Thompson, Shuffle Along Theatre Intro
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“Scene: Jimtown in Dixieland. Time: Election Day.”
Shuffle Along in Theatrical Context
by David S. Thompson, Agnes Scott College
[Editorial Note: The theatre section is written to follow Lyn Schenbeck’s commentary on
the show’s music. Where observations concerning the libretto connect to the score,
previously introduced details are omitted.]
Few would deny the importance of the Shuffle Along score by Noble Sissle and
Eubie Blake in both the history of music and musical theatre. Its sheer variety alone,
ranging from tender love ballad to raucous ragtime and a host of idioms in between,
suggests a musical mélange of tremendous vision and sophistication.
What then, is one to make of the book? Even its most ardent admirer would have
to admit that a plot description supports the charge frequently leveled at musical theatre,
that it simply provides an excuse for jokes and production numbers. In fact the central
premise—Steve Jenkins and Sam Peck, grocery store partners, agree to run against one
another for mayor of Jimtown with each pledging that the winner will appoint the loser as
police chief—remains so paper thin that one wonders where it could possibly lead.
Adding the additional plot elements of a reform candidate opposing the two grocers and
the future of his relationship dependent upon his election as mayor to the roster of
distrustful partners, suspicious wives, a snooping detective, and numerous comic
supernumeraries suggests a compilation of tangential subplots.
Thompson, Shuffle Along Theatre Intro
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Indeed even the most noted of Broadway historians has proposed much the same
thing. The score represents an advance in musical theatre while the book by Flournoy
Miller and Aubrey Lyles, put simply, does not.1 Such a legacy casts doubt upon the
necessity of studying Shuffle Along from a theatrical standpoint.
However, as with all theatre, the key lies in performance. The script may provide
a foundation for performance or an artifact after the event, but as Hamlet opined, the
play’s the thing. The significance of Shuffle Along rests in its theatrical qualities related
to the much heralded original New York production. Here three areas merit
contemplation. First, in consideration of its place in the history of theatrical
development, Shuffle Along both draws from, and provides a suitable heir to, several
American theatrical forms. In fact, it offers an exemplary transitional moment between
American variety entertainment and the native book musical. Second, Shuffle Along had
a profound influence on the theatrical landscape of the 1920s. That influence would
include the critical reaction, public excitement and a bearing on approaches to future
productions. One might also view the influence as a foundation to common elements of
the Broadway vocabulary. Third, the show had an ability to address race by presenting
broad cross-section of African-American characters in a way that both black and white
audiences found pleasing.
The context of the 1921 appearance of Shuffle Along actually traces its roots back
to the variety forms of the nineteenth century. Here, we find not only the precursors of
the American musical, but the performance modes that would eventually provide its
creators with their rich background. The list of forms to consider briefly, whether
positively, negatively or by comparison, includes burlesque, vaudeville, revue, operetta
Thompson, Shuffle Along Theatre Intro
3
and minstrel show (the latter to be addressed in the discussion of racial imagery). The
two most important contributors to the lineage of Shuffle Along trace their rise in
American popularity 1840s, burlesque and vaudeville. Toward the end of the nineteenth
century, the forms had undergone considerable alteration from their origins.
Burlesque owes its heritage to English ballad opera. Ballad opera began in England with
the 1728 production of John Gay’s The Beggar’s Opera (perhaps better known in its
twentieth century adaptation as The Threepenny Opera by Bertolt Brecht and Kurt
Weill). As a performance style it took advantage of the eighteenth century vogue for
Italian opera, by combining spoken dialogue, parody and musical numbers, particularly
favoring pithy commentary set to popular tunes. Burlesque, then, might be considered
the American cousin of ballad opera. However, the direction of burlesque, not to
mention the connotation of the term, changed markedly as it developed.
Traditionally thought to signal both the shift in burlesque and the beginnings of
musical theatre, a production of The Black Crook in 1866 featured ballet dancers,
stranded after a New York engagement, performing in their traditional dancewear.2
Although the costumes would strike a 21st century audience as modest, even tame, the
production caused a scandal. Since scandal means publicity imitators followed suit.
“Nude” women (in this case meaning “wearing tights”) posing in tableau led to the
dancing chorus which led to show girls. As the visual component became increasingly
concerned with women on display and drew an increasing share of the focus, the
elements of parody, satire and wit were the losers.3
As burlesque shifted its focus during the 1870s, vaudeville offered a reclamation
of the seedier strain of variety entertainments populating saloons and bars. Even the term
Thompson, Shuffle Along Theatre Intro
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itself offers a curious story, since few agree upon the exact origin of the term. Whether it
is a corruption of French geography or French complimentary phrases, mystery shrouds
the etymology. The most common explanation holds that “vaudeville” represents a
purposely vague and confusing notion. The design behind the name change (rather than
burlesque or medicine show or other circuit entertainment terms) involved remaining
flexible enough to support nearly any sort of act while adding distinction and
respectability. For example, in the 1880s vaudeville impresario Tony Pastor recognized
the growth of the American middle class and sought to exploit its sensibilities by
promoting family-friendly presentations as an avenue to success. 4
At this point let us insert one caveat concerning variety performances. One would
do well to remember the gulf between appearance and reality, particularly in marketing,
theatre and most especially theatre marketing. Promoters of variety entertainments
walked both sides of the line as they proclaimed family entertainment but provided racy
material to pique attention.5 Indeed good business frequently depended upon an
important balance of offering vulgarity while appearing wholesome and legitimate.6
Such a point has a particular bearing on Shuffle Along since many skeptics clung
to the opinion that performance venues had never cleaned up their act or simply laid
vulgarity at the doorstep of itinerant African-American performers. An advertisement for
the show quoted New York Herald review declaring, “The production is clean and its
humor more antiseptic than some regular Broadway shows.”7 A review in Billboard
included the line, “Real, wholesome and filled with a spirit of liveliness and good
humor….” Composer Eubie Blake summarized the situation:
Thompson, Shuffle Along Theatre Intro
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We were afraid people would think it was freak show and it wouldn’t
appeal to white people. Others thought that if it was a colored show it
might be dirty. One man bought a front row seat for himself every night
for a week. I’d noticed him—down in the pit you notice things in the
audience—and finally, after the whole week was past, he came up and told
me that now he could bring his wife and children because there was no
foul language and not one double-entendre.8
Hence the company promoted itself as a clean show and breathed a collective sigh of
relief when critics noted the suitability of the material for one and all.
