Drama, Comedy, and Dance

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Drama, Comedy, and Dance

Myla Churchill

The Origins of African American Performance Art

Minstrelsy

Reclaiming the Black Image: 1890 to 1920

African American Dramatic Theater into the Twenty-First Century

African American Musicals into the Twenty-First Century

African American Comedy into the Twenty-First Century

African American Dance into the Twenty-First Century

Stage Actors, Directors, Comedians, Choreographers, and Dancers

Award Winners

For more than 200 years, African American performers have appeared on the American stage. Despite the prejudices that they have faced both within the theater community and from the entertainment-seeking public, they have made significant contributions to American performance art. The artistic heritage of today’s African American actors, dancers, and comedians can be traced back to the last decades of the eighteenth century.

THE ORIGINS OF AFRICAN AMERICAN PERFORMANCE ART

THE EARLIEST PLAYS WITH AFRICAN AMERICAN ACTORS

The first performances by African American actors on the American stage were in plays authored by white playwrights who provided blacks with narrow opportunities to portray shallow characters. Often blacks were cast in the role of the buffoon in order to appeal to the sensibilities of a bigoted public. In 1769, for example, the cast of Lewis Hallam’s comedy The Padlock included a West Indian slave character named Mongo, who was a clown to be played by a black. Other white-authored plays from the period that depicted blacks in demoralizing roles were Robinson Crusoe, Harlequin (1792) and The Triumph of Love (1795) by John Randolph, which included the native black character named Sambo. Thus, the earliest appearances of blacks on the American stage were as characters devoid of intellectual and moral sensibilities.

THE AFRICAN GROVE THEATRE

New York City’s free African American community founded the first African American theater in 1821—the African Grove Theatre, located at Mercer and Bleecker streets “in the rear of the one-mile stone on Broadway.” A group of amateur African American actors organized by Henry Brown presented Richard III at the theater on October 1, 1821. The African Grove Theatre subsequently produced Othello, Hamlet and such lighter works as Tom and Jerry and The Poor Soldier, Obi.

One of the principal actors at the African Grove Theatre was James Hewlet, a West Indian-born black who distinguished himself in roles in Othello and Richard III. Hewlet later toured England and billed himself as “The New York and London Colored Comedian.” Ira Aldridge, who later distinguished himself as one of the great Shakespearean tragic actors, was also a member of the permanent group that performed at the African Grove Theatre. Aldridge

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was cast in comic and musical roles as well as in Shakespearean tragedies.

The African Grove Theatre also featured the first play written and produced by an African American. The play was Henry Brown’s The Drama of King Shot-away, which was presented in June of 1823.

Because of disturbances created by whites in the audience, the local police raided the African Grove Theatre on several occasions. The theater was wrecked by police and hoodlums during one of these raids, which forced its closing in late 1823. The group of black actors affiliated with the African Grove Theatre, determined to preserve their company, continued for several years to present plays at different rented locations throughout New York City.

MINSTRELSY

Talented slaves were among the earliest African American entertainers in colonial and antebellum America. On plantations throughout the South, slave performers using clappers, jawbones, and blacksmith rasps danced, sang, and told jokes for the entertainment of their fellow slaves as well as their masters, who often showcased their talents at local gatherings. Some masters hired out talented slaves to perform in traveling troupes.

During the late 1820s and early 1830s, white entertainers, exposed to the artistry of black performers, began to imitate blacks in their routines. Blackening their faces with cork, these white entertainers performed jigs, songs, and jokes with topical allusions to blacks in their lyrics. Thus, the art of minstrelsy as theatrical material was born.

White minstrel troupes in blackface became very popular on the American stage in the 1830s. Among some of the more famous white minstrel performers were Thomas Dartmouth Rice, “Daddy Rice,” the original “Jim Crow,” Edwin Forrest and Dan Emmett, and the Christy Minstrels.

Some traveling white minstrel troupes used black performers to enhance the authenticity of their productions. One such troupe was the Ethiopian Minstrels, whose star performer was William Henry Lane, an African American dancer who used the stage name “Master Juba.” Lane was one of the greatest dancers of his generation. Throughout the United States and England, “Master Juba” was enthusiastically praised by audiences and critics alike. One anonymous English critic, quoted by dance historian Marian Hannah Winter, wrote the following critique of one of Lane’s performances:

Juba exceeded anything ever witnessed in Europe. The style as well as the execution is unlike anything seen in this country. The manner in which he beats time with feet, and the extraordinary command he possesses over them, can only be believed by those who have been present at the exhibition. (“Juba and American Minstrelsy.” Chronicles of the American Dance, edited by Paul Magriel.)

