dee like his wife, and Diana Sands As the intellectual younger sister who, like a growing number of blacks, tries to contact her African roots. Lloyd richardswho would later continue to host the Yale School of Drama, direct the production and penetrated through a different color barrier than the first African American to stage a drama on Broadway. A raisin in the sun Loses that year’s Tony race for best drama to The miracle worker But 15 years later is the musical adjustment of that Raisin would win for the best musical.
7. Is not supposed to die a natural death1971
Annoyed that he did not see the types of black people and issues on stage he saw on the street, Melvin of Peebles Wrote the book, Music and Lyrics for a linked range of vignettes in which characters such as prostitutes, junkies, militants and everyday work stiffs lamented the drugs, homelessness, unemployment, police corruption and other evils of the ghetto. The show ended famously with a female character facing the audience and sitting a curse on you. ‘Critics were in conflict, and traditional theatergoers were careful. So of Peebles has run up the support for his show by black stars like Ossie Davis and Nipsey Russell to make Cameo performances and by reaching out to black churches and civic groups, a form of target marketing that would be adapted by other productions trying to bring out African-American and other under-represented ticket buyers.
8. The wizard, 1975
Geoffrey -Holder Was already a successful actor, dancer, choreographer, TV-Pitchman (especially known as 7-up’s “Uncola” man) and worked as the costume designer for this disco-era repellent of “The Wizard of Oz” when asked to take over as director during the show. He recreated the most important roles of Dorothy, the girl who left her Kansas home for the magical land Oz, and the traveling companions she found there. He also expanded the exuberant approach he used with the costumes to encompass the entire production. But the opening night assessments were still so clumsy that the producer considered closing the program until a TV ad with the signature with the signature of the “ease on the road” and the resulting good verbal of those who followed the advice turned The wizard In a hit that walked for four years and won seven Tonys, including the top prize for the best musical that year.
9. Ma rainey’s black bottom1984
August Wilson’s Broadway debut, which is located in a Shabby Chicago recording -studio, was loosely based on the recording sessions that the legendary Blues singer Ma rainey Made for Paramount Records in 1923. The play’s rivalry between the older and younger generations of musicians in the group reflects the pursuit, frustrations and anger with which African Americans struggled when they tried to cross in a white world without losing the important connection to their roots. Critics consider the show as the most important black game since then A raisin in the sun and the arrival of Wilson rejoiced as an important new voice in the American theater. Over the next two decades, he would write a play about the African-American experience in every decade of the 20th century, and ended the last before his death at 60 in 2005. With the 2017 production of 2017 Jitney, All ten plays in his Pittsburgh cycle were produced on Broadway and two, Fences and The piano lessonwon Pulitzer awards.
10. Bring DA noise, bring in DA Funk1996
Tap dance has always been a staple of black shows, but George C. Wolfe, the then artistic director of The public theaterwhere the show started, and the young dance delight Savion Glover have the art of having to turn into a vehicle through which they told the history of black Americans from their arrival in this country as slaves to the rise of hip-hop as a dominant power in pop culture. Glover was barely ten years old when he plucked his Broadway debut as as replacer in The Tap Dance Kid, But in the interim years he attended himself to masters of art like Henry LetangangHoni Coles, Sammy Davis jr. And Gregory Hineswith whom teenager Glover performed a dance performance in the 1992 show Jelly’s last jam. Glover, now an adult, combined his respect for the Tap tradition (DA noise) with a more emphatic approach that reflects the dynamics of the politically charged rap music performed by groups such as Public Enemy (DA Funk). The mixture brought a contemporary feeling to Broadway that helped the show run 1.135 performances.
11. Top Dog/Underdog and Whoopi Goldbergegot, 2002
Suzan-Lori Parks Centered this existential study of what it means to be a black man in America in the 21st century around two brothers who are symbolically named Lincoln and Booth, who were abandoned by their parents as children, share a small room and share a living cards and do strange work. In an altercation of the old theater tradition of black level, Parks gives one of them the task of personifying Abe Lincoln in a local side show that requires him to wear white level. As Bring DA noise, bring DA Funk, This show started in the public theater and was directed by George C. Wolfe. The production in the center, which is Geoffrey Wright and Don cheadlesold out, but theatergoers were less enthusiastic when the show moved to Broadway with the rapper Moss def The takeover of Cheadle and the show closed after just 144 performances, despite the fact that he won that year’s Pulitzer Prize for Drama, who made Parks the first African American woman to win the honor.