Isolated reactions of unsophisticated or misinformed individuals aside, vaudeville
also helped to integrate and homogenize America. Just as the advent of film and
particularly television led cultural observers to assert that there are no small towns
anymore, vaudeville provided a link to the larger landscape that transcended geography.
In this case talent was the basis and travel circuits were the vehicle.9 Rather than a
pastime, amusement or diversion one view of vaudeville, and by extension similar
popular performance modes, posits its position as a communal folk expression. As such
it did not require a particular background or educational level, just the sharing of daily
life and the amalgamation of culture(s) into a new experience.10 This description offers a
plausible explanation for the success of Shuffle Along and its popularity with audiences.
The musical afforded accessibility to both blacks and whites with enough familiar
elements to make spectators comfortable, but with sufficient twists on the familiar and
elevation of the style of these common ingredients to add delight to the comfort.
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Variety provided the means by which vaudeville producers and performers added
delight. The key to a successful vaudeville show involved the simple dictum of
something for everyone. To succeed in New York meant providing more, a greater
variety of sights, sounds and emotions.11 Hence the “musical mélange,” as Miller and
Lyles and Sissle and Blake billed Shuffle Along, follow the established formula of
vaudeville and the experience these two duos had gained as its leading performers.
Miller and Lyles met as students at Fisk University in Nashville and began their
partnership in 1908. In the decade that followed they made a name for themselves as
resident playwrights of Chicago’s Pekin Stock Company, wrote a number of successful
plays, developed popular routines at vaudeville houses throughout the Midwest and
finally landed engagements in New York. The fact that their work in the Big Apple
included dates at such noted spots as the Hammerstein Theatre and Harlem’s Lafayette
Theatre speaks to their stature. The fact that the Lafayette engagement involved
inclusion of their routines in a show produced and cowritten by Lester Walton, manager
of the Harlem landmark suggests a tendency toward making the best deal at the moment.
The show, Darkydom (1914-1915) featured a Harlem premiere likened to the most lavish
of Broadway openings, attended by many Whites who came uptown in coaches to see it.
The success of Darkydom led to a tour featuring Miller and Lyles and a series of
subsequent touring productions.12
Sissle and Blake also enjoyed a successful career as a performing team. They met
in 1915 where both men had been employed in Joe Porter’s Serenaders, Sissle as a singer
and Blake as a pianist specializing in ragtime. By the following year the pair had formed
a songwriting partnership and sold their first song to famed singer and performer Sophie
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Tucker. Sissle and Blake also joined James Reese Europe's Society Orchestra in 1916
with Sissle remaining with the group as they toured overseas during World War I.
Although they fared well as performers apart from each other and as a songwriting team
it appears that their best work lay in interpreting their own material, touring as the Dixie
Duo following the war.13
Meeting Europe seemed to provide a guiding hand for Sissle and Blake and for
the creation of Shuffle Along. Europe has expressed the belief that an African-American
presence on Broadway would provide immeasurable good for both sides of the
partnership, serving both to revive musical theatre and elevate the status of black
performers.14 Following a series of chance meetings when the paths of the two acts
crossed on tour, the quartet determined that among them they had both the talent and the
material to create a Broadway show. Miller and Lyles had written and performed a series
of comedic routines, including “The Mayor of Dixie” which forms the basis for the
election plot along with the partnership/rivalry of Steve Jenkins and Sam Peck. Sissle
and Blake could draw upon any number of songs in their act. In essence the show that
they outlined was “the fusion of two vaudeville acts—with dancing numbers, a sort of
continuous plot, and thrown-in love interest.”15 Combining not only their act, but their
meager resources, the newly formed team limped rather than strode to Broadway.
While Miller and Lyles and Sissle and Blake developed in their own directions,
theatre in general and Broadway in particular continued to evolve. Although America
had produced theatrical talent throughout its history, native talent of the precise sort that
that one specifically associates with the musical theatre, individuals exemplified by the
likes of George M. Cohan did not emerge until the first years of the twentieth century.16
Thompson, Shuffle Along Theatre Intro
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While the flag waiving showmanship of Cohan would seem to have produced a desire to
see more original talent, in the 1900s and 1910s, Broadway experienced a vogue for
European light opera and comic opera. Successful comic operas ran several hundred
performances, including The Merry Widow with 416 performances and The Chocolate
Soldier with 296 performances at a time when 100 performances would certify a
production as a hit and ensure that it would turn a handsome profit in New York.17 Such
a situation meant that many of the indigenous American expressions received less
attention in the legitimate theatre and were relegated to variety halls. The rise of
Viennese operetta and the associated American retreat from the musical stage, while a
curious blow to native talent in the short run would actually prove to be a plus. During
World War I European nations and their theatre artists would lose ground, a situation that
assisted in the development of young talent in the United States.18
From 1900 to 1920 several types of musical theatre developed that would
contribute to the form of the musical—revue, musical comedy and musical play.19 While
scholars have minor quibbles about the definitions and chief characteristics of such
subgenres, there some standard points of agreement. Typically, a revue refers to a
collection of songs, dances and sketches often organized around a theme such as current
events or a prevailing fashion. Musical comedy strives to combine dialogue and score to
advance a plot and the characters populating it, although many musical comedies
emphasized comedy and did not necessarily integrate the elements fully. The musical
play attempts to use the score in a way that creates songs appropriate to character,
situation or setting, especially as applied to folk idioms or historical periods. Regardless
of the minor distinctions, as the timeline approaches 1921 (the year Shuffle Along
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opened) several directions and sources are evident. Thus, the musical evolved from the
stock of its forebears, as a hybrid genre with much overlap with others, much like the
realms of vaudeville and burlesque.