Although black minstrel troupes began to appear in the 1850s, it was not until after the Civil War that they became established on the American stage. Although black minstrels inherited the negative stereotypes that white minstrels had established, the African American performer won a permanent place on the American stage providing a training ground for the many black dancers, comedians, singers, and composers to come. Notable among these stage personalities were dancer-comedians Billy Kersands, Bert Williams, Bob Height, Dewey “Pig-meat” Martin and Ernest Hogan; singers such as Gertrude “Ma” Rainey and Bessie Smith; and composers James Bland and William Christopher Handy. To a great extent, black minstrelsy created a national appreciation for the talent of black stage entertainers, drawing audiences to black shows and other forms of black entertainment for generations to come.

RECLAIMING THE BLACK IMAGE: 1890 TO 1920

By the 1890s, African American producers, writers and stage performers sought to reform the demeaning images of blacks that were prevalent on the American stage. The Creole Show, cast by African American producer Sam Jack in 1891, was the first all-black musical to depart from minstrelsy. The Creole Show, which was also notable for its inclusion of a chorus line, premiered in Boston in 1891 and later played at the Chicago World’s Fair for the entire season. In 1895, African American producer John W. Ishaw presented The Octoroon, another all-black musical that moved away from the minstrel tradition. Oriental America, which Ishaw also produced, broke further from minstrel conventions by not closing with the traditional walkaround, but with an operatic medley.

Between 1898 and 1911, 13 all-black musicals opened on Broadway, showcasing the talents of African American musicians, lyricists, directors, producers, and writers.

Trip to Coontown, written and directed by Bob Cole in 1898, completely broke away from the minstrel tradition. The plot of this all-black performance piece was presented completely through music and dance. The first musical produced, written and performed by African Americans on Broadway, it ushered in a new era for blacks on the American stage.

The highly popular Clorindy: The Origin of the Cake-walk, with music by composer Will Marion Cook and lyrics by poet Paul Laurence Dunbar, opened in 1898 at the Casino Roof Garden. Cook engaged the comic-dance duo of Bert Williams and George Walker and built the show around their talents. Comedian-singer Ernest Hogan was also featured. Hogan would later appear on Broadway in both Rufus Rastus and Oyster Man (1902). Bob Cole, J. Rosamond Johnson and James Weldon Johnson wrote and performed in The Shoo-Fly Regiment, another musical that opened on Broadway in 1902.

Williams and Walker premiered their first Broadway musical, The Policy Players, in 1899. This success was followed by the Sons of Ham, which played on Broadway for two seasons beginning in September of 1900. Their most famous musical, In Dahomey, premiered on Broadway in 1903 and after a long run, toured successfully in England. The Southerners, with music by Will Marion Cook, opened on Broadway in 1904 with an interracial cast starring Abbie Mitchell. The Williams and Walker team returned to Broadway in 1906 with a new musical Abyssinia, which consistently played to a full house. Williams and Walker appeared in their last Broadway production together entitled Bandanna Land in 1908. George Walker fell into ill health after the show closed and died in 1911.

Bert Williams went on to appear in Mr. Lord of Koal on Broadway in 1909 and later he was the star comedian performer in the Ziegfield Follies. The last black musical to open on Broadway before the 1920s was His Honor the Barber in 1911, with S. H. Dudley in the lead.

BLACK VAUDEVILLE

The unique world of black vaudeville employed dancers, comics and pantomimes who, denied access to the American legitimate stage, developed their own revues and routines that reflected the African American popular culture. The white owners of the Theater Owners Booking Association (T.O.B.A.) hired the entertainers to play to black audiences in large and small towns across America from the early 1900s until the Great Depression.

Vaudeville was the stage where dancers, such as Bert Williams and Bill “Bojangles” Robinson, polished the craft that helped them eventually move into the mainstream white theater. Comic Dewey “Pigmeat” Markham developed his legendary “Here Come Da Judge” routine. Tim Moore was wildly popular, later to be seen on Amos n’ Andy as the incorrigible “Kingfish.”