The actor, comedian, writer and television host Whoopi Goldberg this year completed her egot, the acronym for the Emmy, Grammy, Oscar and Tony Awards. Upon completion, with the Tony Award for Best Musicals for Thoroughly modern millieGoldberg became the first Black entertainer and only won two different awards in the same year.
12. Lady Day by Emerson’s Bar and Grill, 2014
When she was thirty, Audra McDonald won three Tony Awards and she continued to shine in the full series of roles that started to open for African American actors, from non-traditional cast as a noble woman in Shakespeare’s Henry IV and the Spinster in 110 in the shade to racial -specific roles in the revivals of A raisin in the sun and Pgy and Besswhich added two more Tonys to her shelf. But McDonald made history with her portrayal of Billie Holiday In 2014’s Lady Day by Emerson’s Bar and Grillwhich depicts the jazz singer in one of her final performances before she passed away in 1959 of complications that arose by cirrhosis of the liver. Her performance captured both Holiday’s distinctive sound and the heart strings of her years of personal and professional disappointments that it won McDonald a sixth Tony and made her the only person who ever won the award in all four acting categories.
13. Hamilton and The color purple Take the Tonys; Broadway Advocacy Coalition was founded, 2016
When Hamilton The original cast, opened on Broadway, has already made headlines by accepting black and brown actors the roles of historical white figures. The conscious cast deepened the narrative, with performances by Leslie Odom Jr., Daveed Diggsand Renee Elise Goldsberry deserves Tony nominations. On the biggest evening of Broadway, all three of the principle actors won awards. And then Cynthia erivo won the best leading actress in a musical for the revival of The color purple. With victories for the leading actress, the leading actor, an actor and an actress, it was the first time in Tony’s history that black artists have swept all four of the music performance categories.
Also this season, Danai Gurira’s EmbezzleThe story of five Liberian women trying to survive the Second Liberian Civil War became the first play on Broadway written, directed and acted by black women.
Finally, in trying to investigate how the arts can play a more meaningful role in creating a fair world, Broadway artists Jacquelyn Bell, Amber imanCameron J. Ross, Britton Smith, Adrienne Warrenand Christian Dante White Created the Broadway Advocacy Coalition. While you together in Shuffle together … Many members of this founding collective have encouraged themselves to mobilize the Broadway community after the 2016 murder on Philando Castile. Their first opportunity, Broadway for Black Lives Mattersaw action. From there, Broadway Advocacy Coalition continued as a method of working together after equity in the arts. Through workshops, community building, leadership development and long -term impact projects, Broadway Advocacy Coalition continued to use storytelling to combat systemic racism in the US arts. With three landmark events in one year, you can say that 2016 was a banner year for Broadway.
14. Lynn Nottage wins the Pulitzer Prize for Drama for the second time, 2017
In 2009, Lynn Nottage’s play Devastatewhich concentrates on the lives of women during the Democratic Republic of Congo’s Civil War, won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama, which made her the second black playwright to earn the award. When Nottage’s subsequent work, Sweatan exploration of America of the working class from the perspective of factory workers in Reading, Pennsylvania, won the Pulitzer for drama in 2017, she became the first, and so far only female playwright who has been awarded twice. Now we are just waiting for Nottage’s overdue Tony Award.
15. George C. Wolfe beats his own record, 2018
The playwright director producer first made history as the first black director of a Broadway production that did not center on a black family, when he helped the original production of Tony Kushner from 1993 in 1993 in 1993 in 1993 in 1993 in 1993 in 1993 in 1993 in 1993 in 1993 in 1993 in 1993 in 1993 in 1993 in 1993 in 1993 in 1993 in 1993 in 1993 in 1993 in 1993 Angels in America: Millennium approaches. For the first part of the Pulitzer-winning drama, Wolfe won a Tony for the best direction of a play, his first win. In 2018, when Wolfe rigs the revival of Eugene O’Neill’s The Iceman Comethhis Tony Award for the Best Direction was his 23rd, chose his own record and cemented his place as the most Tony-nominated black artist ever. Of the nominations, he won five Tony Awards.
16. Lachanze and daughter Celia Rose GoodingA mother-daughter Broadway Duo, 2019
Although Broadway stage was hosted by his entire history for romantic and familial duos, one mother-daughter pair found themselves in the same season. In 2019, while Lachanze the stage in A Christmas Carolher daughter Celia Rose Gooding has their Broadway debut in Hunting ted small pill. Gooding, who depicts Mary Frances “Frankie” Healy in the Rock Musical, won a Grammy Award for the Best Music Theater album, was awarded the best actor in an excellent role in a musical during the first Antonyo awards presentation, and received a Tony nomination for the best actress in a musical.