Theatre in the 1920s represented a confluence of art and commerce. The equation
for success held that formulaic musicals as mass entertainment plus a bit of artistry plus
an enthusiastic populism (or promotion of popular culture) equals show business. Many
common factors existed in support of the formula including creating vehicles for female
stars, comedy that was star-oriented and dance numbers to show off chorus girls.20
Shuffle Along played to the specifics of this equation. Female stars such as Florence
Mills had legions of adoring fans including Langston Hughes who gushes about her in his
autobiography21 while a combination of beauty and comedic timing turned a young
Josephine Baker into a celebrity.22 Of course, the team of Miller and Lyles, not to
mention Noble Sissle, provided plenty of comedy while a large chorus featured plenty of
chorus girls. The combination of these elements, and many others, placed Shuffle Along
at the forefront of prevailing trends at the time of its opening.
However, theatre historians point to the opening of Show Boat in 1927 as the true
watershed moment in the development of the American musical. In hailing the work of
Jerome Kern and Oscar Hammerstein II as a masterpiece, critics of the day and historians
who followed would cite a litany of positive attributes. Among the advances in musical
theatre one finds the attempt to integrate song and story, use of song to illuminate
character or advance plot, the matching of the tone of songs to the moment, the desire to
provide local color through a variety of musical styles, and treating serious material in a
genre considered light entertainment.23 Coincidentally, Shuffle Along exhibits most of
Thompson, Shuffle Along Theatre Intro 10
these qualities. Certainly it is not a serious musical, but it does have moments of tender
love or wistful recollection. Similarly, the integration of song to advance plot is not
complete. For example, when the company discovered vaguely Asian costumes in a
collection of discarded theatrical supplies, Sissle and Blake drew upon their existing
catalogue and inserted “Oriental Blues” into the show, a song Blake freely admitted “was
neither Oriental nor a blues.”24 While such a number is clearly shoehorned into the
structure, a full range of emotions and characterization concerning relationships exists
when songs such as “Love Will Find a Way,” “I’m Craving for that Kind of Love,” and
“If You’ve Never Been Vamped by a Brownskin” are taken as an arc. Songs such as
“Election Day” and the signature tune “I’m Just Wild About Harry” contribute to the
mood of the day, something that directors and playwrights refer to as creating a sense of
occasion. The sense of occasion, whether for a holiday or homecoming or special event,
adds energy and excitement to the stage and by extension to the audience. Few would
claim that Shuffle Along rivals Show Boat in its ability to advance plot and reveal
character through song, yet the reinforcement of tone flows through the majority of the
score. In short, Shuffle Along uses the elements of its popular variety performance
heritage in a work that prefigures many of the most praised qualities of the fist milestone
among American musicals, thus creating a transitional moment in the development of the
form.
Asserting the position of Shuffle Along as an identifiable transitional work in the
history of musical theatre addresses its larger historical impact. The importance of the
musical is far from theoretical or philosophical. During 1921 and in the years
Thompson, Shuffle Along Theatre Intro 11
immediately following, Shuffle Along had an enormous impact and influence within the
American musical theatre.
Before audiences discovered Shuffle Along, critics had to discover it for
themselves. Shuffle Along opened its New York run at the 63rd Street Music Hall on
May 23, 1921. Since the show arrived with little fanfare, critics held low expectations.
With two other shows opening on the same night, many of the first-line critics chose to
spend their time elsewhere and send second-stringers to the Shuffle Along premiere.
(Neither this portion of the run of George M. Cohan’s production of The Tavern nor the
revue Sunkist would reach 50 performances.)25 As a result, influential reviews were slow
in reaching the public, but with the exception of a couple of mixed notices, when the lead
reviewers saw it, most raved about the show. The most influential critics of the day—
Burns Mantle, Heywood Broun, Gilbert Seldes, George Jean Nathan and Jack Pulaski
(writing as “Ibee”)—lined up to pay tribute to the new entertainment. Even Alan Dale of
the New York American, an influential critic known to be indifferent toward musicals
gushed, “With no ostentation of scenic effects and no portentous ‘names’ and no
emphasized ‘sensations,’ this jolly evening manages to lift the drear from your entity and
to live up your disposition.”26 And with such praise audiences soon began flocking to the
theatre.
At the beginning of the 1920s, the economic model for theatre did not change
radically from the years immediately preceding it, meaning that a run of 100
performances (approximately three months) along with judicious management of
expenses would result in financial success. Still, theatre observers have long held that to
achieve the status of a hit, in historic rather than immediate terms, a production must run
Thompson, Shuffle Along Theatre Intro 12
for at least 500 performances which usually translates to more than a year under a
standard performance schedule. In the season that featured Shuffle Along, defined as
June 1, 1920 to May 31, 1921, Broadway saw 148 new productions open. Of those, 140
closed during the same season and three closed shortly after the end of the season. While
many of the shows that closed could be termed hits, only five ran longer than a year—
The Bat (melodrama), The First Year (comedy), Peg O’ My Heart (comedy), Sally (a
musical by Jerome Kern and Victor Herbert, produced by Florenz Ziegfeld) and Shuffle
Along.27
Other hit productions of note in the seasons immediately preceding or following
1921 (1919-1920 and 1921-1922) include the R. H. Burnside spectacles Good Times and
Happy Days, the musical comedy Irene (book by James Montgomery, score by Harry
Tierney and Joe McCarthy), and Blossom Time (with music by Sigmund Romberg after
Franz Schubert). Such a roster suggests that Shuffle Along occupied a unique position on
Broadway; simply put, there were no other major productions like it and few hits to rival
it. At 504 performances, the original 1921 version Shuffle Along remains one of the
longest running productions in Broadway history, one of only 360 shows to run more
than 500 performances.28
Several features created the positive reaction to the show and influence beyond its
own theatre. As cited above, a genuine love plot with an unburlesqued love song
featuring an African-American couple was unheard of.29 The talented cast including
Florence Mills and Josephine Baker provided spark and sparkle to the production. In
addition the considerable contributions of the authors should not be overlooked. Eubie
Blake’s work in the pit (and sometimes joining the cast onstage) was a draw in itself.