The cakewalk, a dance of slave origin, was said to be a parody of the showy party manners of slave owner families but its mimicry delighted the masters and mistresses. The cakewalk became a national and worldwide rage at the end of the nineteenth century, even though the black bourgeoisie condemned it as vulgar.

Just as the cakewalk was developed to make fun of a white dancing style, ragtime was a response to European classical music. Ragtime was derived from minstrel show tunes and New Orleans street marches. Pianists Ben Harvey and Scott Joplin made its distinctive rhythmic syncopation popular in the 1890s. One of the earliest examples of the form is the “Harlem Rag” of 1895.

Humor was used to cope with the pain and frustration of everyday life. Markham’s “Here Come Da Judge” routine was a critical farce on a legal system that afforded no justice or protection for African Americans. Ventriloquist Johnnie Woods with his sidekick Little Henry played the circuit as a dapper, prosperous gentleman berating and chiding the incorrigible dummy, dressed in a red check suit with bad manners and poor breeding. These comedy styles were later imitated by white performers such as Eddie Cantor, Al Jolson, and Abbott and Costello, who were a success on the white stage where blacks were not allowed.

What white folks derided as demeaning and vulgar became grist for the comic and satiric black player. They took the white notions of low-class and made a joke of it. The subject of race on the black stage was ground for debate, commiseration, derision and mockery. But they also condemned bad manners and attitudes among themselves.

Although black performers were often able to bridge the gap from folk and vaudeville entertainment to the musical classics and drama, white audiences typically expected them to restrict themselves to the more “Negroid” comedy routines and minstrel styles. However, the privileged few of high society saw some of the best of the black players at the “colored clubs” such as the Cotton Club, Connie’s Inn and the Club Alabam’ in New York. The Cotton Club boasted a Chorus Line of “tall, tan and terrific” black women as well as the hottest black entertainment.

THE BLACK PERFORMER IN EUROPE 1900 TO 1920

Many black performers who struggled on the American circuit found great success in Europe. The “black craze” of African American art, music and dance took Paris by storm in the 1920s. Ballroom dancers such as Fredi Washington and Al Moore, the singers Bessie Smith and Josephine Baker and producers such as Claude Hopkins found a receptive audience amongst “Roaring Twenties” Parisians. Europe was not as color-conscious as the United States. The elegant and refined Washington and Moore were so light-skinned that they were not totally accepted on the black circuit with their “white style” act. However, Europe welcomed their sophisticated artistry and style.

Hopkins introduced singer Josephine Baker to Paris where she developed her flamboyant and provocative act before appreciative Europeans. In the Folies Bergère, Baker pushed the boundaries of nudity and innuendo in her singing and dancing and she remained an international sensation throughout her career.

The dancer and pantomime Johnny Hudgins was an enormous hit with black and white audiences both in the United States and Europe. He was filmed by Jean Renoir in a short entitled Charleston in the 1920s, which left behind a detailed account of his act. His characters included the “Ballroom Dancer,” the “Ice Skater,” and the “Pullman Porter.” One of his more notable numbers involved him performing the Charleston in a lady’s feather-plumed straw hat.

AFRICAN AMERICAN DRAMATIC THEATER INTO THE TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY

THE DRAMATIC THEATER FROM 1900 TO 1940

Black actors on the American dramatic stage, like the performers in all-black musicals, struggled to shed the demeaning image of the African American projected by most white-produced minstrelsy and drama. The presentation of three plays—The Rider of Dreams, Granny Maumee, and Simon the Cyrenian—by white playwright Ridgely Torrence at the Garden Theatre in Madison Square Garden on April 5, 1917, was an exceptional and highly successful effort to objectively portray the African American on the dramatic stage.

During the Harlem Renaissance years, the African American dramatic actor remained less active than the black performer in musicals, and the image of blacks projected by white playwrights was generally inadequate. For example, although Charles Gilpin starred in Eugene O’Neill’s The Emperor Jones at the Provincetown Theatre in 1920, critic Loften Mitchell noted that:

This play, while offering one of the most magnificent roles for a Negro in the American theater, is the first in a long line to deal with the Negro on this level. O’Neill obviously saw in the Negro rich subject matter, but he was either incapable or unwilling to deal directly with the matter. (Black Drama, the Story of the American Negro in the Theatre, 1967.)