17. Michael R. Jackon’s Pulitzer victory and first Antonyo Awards, 2020
For his masterpiece about a black queer writer who writes a musical about a black queer writer who writes a musical (and so on), Michael R. Jackson received the Pulitzer Prize for Drama, which made him the first Black Musical Theater writer who won the award. A strange loop Will win the Tony for the best musical and best book of a musical for Jackson for Jackson during the Tony Awards of 2022.
Drew Shade, founder of Broadway Black, created the Antonyo Awards (now known as the awards) with support from the Black Theater Society. The first ceremony honored especially in the Black Theater community in the Black Theater community Barnes handed over‘Play Blks, Tina: The Tina Turner Musical, For colored girls who considered suicide/when the rainbow is enufand performances both on and outside Broadway in gender neutral categories.
The ceremony, which took place on a YouTube living stream, took place on Juneteeth and presented musical performances, Skits and monologues by black playwrights – in addition to the awards announcements. Twenty-three competitive and four non-competitive awards were distributed, the later dedicated to individuals who had an advanced black theater in New York.
18. A historic season for black playwrights on Broadway, 2021
Since Broadway marquee was re-switched after months of darkness due to the Covid-19 pandemic, producers, cast and theater owners were called to make Broadway a more fair creative space for people of color. It was inspired by the Black Lives Matter movement and the 2020 protests in George Floyd and Breonna Taylor. The Broadway season 2021-22 included nine works by Black Playwrights, a record. The playwrights and their works were as follows: Ruben Santiago-Hudson’s Lackawanna bluesJeremy O. Harris’ SlaveLynn Nottage’s Clyde’s, Douglas Lyons‘ Chicken and biscuitsAntonette children. PassDominique Morisseau’s Skeleton crewKeenan Scott IIs Thoughts of a colored man, Alice Childress‘ Problem in mindand Ntozake Shange’s for colored girls who considered suicide / when the rainbow is enuf.
It was also a banner season for black musical theater writers: Michael R. Jackson’s A strange loopNottage Write the book for Mj the musicaland Christina Anderson The book for the book for Paradise Square. Not to mention Brandon Jacobs-Jenkins that offers additional material for the revival of Thornton Wilder’s The skin of our teeth.
These Broadway productions were brought to life by more people of color in design and production than ever before, who further set records and opened doors. For directing Chicken and biscuits, Zhailon Levingston became the latest black director of a Broadway show. Thoughts of a colored man was the first play written and directed by a black man with a black actor also starring. Then at the overdue 2020 Tony Awards, held in 2021, Slave Set up the record for most nominations for a non-musical play, and receive 12.
19. Brittney Johnson and Emilie Kouatchou Walking in the spotlight, 2022
In the 35-year history of Phantom of the opera On Broadway 37 took Christine Then played. When she took over the role full time in January 2022, Emilie Kouatchou became the first black woman to do so. Also in 2022 Brittney Johnson adopted the role of Glinda full time in Broadway Evilthe first black actress to walk in the bubble of the good witch.
20. Black Theater Coalition, and Black Theater United was founded to raise black artists, 2019 and 2020
In the summer of 2019, T. Oliver Reid and Warren Adams Established Black Theater Coalition, an attempt to lock the difference between growing inclusivity on stage and a lack of black professionals outside the stage. In 2020, Reggie van Lee joined as a co-founder. Black Theater Coalition has since launched a Society and apprenticeship, partnerships that create, build and implement employment for Black Creatives in all aspects of Broadway and theater production – including design, marketing, general management, manufacturing, directing and discussion.
Black Theater United, who was officially founded in the summer of 2020, focuses on their advocacy on accountability on and out of the stage. In addition to protecting black theater and the advocate of black artists, educate, empower and inspire Black Theater United, empower and inspire, tell stories and preserve the history and legacy of black theater in American culture. Black Theater United began the claim of a new Broadway agreement, and asked for immediate and specific changes to the Broadway community to create fairness, diversity, inclusion and accessibility in the entire industry.
21. Viola Davis Egots, 2023
Win the Grammy for the best sound book, narrative and story recording for her memoir Find meViola Davis became the first black actor for Egot by winning awards exclusively for her performances (most egoters deserve some manufacturing awards). All the awards in Davis’s basket were for her acting. Apart from the Grammy, Davis won two Tony Awards for performance (the best actress in a play for King Hedley II and best actress in a play for Fences), an Oscar award (for the best supporting actress for Fences), and an Emmy Award (for excellent main actress in a drama series for How to get away with murder).
Davis is perhaps the most recent history maker on this list, but we look forward to adding to this list in the future, as more black artists still change Broadway for good.