Thompson, Shuffle Along Theatre Intro 13
However, the team of Miller and Lyles accomplished the seemingly impossible feat of
bridging vaudeville, theatre and musical comedy with a single action. At the end of the
first scene in Act II, Steve Jenkins and Sam Peck engage in a heated argument about the
mayoral election and the promised political appointments that were to follow. The scene
gives way to a boxing match between the two. In the script only two words indicate the
action—“Jimtown’s Fisticuffs.” Yet the scene played as an extended comic masterpiece.
‘The fight lasted about twenty minutes,’ says Flournoy Miller. ‘We wrote
it out and then ad libbed too. Lyles would fuss at me until we both began
swinging—at one point I knocked him down, and he jumped over my
back—Jack Benny once told us that our timing was the best he’d ever
seen. ‘For a finish they would be doing some Time Steps and a little
buck-and-wing,’ says Sissle, ‘as Miller kept one hand on Lyles’ head
while Lyles with his short arms kept swinging and missing.’ This bit was
[future New York Mayor] Fiorello LaGuardia’s favorite.30
Another equally influential aspect of the performance lay in the dance. Several of
the New York critics remarked that dance provided the “principle asset” in Shuffle Along.
The most impressive innovation was the dancing of the sixteen-girl chorus line. Noble
Sissle noted that the chorus girls also sang in the wings to keep performances moving and
acted as cheerleaders for the company. However, the point to remember is that they
started a new trend in Broadway musicals. Shuffle Along started a decade-long trend
toward Negro musicals. As a result theatre artists and producers looked to AfricanAmerican expression for inspiration and dancing to jazz became a standard for chorus
girls.31 But the influence lasted even longer than the production vogue of the following
Thompson, Shuffle Along Theatre Intro 14
ten years. Willie Covan, one of the featured performers in the company eventually
became a film performer and the head dance instructor at MGM. Covan perfected many
of the tap techniques that are still in use today providing a suggestion of both the level of
artistry present in the original Broadway company and the influence of the production.32
While the contributions to dance may be of vital importance to the art form, the
social contributions of the production are viewed as far more sweeping. Shuffle Along
was “instrumental in facilitating the start of a breakdown in the strictly enforced
segregated seating in Manhattan’s legitimate theatres” and even caused some writers in
local newspapers to wonder whether they might have enjoyed the performance more had
they not worried about the poor seating assigned to members of the audience who
resembled the wonderful performers onstage.33
Beyond the 63rd Street Music Hall, Shuffle Along inaugurated a series of all black
song and dance musicals that were a success by being jazzier than white jazz.34 It
remained chief among the shows causing producers to seek inspiration from Harlem
clubs, black performers and Black culture in general. The shows are significant for
creating traffic among producers, performers and audiences in two directions, both
uptown to downtown and downtown to uptown.35
Of course, half of show business is business and one cannot escape the profit
motive as a source of the inspiration for imitators. Times had been hard in touring and
preparing the show out of town. The creative team behind Shuffle Along had to chip in
$1.25 each so that the company manager Al Mayer could take theatre owner Harry Cort
to lunch to pitch the project. By the time they finally did bring the company to New
York, they were over $18,000 in debt. Costumes were salvaged discards from other
Thompson, Shuffle Along Theatre Intro 15
shows and sets consisted of whatever was available. Such use of such meager trappings
did not escape the notice of reviewers. In Variety Ibee, the pen name of Jack Pulaski,
observed:
The production cost looks close to the minimum. Costume outlay was not
a heap more, some the outfits appearing to have come from the wardrobe
of another show, perhaps one of the elder Cort’s [theatre owner]
productions. The show therefore stands a good chance to grab a tidy profit
unless the scale is too high. 36
And what a tidy profit they amassed. In an article promoting the Chicago run, the
Herald-Examiner reported that the minimal investment had produced gross earnings in
excess of $1,400,000 a sum that when adjusted for inflation into the 21st century
represents income of nearly ten times that amount.37
While the amazing success both onstage and at the box office the presentation of
race remains a central concern in any consideration of Shuffle Along. The issues are far
too numerous and complex to address here, but one must consider perspective and
circumstances. Contemporaneous observers seemingly could not find sufficient
superlatives for the show. James Weldon Johnson exclaimed:
In the summer of 1921 along came Shuffle Along, and all New York
flocked to the Sixty-third Street Theatre to hear the most joyous singing
and see the most exhilarating dancing to be found on any stage in the city.
Shuffle Along was a record-breaking, epoch-making musical comedy.
He continued by praising Miller and Lyles for their burlesque of ignorant partners going
into “big business” as guaranteed to produce enormous laughs.38 Langston Hughes listed
Thompson, Shuffle Along Theatre Intro 16
the show as the main reason he wanted to attend Columbia University. In his
autobiography he would go on to cite Shuffle Along as the beginning of the Harlem
Renaissance.39
Audiences in 1921 might well have agreed with Johnson and Hughes, but
audiences in the first decade of the 21st century might well have a different reaction. An
audience now would undoubtedly take note of the all-black cast. Following that obvious
observation a time traveler might well react to the use of blackface. In particular finding
the famous comedy team of Miller and Lyles playing in “burnt cork” makeup would
seem to be a jarring discovery.
The use of blackface dates to minstrel shows of the first half of the nineteenth
century. At that time, several theatrical forms developed observational material based
upon native types. Charles Matthews the Elder, for instance, was particularly known and
admired for his ability to mimic individuals he encountered both in his native England
and in the United States.40 American theatre history offers many examples of the
development of native characters, both internally rendered and externally observed. Each
in their turn, most ethnicities received presentations ranging from crude to sentimental.