Nonetheless, African American actors and actresses had to accept the roles in which they were cast by white playwrights. In 1924, the O’Neill play All God’s Chillun’ Got Wings opened at the Provincetown Theatre with Paul Robeson and Mary Blair to mixed reviews because of its interracial theme. Rose McClendon starred in Paul Green’s Pulitzer Prize-winning In Abraham’s Bosom in 1926 and was ably supported by Abbie Mitchell and Jules Bledsoe. Marc Connelly’s Green Pastures opened on Broadway on February 26, 1930 with Richard B. Harrison playing “De Lawd.” It ran for 557 performances and was taken on an extensive road tour.

In the 1930’s, Langston Hughes brought the African American voice to the stage. Three of his plays were produced successfully on Broadway. Mulatto, which opened in 1935, starred Rose McClendon and Morris McKenney and had the longest Broadway run of any play written by an African American with 373 consecutive performances. The other two plays were Little Ham (1935) and Troubled Island (1936).

THE FEDERAL THEATER PROJECT

In the mid-1930s, the Works Progress Administration (WPA) sponsored one of the greatest organized efforts to assist and encourage American actors, especially African American actors. The Federal Theater Project employed a total of 851 African American actors to work in 16 segregated units of the project in Chicago, New York and other cities from 1935 until 1939, when Congress ended the project. While the project was in operation, African American actors appeared in 75 plays including classics, vaudeville routines, contemporary comedies, children’s shows, circuses and “living newspaper” performances. Notable among the African American actors who worked in the project—and later became stars on Broadway and in film—were Butterfly McQueen, Canada Lee, Rex Ingram, Katherine Dunham, Edna Thomas, Thomas Anderson and Arthur Dooley Wilson.

In the wake of the Federal Theater Project, The American Negro Theater was established in Harlem by Abram Hill, Austin Briggs-Hall, Frederick O’Neal and Hattie King-Reeves. Its objective was to authentically portray African American life and to give African American actors and playwrights a forum for their talents. Some of their productions eventually made it to Broadway. In 1944, the theater produced Anna Lucasta in the basement of the 135th Street Library in Harlem. It was successful enough to move to Broadway and featured Hilda Simms, Frederick O’Neal, Alice Childress, Alvin Childress, Earle Hyman and Herbert Henry. Abram Hill’s Walk Hard opened in Harlem in 1946 and became a Broadway production with Maxwell Glanville in the lead. The American Negro Theater provided a training ground for many African American actors who later became stars on Broadway and in Hollywood including Ruby Dee, Ossie Davis, Harry Belafonte and Sidney Poitier.

DRAMATIC THEATER IN THE 1950S

The rise of television in the 1950s generally had an adverse affect on the American theater. Employment for all actors fell sharply, especially for African American actors. Ethel Waters did, however, open on Broadway in 1950 as the lead in Member of the Wedding, which was well-received. Louis Peterson’s Take a Giant Step opened on Broadway in September of 1953 to critical praise; in the cast were Frederick O’Neal, Helen Martin, Maxwell Glanville, Pauline Myers, Estelle Evans, and Louis Gossett Jr.

One of the most successful all-black plays to appear on Broadway opened in March of 1959—Lorraine Hans-berry’s Raisin in the Sun, which won the New York Drama Critics Circle Award. It was directed by the legendary African American director Lloyd Richards. Its cast included Sidney Poitier, Ruby Dee, Diana Sands, Claudia McNeil, Louis Gossett Jr., Ivan Dixon, Lonnie Elder III and Douglas Turner Ward. Lorraine Hansberry was hailed a pioneer that paved the way for African American political and social playwrights.

THE DRAMATIC THEATER SINCE 1960

As the Civil Rights movement challenged the national conscience in the 1960s, every facet of African American life changed including black performing arts. More plays about African Americans by both black and white playwrights were produced, providing increased employment for black actors. A particularly significant year was 1961.

