Introduction: A Brief History of African Americans on Broadway

In spite of the reputation for Broadway as being for white people and about white people, African American women have found their roles and a place on the stage since the beginning. Unfortunately, in the earliest years of Broadway (the mid-1800s), minstrel shows were extremely popular. These shows did not utilize black actors, but instead used white actors in black face in “the only entertainment form born out of blind hatred” (Kenrick 2003:1). However, by the early 1900s, in the hey-day of the Ziegfeld Follies and the early years of vaudeville, there was a “wave of Afro-American musicals” and several plays were showcased featuring black performers, such as Ethel Waters, Ma Rainey and Bessie Smith (Kenrick 2003:5).

Between the two World Wars of the early 20^th Century, Revue shows remained popular on Broadway. Jerome Kern’s Showboat opened in 1927 and told the story of a mulatto woman who loves a white man to a tragic conclusion. It was the first play to deal with racial issues in a musical setting. This was followed by such complex shows as Gershwin’s Porgy and Bess (1935), which is considered to be an opera, and because of its all-black cast, does not address the same issues as Showboat, and Oscar Hammerstein II’s 1943 all-black reworking of Bizet’s opera Carmen, in the form of Carmen Jones (Maslon 2004:1).

With the Civil Right’s Movement of the 1960s came a reflection on Broadway of the many social changes occurring around the country. There were several attempts at founding all-Black theatres, but this movement failed “to distinguish Black Theatre from

Mainstream theatre (and) black theatre companies (didn’t) have a base group of wealthy individuals to act as donors, sponsors or contributors” (King 2003:15). No matter how often African-Americans were cast in shows, such as Hair (1968), there still remained an ideology that left Black performers having to “cope with…marginalization within the hegemonic definitions of `cultures’ and `performance’ throughout US history” (Bean 1999:1). In other words, having supporting roles in primarily white musicals did not appear to advance the cause of African American performers hoping for equal treatment on Broadway.

It was not until the late 1970s and 1980’s that African American performers, especially women, began to fill lead roles in Broadway shows designed to showcase their multiple talents as actresses, rather than just as “black actresses”.