By contrast black portrayals, particularly as executed in minstrel shows, were almost
exclusively and unrelentingly racist.41
Minstrel shows emphasized base characteristics of black stereotypes. Sexuality,
for example, was omnipresent but neutralized through burlesque. In fact, due to what
was often perceived as overt sexual content in some places women were not allowed to
attend minstrel shows until the 1870s.42 Such a combination of factors suggests little or
no meaningful connection between images of black men and black women onstage,
Thompson, Shuffle Along Theatre Intro 17
certainly not carrying any equation of love and sex. The complete lack of sentiment
seems worlds away from the tone presented in Shuffle Along.
How then does one explain the use of blackface well into the twentieth century?
One possible explanation takes a functional viewpoint. Blackface didn’t hide race—
audiences watching white performers knew the true ethnicity that lay beneath the
makeup. Rather, blackface allowed for a freedom of style and expression.43 (At least this
was the contention among many white performers.) In this regard blackface becomes a
theatrical convention, a signal for a particular tone of performance or clue to an expected
reaction. So it would not be too much of a stretch to suggest that when Flournoy Miller
and Aubrey Lyles appeared in blackface that audiences understood that the AfricanAmerican performers were wearing makeup that suggested a portrayal of broad comedic
characters. Then again, during their early years in vaudeville, they might have adopted a
strategy expressed by one of the leading black performers on the circuit.
The comedians of the day, though still in minstrel attire in many cases
were moving more toward authentic black humor while simultaneously
keeping white audiences comfortable with the familiar image of the coon.
A radical departure would’ve put an end to future bookings, but it didn’t
stop them from making adjustments. As George “Bon Bon” Walker
[creator of In Dahomey and other landmarks and performer of Williams
and Walker fame] had stated, the only way to separate from the white who
put on blackface was to capture the style and coolness of true black
behavior and movement. In his opinion whites overdid what came natural
to the blacks.44
Thompson, Shuffle Along Theatre Intro 18
There might also be no small amount of ironic appreciation for the re-appropriation of the
convention and the execution of a double parody, namely satirizing the image of a satire.
An audience in the twenty-first century cannot hope to perceive blackface performance as
anything other than racist, and rightly so. However, to the extent that the practice might
represent a performance style it is possible that an audience in 1921, even a racially
diverse audience, would not necessarily have received it with the same emotion.
Above all, each reaction remains individualized. Sissle and Blake roundly
rejected the suggestion of an agent who wanted to alter the act of The Dixie Duo. The
agent had suggested that the pair don blackface and patched overalls and then discover a
“py-anner” in a box before continuing with their act. They saw such a spectacle as acting
“like a couple of ignoramuses” and refused the suggestion. In fact, their costuming took
the opposite direction and their elegant attire became a trademark.45 Scholars have noted
that even the shows by created talented African-American performers catered to the tastes
and prejudices of white audiences. It was not until Shuffle Along in 1921 that musical
comedy broke away from earlier styles. Sissle and Blake felt that their work was having
exactly such an effect.46
Immediately after dealing with the image of blackface, a modern audience would
confront a second issue—the “Negro” dialect. The first lines spoken by Miller and Lyles
as they entered as Steve Jenkins and Sam Peck read as follows:
SAM
I don't want to hear dat now.
STEVE
Thompson, Shuffle Along Theatre Intro 19
I'm a man what knows everything. You ain't got no business being no
mayor and you knows you ain't, what you talking about being mayors—
SAM
(Interrupting)
I got jest as much right to be mayors of Jimtown as you is--and--mucher
fers that’s recerned. What you talkin' 'bout I ain't got no right to be
mayors of Jimtown.
If the dialogue reads like an episode of Amos ‘n Andy, there is good reason, Flournoy
Miller served as one of its writers. As Darryl J. Littleton describes Miller’s career path:
In the late 1930s F. E. Miller traveled to Hollywood and wrote for
independent black films and mainstream movies, starring in many of the
productions. Miller insisted on the dignified treatment of black
performers and in the 1940s put pen to paper for the radio version of Amos
‘n Andy and made the transition to the television incarnation for its 1951
debut. Flournoy Miller enjoyed the reputation of an elder statesman until
his death in 1971.47
With dialogue written in dialect the question becomes one of intent. Is the writer
attempting to recreate speech patterns, offer interpretive clues to the performer, or
provide a short cut via stock characters and stereotypes? One of the foremost
contemporary African-American playwrights, Suzan-Lori Parks frequently works to
recreate the sounds of a given situation. Her much heralded play Topdog/Underdog,
winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Drama, begins as “Booth, a black man in his early 30s,
Thompson, Shuffle Along Theatre Intro 20
practices his 3-card monte scam in the classic setup.” Booth’s fist line offers a sample of
his patter:
Watch me close watch me close now: who-see-thuh-red-card-who-seethuh-red-card? I-see-thuh-red-card. Thuh-red-card-is-thuh-winner. Pickthuh-red-card-you-pick-uh-winner. Pick-uh-black-card-you-pick-uh-loser.
Theres-thuh-loser, yeah, theres-thuh-black-card, theres-thuh-other-loserand-theres-thuh-red-card, thuh-winner.48
Anyone who has ever walked through the streets of New York, and many other cities for
that matter, would recognize the accuracy of the speech patterns. While the lines might
be associated racially, and certainly other lines in Parks’s text more pointedly draw from
urban black experience, few would dismiss the lines as racist due to the construction.
In the case of Miller’s work, his “reputation as an elder statesman” carries a
powerful clue to the intent of his writing. Miller was particularly known for his ability to
base outrageous dialogue on bits of conversation overheard in public places. He placed
particular emphasis on the malapropisms of self-important individuals whose desperate
reach for impressive vocabulary often exceeded their grasp of language. He then placed
these questionable usages in his vaudeville comedy sketches, and later in both stage and
film scripts.49
More tangible evidence may be found the films he made during his time in
Hollywood. Independent movies such as The Bronze Buckaroo and Harlem Rides the
Range are populated with a wide assortment of types, many of them stereotypes.