On May 4, 1961, The Blacks, by French playwright/author Jean Genet, opened Off-Broadway at the St. Mark’s Theater. A play about black Americans written for white audiences, The Blacks provided employment for a host of African American actors including Roscoe Lee Browne, James Earl Jones, Louis Gossett Jr., Helen Martin, Cicely Tyson, Godfrey Cambridge, Raymond St. Jacques, Maya Angelou, Charles Gordone and many others who appeared in its road tours. Subsequently, African American dramatic actors appeared on and Off-Broadway in several major plays by white playwrights. Notable among them were: In White America by Judith Rutherford Marechal (1968), with Gloria Foster and Moses Gunn; The Great White Hope by William Sackler (1968), starring James Earl Jones; and So Nice, They Named It Twice by Neil Harris (1975), featuring Bill Jay and Veronica Redd.

Also in 1961, African American fashion designer, Ellen Stewart, founded La MaMa E.T.C. (Experimental Theatre Club)—the oldest remaining avant-garde theatre in the United States. Known as the mother of Off-Off Broadway Theatre, Stewart gave young American and international playwrights an incubator in which to develop their original work without the pressures or constraints of commercial theatre. A venerated institution with more than 50 Obie awards, La MaMa was the birthplace for plays such as Hair, Godspell and Jesus Christ Superstar. Stewart is also credited with launching the careers of notable actors, directors and playwrights such as Tom Eyen (Dreamgirls) and Adrienne Kennedy (Funnyhouse of the Negro).

On May 23, 1961, when the LeRoi Jones’ play, The Dutchman, opened at the Cherry Lane Theatre, the black revolutionary play was introduced to theater audiences. African American actors were provided with the opportunity to perform in roles that not only affirmed blackness but portrayed black political militancy. Several black revolutionary plays followed that afforded opportunities for African American actors including James Baldwin’s Blues for Mr. Charlie (1964), with Al Freeman Jr. and Diana Sands; and The Toilet/The Slave, (1964) by LeRoi Jones, starring James Spruill, Walter Jones, Nan Martin, and Al Freeman Jr.

That same year, Jones (Imamu Amiri Baraka) founded the Black Arts Repertory Theatre/School to make theater more accessible by “taking it to the streets.” The objective was to promote interaction between the artists and the audience. Baraka and many other playwrights, poets and essayists believed that their primary responsibility was to create work for and about African American people. This philosophy evolved into the Black Arts Movement (BAM). Artists of the BAM raged against theatrical convention and mandated that the only art of worth reflected the cultural, social and political concerns of their communities. In addition to Baraka, some of the award-winning playwrights of the BAM were Ed Bullins, The Taking of Miss Janie (1975); Richard Wesley, The Black Terror (1972); Sonia Sanchez, Next Stop the Bronx (1968); and Adrienne Kennedy, The Funnyhouse of the Negro (1964).

The dissident voices of the Black Arts Movement gave rise to a wave of black regional theater companies such as the Crossroads Theatre in New Jersey, Freedom Theatre in Philadelphia, the Penumbra Theatre in Minnesota, The New Federal Theatre in New York, the Inner City Cultural Center in Los Angeles, Jomandi Productions in Atlanta and the St. Louis Repertory Theatre to name a few. Their focus was to foster the development of playwrights, actors, managers and technicians and to provide the African American community with plays steeped in a cultural context.

The most venerable institution of the Black Theatre Movement was the Negro Ensemble Company (NEC) founded in New York in 1967. This theatrical production company, initially financed by a three-year grant of $1.2 million from the Ford Foundation, was the brainchild of playwright/actor Douglas Turner Ward. Originally housed at the St. Mark’s Theater, the company moved to Theater Four. Actor Robert Hooks served as executive director, Gerald Krone as administrative director and Douglas Turner Ward as artistic director.

The Negro Ensemble staged more than 100 productions and featured the work of many black playwrights including Nobel Laureates, Wole Soyinka and Derek Wolcott. Three plays went to Broadway under Ward’s direction: Joseph A. Walker’s Tony Award-winning drama, The River Niger (1973); Leslie Lee’s Obie winner, The First Breeze of Summer (1975); and Samm-Art Williams’s Tony-nominated play, Home (1980). NEC also produced Charles Fuller’s A Soldier’s Play (1981), which won a Pulitzer Prize and was adapted into A Soldier’s Story (1984), a film starring Denzel Washington. The Negro Ensemble Company provided work for a plethora of outstanding African American actors and actresses including Louis Gossett Jr., Charles Brown, Denise Nicholas, Phylicia Rashad, Esther Rolle, Michele Shay, Rosalind Cash, Adolph Ceasar, Frances and Gloria Foster, Glynn Turman, Giancarlo Esposito, Moses Gunn and Barbara Montgomery.