However, rather than racial stereotypes, these represent the typical collection of
melodramatic characters that Hollywood filmmakers employed in many a Westerns and
Thompson, Shuffle Along Theatre Intro 21
adventure serials. The cast always includes a handsome beloved hero, a sidekick, a
gullible cowboy or ranch hand, a villain (rustler, con artist, thief, or foreclosing banker), a
victim in need of assistance from the hero, a love interest (who might also be the
proverbial damsel in distress) and a various supporting players including a comedian.
When we first see Flournoy Miller in The Bronze Buckaroo, he is sitting on a
fence in a corral reading a book on ventriloquism. When reading aloud, he reads slowly
but with a diction approaching the pattern known as the Standard American dialect.
When practicing his newly found interest in throwing his voice, he populates an entire
barnyard of animals with voices appropriate to a mule, dog, or chicken as necessary.
When addressing a group of visitors arriving at the ranch, and subsequently plying his
comedic trade in trying to convince them that the animals can talk, his speech becomes
more conversational. Some of the “th” sounds might be rendered as “d” as in “dis” or
“dat,” but the effect is one of comfort and efficiency rather than parody. A similar scene
is found in Harlem Rides the Range where Miller co-wrote the screenplay and plays a
benign braggart. When he boasts of his marksmanship, several ranch hands call his bluff
and he backpedals. However, when the tin can targets he attempts to shoot are actually
hit by the hero in hiding, his confidence grows—as does the thickness of the dialect.50
The proportionate use of the speech pattern in accordance with the highs and lows of the
situation suggests a use of vocal technique as an indicator of perceived stature.
As with the series of Westerns, the variety of characters found in Jimtown
indicates a range of individuals rather than a reliance on a narrow conception of a stock
type. Such care, far from a negative, remains one of the positive attributes of Shuffle
Along. The reaction to the presentation might depend on viewpoint and expectation.
Thompson, Shuffle Along Theatre Intro 22
Certainly Langston Hughes and James Weldon Johnson would not have praised a
production seen as racist or complicit in perpetuating racist stereotypes.
An extended footnote provides a cap to this admittedly brief theatrical
commentary. The very qualities that make theatrical performance valuable and
precious—intimacy and immediacy of presentation coupled with a transitory and
ephemeral quality—also provide the greatest challenges to its study. A fleeting form
without a permanent record forces the researcher to seek alternate sources. Students of
theatre history will note that legal documents offer a wealth of information, often about
performances themselves, but certainly about the circumstances surrounding them. Much
of what we know about the theatre of Elizabethan England, for example, lies within
construction contracts, property inventories and official filings concerning a variety of
disputes.
Similarly, and somewhat ironically, a lawsuit led to one of the best descriptive
summaries of the creation and theatrical personality of Shuffle Along. Some five decades
after the triumphant New York premiere and a year after Flournoy Miller’s death, his
daughter filed suit against a television program and the NBC network, claiming
unauthorized use of a sketch by comedian Flip Wilson during an installment of his
weekly show. The plaintiffs claimed that the broadcast featured a sketch written by
Miller that had appeared in one of the versions of Shuffle Along. What might appear as
tedious detail between lawyers at first glance reveals much about the character of a
landmark musical and the approach of its creators.
December 22, 1972
Re: Miller & Darby v. NBC, et al.
Thompson, Shuffle Along Theatre Intro 23
Dear Mr. Kulzick:
[…]
The records disclose that the original 1922 play is identified as a
musical play in two acts entitled SHUFFLE ALONG, a work in either
scenes, book written by Flournoy Miller and Albrey [sic] Lyles with
words and music by Noble Sissle and Eubie Blake with copyright secured
on the book and lyrics only as an unpublished work in the names of all
four authors, November 16, 1922, No. DU: 62931.
No record is found of any renewal of copyright in the 1922
version, so that the copyright in the original now has expired and such
work is in the public domain.
The 1952 version entitled SHUFFLE ALONG, as indicated in the
copyright application attached with your letter, was written by Flournoy E.
Miller and Eubie Blake and copyrighted as an unpublished work (text
only) in the name of Flournoy E. Miller, June 16, 1952, under entry No.
DU: 31547, with the claim of copyright limited to the statement of new
matter in such version, namely “modern version of original book (change
of dates, current event, etc.)”.
No assignment of copyright in either version of the play, nor
license of any right therein, has been recorded in the assignment records of
the Copyright Office.
I have examined a copy of the 1952 version but do not find that the
so-call “Figures Skit”, attached as Exhibit C in your letter, was included in
Thompson, Shuffle Along Theatre Intro 24
this version. To the extent that such skit was included in the 1922 version,
it would now be in the public domain.51
[…]
Several musical numbers from the production SHUFFLE ALONG
were separately registered for copyright and the copyrights in some of
these compositions were renewed ….
[…]
This Negro musical has been widely presented over the years. One
of the early productions was at the 63rd Street Theatre in New York in
1921. The musical was produced in Boston in 1922 and I find
innumerable productions over the years including 1934, 1936, 1942 and a
major revival at the Broadway Theatre in May of 1952.
Over the years, the musical play has been variously revised and rewritten and I am enclosing xerox [sic] copies of two items from the New
York Times for April 12, 1940 and July 29, 1946 indicating this constant
revision and modernizing process.52
We have attempted to find some record of the publication of the
play, so as to report same and enable you to avail yourself of the defense
that re-registering the play for copyright once it has been published is a
necessary condition precedent to maintaining a copyright infringement
suit, but I don not find any record of the authorized publication of the
entire play, though excerpts of same appear in a number of articles such
[as the] one in the New Republic for July 6, 1921.
Thompson, Shuffle Along Theatre Intro 25
I note from the Hollywood Reporter for November 7, 1972 that a
half million dollar suit has been filed in the U. S. District Court for the
Central District of California on behalf of Mrs. Olivette Miller Darby,
claiming infringement of copyright, unfair competition, breach of implied
contract and misappropriation of the work of her late father, Flournoy
Miller entitled SHUFFLE ALONG as well as his Broadway play NAGS
AND PATCHES, which apparently was used in a Flip Wilson sketch
presented on NBC, October 26, 1972.
If you require any further details on the production of the play or
any of the musical numbers, please advise and we will provide same.
Sincerely yours,
E. Fulton Brylawski53
What significance can one draw from such evidence? Unless the lack of a
copyright is merely a terribly unfortunate oversight, it would seem that Flournoy Miller
and Aubrey Lyles, the popular vaudeville comedy team, took less care to secure their
material than did the celebrated musical duo of Noble Sissle and Eubie Blake. If true,
one may only speculate the reasons based upon the transitory nature of theatre in general
and vaudeville in particular. Touring vaudevillians developed material on the fly, with
each night bringing a new audience and new set of challenges. Routines, whether an
idea, an outline or a full script would grow and change depending upon what produced
laughter. Acts performed routines so often that they became associated with the material,
creating its own sort of protection even in the years prior to the 1908 U. S. Copyright Act.
Both the continuous change of the material and the sense of association with its creators
Thompson, Shuffle Along Theatre Intro 26
might explain the delay in application for copyright of Shuffle Along to 1922 well after its
opening on May 23, 1921, and then only as an unpublished work. In addition, the history
of the show and its text suggests a state of flux and a determination to adapt to any set of
circumstances.
Perhaps more than usual in mounting a performance, it appears that the unique
background of Shuffle Along and the participation of its creative team produced a special
alchemy. Only Sissle and Blake with Miller and Lyles could have created this work.
Like good vaudevillians the writers understood how to freshen the act and rotate material
as necessary. Interviews with Sissle and Blake suggest that improvisation and
reinvention remained an important part of the production throughout its Broadway run
and subsequent tours. In fact, as suggested in the legal correspondence above,
subsequent versions featured different material. One synopsis offers the assurance that
“Shuffle Along contains four of the funniest Broadway sketches ever to hit Broadway and
America” while the USO-Camp show “1945-46 streamline version of the famous
Broadway success” actually contains added numbers.54 Similarly, it remains doubtful
that others could have reinterpreted it with the same level of success. (Indeed, even their
own efforts to recreate their winning formula would largely fail.) To the extent that the
piece depended upon its creators, it suggests the same sort of customized event that is the
hallmark of live theatrical performance.
Thompson, Shuffle Along Theatre Intro 27
NOTES
1
Gerald Bordman, American Musical Theatre: A Chronicle (New York: Oxford
UP, 1978) 359-360.
2
Oscar Brockett and Fraklin J. Hildy, History of the Theatre 8e (Boston: Allyn
and Bacon, 1999) 242, 410.
3
David Walsh and Len Platt, Musical Theater and American Culture (Westport
CT: Praeger, 2003) 16-18.
4
Walsh and Platt 18-21.
5
Andrew L. Erdman, Blue Vaudeville: Sex, Morals and the Mass Marketing of
Amusement 1895-1915 (Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 2004).
6
Susan Kattwinkel, Tony Pastor Presents: Afterpieces from the Vaudeville Stage
(Westport, CT: Greenwood, 1998) 1-7.
7
New York Times, 30 May 1921.
8
Robert Kimball and William Bolcom, Reminiscing with Noble Sissle and Eubie
Blake (New York: Cooper Square, 1973) 94-95.
9
Walsh and Platt 18-21.
10
Albert F. McLean, American Vaudeville as Ritual (Lexington, KY: U of KY P,
1968) 1-15.
11
Robert W. Snyder, The Voice of the City: Vaudeville and Popular Culture in
New York (Chicago: Ivan R. Dee, 2000) xiii-xiv.
12
Bernard L. Peterson, Jr., Profiles of African American Stage Performers and
Theatre People, 1816-1960 (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 2001) 184-185.
Thompson, Shuffle Along Theatre Intro 28
Peterson’s volume also provides valuable biographical information for a number of
performers associated with Shuffle Along.
13
Peterson 25-26, 225-227. More personalized recollections of the lives and
careers of Noble Sissle and Eubie Blake are found in Kimball and Bolcom, cited earlier.
14
Kimball and Bolcom 89.
15
Kimball and Bolcom 88.
16
Bordman 183.
17
Cecil Smith and Glenn Litton, Musical Comedy in America (New York: Theatre
Arts Books, 1981) 94-95. The popularity of operetta at the beginning of the twentieth
century offers a parallel to the production history of Shuffle Along. Each of these works
had several attempted revivals, but none could recapture the magic of the original. With
a respectable run of 322 performances, only the 1943-1944 revival of The Merry Widow
(its fourth revival on Broadway) approached the success of its original production; of
course, one could question the definition of a hit by arguing that production costs were
considerably higher after a passage of four decades and that the choreography of George
Balanchine provided a strong draw for audiences.
18
Bordman 230.
19
Walsh and Platt 52.
20
Walsh and Platt 73-74.
21
Langston Hughes, The Big Sea: An Autobiography, reissue (New York: Hill
and Wang, 1993) 85.
22
Kimball and Bolcom 128.
Thompson, Shuffle Along Theatre Intro 29
23
Alan Jay Lerner, The Musical Theatre: A Celebration (New York: McGraw-
Hill, 1986) 69; Julian Mates, America’s Musical Stage: Two Hundred Years of Musical
Theatre (Westport CT: Greenwood, 1985) 184-186.
24
Kimball and Bolcom 88.
25
Internet Broadway Database, < http://www.ibdb.com/>, 29 June 2007. The
Tavern by Cora Dick Gantt was produced and co-directed by Cohan. It had already
enjoyed a run of 252 performances at George M. Cohan’s Theatre, but only lasted an
additional 27 performances after transferring to the Hudson Theatre and opening on May
23, 1921. The other production that opened on the same night was Sunkist, a musical
revue by the dance team of Fanchon and Marco (a.k.a. Fanny and Mike Wolff). It played
for a month at the Globe Theatre and an additional two weeks at the Sam H. Harris
Theatre for a total of 48 performances.