Independent of the Negro Ensemble Company, several African American playwrights had plays successfully produced on Broadway. Ntozake Shange’s widely acclaimed For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide/When the Rainbow Is Enuf (1977) had a cast of seven African American actresses including Trazana Beverley, the first African American actress to win a Tony for Best Featured Actress in Play. Twenty-seven years later, Phylicia Rashad was the first and only African American woman to win Best Actress in a Play for the 2004 revival of A Raisin in the Sun.

James Earl Jones was the first African American man to win a Tony for Best Actor in 1969 for The Great White Hope. Jones won his second Tony for Best Actor in 1987 for Fences by August Wilson. Actors who have also won Tonys for their roles in an August Wilson play are Lawrence Fishburne (Two Trains Running), Ruben Santiago-Hudson (Seven Guitars), Mary Alice (Fences), L Scott Caldwell (Joe Turner’s Come and Gone) and Viola Davis (King Hedley II). Lloyd Richards also won a Tony for Best Direction (Fences).

Hailed as one the most celebrated and prolific American playwrights, August Wilson garnered countless nominations and numerous awards for his cycle of ten plays which chronicled the experiences of African Americans in each decade of the twentieth century. Eight out the ten plays were produced on Broadway including Fences, which won the 1987 Pulitzer Prize in Drama, the Tony Award for Best Play and the Drama Desk Award for Outstanding New Play. In 1990, The Piano Lesson earned Wilson his second Pulitzer Prize and Drama Desk Award.

He also received the New York Drama Critic’s Award for Best Play for Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom (1985), Fences (1987), Joe Turner’s Come and Gone (1988), The Piano Lesson (1990), Two Trains Running (1992), Seven Guitars (1996) and Jitney (2000).

Before his untimely death in 2005, Wilson completed his cycle of plays with Broadway productions of King Hedley II, Gem of the Ocean and a Yale Repertory Theater production of his last play, Radio Golf, which is scheduled to open on Broadway in 2007. Wilson was one of the strongest voices in American theatre and his influence laid the groundwork for many of the resonant voices in the twenty-first century.

Suzan-Lori Parks’s Topdog/Underdog won the 2002 Pulitzer Prize in Drama under the direction of George C. Wolfe. In November of 2002, Parks committed to writing a play a day for the next 365 days which has resulted in the 365/Days /365 Plays National Festival. From November 2006 to November 2007, the Festival will present the plays in over 60 select theatre companies across the country, simultaneously. This constitutes the largest collaboration in American theatre history.

Other award winning and emerging playwrights include Lynn Nottage (Intimate Apparel, Crumbs from the Table of Joy), Regina Taylor (Dreams of Sarah Breedlove, Crowns), Cheryl L. West (Birdie Blue, Jar the Floor) Keith Glover (Coming of the Hurricane, Thunder Knocking On The Door) Kia Corthron (Breath, Boom, Come DownBurning), Charles Randolph-White (Cuttin’ Up, Blue), Sarah Jones (Bridge and Tunnel), Tanya Barfield (Blue Door) Daniel Beatty (Emergence-See!), Marcus Gardley (Dance of the Holy Ghosts) and Javon Johnson (The House That Jack Built).

AFRICAN AMERICAN MUSICALS INTO THE TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY

Between 1898 and 1911, 13 all-black musicals opened on Broadway. The performances showcased the talents of Ernest Hogan and the comic-dance duo of George Walker and Bert Williams. But for nearly a decade after the close of His Honor the Barber, the Broadway stage did not carry any all-black musicals.

On May 23, 1921, Shuffle Along signaled the return of black musicals to “The Great White Way” and the arrival of the Harlem Renaissance on the American stage. Featuring the talented singer-dancer Florence Mills, Shuffle Along was written by Noble Sissle, Eubie Blake, Flournoy Miller and Aubrey Lyles. Mills quickly became a sought-after performer, appearing in The Plantation Revue, which opened on Broadway on July 17, 1922, and later toured England. In 1926, Mills returned to Harlem and played the lead in Blackbirds at the Alhambra Theatre for a six-week run. Subsequently, Mills performed in Paris for six months.