26
Kimball and Bolcom 94, 99.
27
Internet Broadway Database, < http://www.ibdb.com/>, 29 June 2007.
28
Here the Internet Broadway Database lists only 484 performances of Shuffle
Along while nearly every other source available lists 504 performances. Regardless of
this discrepancy, the production ran for over a year in New York before embarking upon
a successful tour.
29
Thomas L. Riis, Just Before Jazz: Black Musical Theatre in New York, 1890 to
1915 (Washington: Smithsonian, 1989) 174-175. Riis reminds us that in Black
Manhattan James Weldon Johnson points to two shows years earlier than Shuffle
Along—Cole and Johnson’s The Red Moon (1909) and J. Leubrie Hill’s My Friend from
Kentucky (1913) —that included romantic love songs performed by an African-American
Thompson, Shuffle Along Theatre Intro 30
couple. There is no mention of the success and influence of either the songs or the shows
containing them. The Red Moon played only a few performances while My Friend from
Kentucky enjoyed some success at Harlem’s Lafayette Theatre where it attracted both
black and white audiences.
30
Marshall Stearns and Jean Stearns, Jazz Dance: The Story of American
Vernacular Dance (Cambridge, MA: Da Capo, 1994) 133.
31
32
Stearns and Stearns 137, 139.
Rusty E. Frank, TAP! The Greatest Tap Dance Stars and Their Stories 1900-
1955, rev. ed. (Cambridge, MA: Da Capo, 1995) 24-26.
33
Amy Henderson and Dwight Blocker Bowers, Red, Hot and Blue: A
Smithsonian Tribute to the American Musical (Washington: Smithsonian, 1996) 66-68.
34
Walsh and Platt 73-74.
35
Michael Kantor and Laurence Maslon. Broadway: The American Musical (New
York: Bulfinch, 2004) 86-90.
36
Kimball and Bolcom 88, 93, 98.
37
“‘Shuffle Along,’ Started on $1.50, Yields Million,” Chicago Herald Examiner
3 Dec. 1922, photocopy in Flournoy Miller Archives of Emory University.
38
James Weldon Johnson, Black Manhattan, reprint ed (Cambridge, MA: Da
Capo, 2002) 186.
39
Langston Hughes, The Big Sea: An Autobiography (Reissue, New York: Hill
and Wang, 1993) 223-224, 334. Hughes uses both the terms “Harlem Renaissance” and
“Manhattan black Renaissance” in reference to the rising interest in African-American
expression in the 1920s and Shuffle Along as a frontispiece.
Thompson, Shuffle Along Theatre Intro 31
40
Brockett and Hildy 359.
41
Snyder 14.
42
Walsh and Platt 25.
43
Snyder 120.
44
Darryl J Littleton, Black Comedians on Black Comedy: How African-
Americans Taught Us to Laugh (New York: Applause Books, 2006) 34.
45
46
Kimball and Bolcom 80.
Geneviève Fabre, Drumbeats, Masks and Metaphor: Contemporary Afro-
American Theatre (Cambridge, MA: Harvard UP, 1983) 6. See also Kimball and Bolcom
generally as interviews with Sissle and Blake throughout indicate their desire wish to
elevate the style of their performances.
47
48
Littleton 34.
Suzan-Lori Parks, Topdog/Underdog (New York: Theatre Communications
Group, 2002) 7.
49
Kimball and Bolcom 110.
50
Harlem Rides the Range, Dir. Richard C. Khan, 1933 (DVD, Alpha Home
Entertainment, 2006); The Bronze Buckaroo, Dir. Richard C. Khan, 1939 in Treasures of
Black Cinema (DVD, Retromedia Entertainment, 2005).
51
The “Figures Sketch” refers to a scene found among the papers of Flournoy
Miller in the Special Collections Division of the The Robert W. Woodruff Library of
Emory University. In the sketch Sam Peck tells Steve Sharper that as one of seven men
who raised twenty-eight dollars, that he was entitled to his fair share, meaning oneseventh. However, through a series of ludicrous mathematical approaches Sam tries to
Thompson, Shuffle Along Theatre Intro 32
convince Steve that one-seventh of twenty-eight equals thirteen. Sam demonstrates his
point on a blackboard via multiplication, division and addition of a column of seven
“13s.” The document carries no evidence of a date or association with a particular script.
The lack of such evidence does not necessarily suggest that Miller did not write the
material, but establishing copyright parameters becomes very difficult, as Brylawski’s
letter indicates. The “Figures Sketch” has appeared numerous times in televised comedy
and variety programs, perhaps suggesting that the material seemed traditional or even
anonymous and thus within public domain. Wondering whether other performers had
appropriated the sketch prior to this time, and presumably with far lower stakes than
those associated with a major television network, amounts to speculation. In any case,
the sketch does not appear in the script for the 1921 version.
52
The Flournoy E. Miller Papers at Emory University include photocopies of the
New York Times articles. Although brief, each indicates a process of revision. In 1940,
Sissle, Blake and Miller appear to have decided to revive their most famous collaboration
rather than create a “Negro musical ‘patterned after’ ‘Shuffle Along’” or allow others to
reap the benefit of the precedent. The 1946 notice refers to a successful “USO-Camp
Show presentation of the musical in Europe” that inspired Miller the authors to rewrite
Shuffle Along. The article touts new “topical portions” along with a new score by Blake
retaining favorite songs from the original. The producers listed include Noble Sissle with
Flournoy Miller set to play Steve Jenkins and Eubie Blake to serve as musical director.
53
E. Fulton Brylawski developed a reputation as one of the leading copyright
attorneys of his day. He contributed significant research and commentary on copyright
law and he edited, with Abe A. Goldman, Legislative History of the 1909 Copyright Act.
Thompson, Shuffle Along Theatre Intro 33
54
The Flournoy E. Miller Papers, Special Collections, The Robert W. Woodruff
Library, Emory University, Atlanta, GA.