Noble Sissle and Eubie Blake returned to Broadway on September 24, 1924, with their new musical Chocolate Dandies. In 1926, Flournoy Miller and Aubrey Lyles opened on Broadway in Runnin’ Wild, which introduced the Charleston to the country. Bill “Bojangles” Robinson, starring in Blackbirds of 1928, dazzled Broadway audiences with his exciting tap dancing style. Miller and Lyles mounted several other black musicals on Broadway during the 1920s, including Rang Tang (1927) and Keep Shufflin’ (1928), with musical numbers staged by Harlem’s preeminent choreographer Leonard Harper. Harper conceived and staged Hot Chocolates in 1929 with music composed by Fats Waller and lyrics by Andy Razaf. Hot Chocolates introduced the songs “Ain’t Misbehavin”’ and “Black and Blue,” as well as Broadway newcomers Cab Calloway and Louis Armstrong.

When Porgy and Bess opened on Broadway in 1935, it became the major all-black musical production of the 1930s. With music by George Gershwin, this adaptation of the novel and play by DuBose and Dorothy Heyward was an immediate success as a folk opera. Todd Duncan was cast as Porgy with Ann Brown as Bess and comedian-dancer John Bubbles as the character, Sportin’ Life.

In the 1940s, black musicals were once again scarce on Broadway. Cabin in the Sky, starring Ethel Waters, Dooley Wilson, Todd Duncan, Rex Ingram, J. Rosamond Johnson, Katherine Dunham and her dancers, ran for 165 performances after it opened on October 25, 1940. Carmen Jones, perhaps the most successful all-black musical of the decade, opened in 1943 with Luther Saxon, Napoleon Reed, Carlotta Franzel and Cozy Cove. It ran for 231 performances and was taken on tour. In 1946, St. Louis Woman, featuring Rex Ingram, Pearl Bailey, Juanita Hall and June Hawkins, played a short run to mixed reviews.

The years from 1961 to the mid-1980s constituted one of the most active periods for African American performers in musical theater. Many of the black musicals produced during these years, both on and Off-Broadway, enjoyed substantial runs and extended road tours.

Langston Hughes’s musical Black Nativity opened on Broadway on December 11, 1961. Directed by Vinnette Carroll, the cast was headed by gospel singers Marion Williams and the Stars of Faith and also featured Alex Bradford, Clive Thompson, Cleo Quitman, and Carl Ford. Although it ran for only 57 performances on Broadway, it went on to tour extensively throughout the United States and abroad.

In 1964, Sammy Davis Jr. dazzled Broadway in Clifford Odets’s Golden Boy. Davis was supported by a brilliant cast which included Robert Guillaume, Louis Gossett Jr., Lola Falana, and Billy Daniels.

Leslie Uggams and Robert Hooks appeared in Hallelujah Baby, which opened in New York’s Martin Beck Theater on April 26, 1967. Hallelujah Baby, a musical look at five decades of black history, received a five Tony Awards including Best Actor/Actress for Hooks and Uggams and Best Featured Actress for Lillian Hayman.

Purlie, based on Ossie Davis’ 1961 play Purlie Victorious, opened on May 9, 1970 with Melba Moore and Cleavon Little in lead roles. Purlie received good reviews. Little won Best Actor and Moore won Best Featured Actress.

Micki Grant’s Don’t Bother Me, I Can’t Cope, starring Micki Grant and Alex Bradford, opened on April 19, 1972 to rave reviews. Grant received a Drama Desk Award and an Obie Award.

Virginia Capers, Joe Morton and Helen Martin opened in Raisin, based on Lorraine Hansberry’s play Raisin in the Sun, on October 13, 1973. Raisin received the Tony Award for the Best Musical in 1974 and Capers won Best Actress.

Despite initially poor reviews, The Wiz, a black musical version of The Wizard of Oz, became a highly successful show. Opening on Broadway on January 5, 1975, The Wiz featured an array of talented performers including Stephanie Mills, Hinton Battle, Ted Ross, André De Shields, Dee Dee Bridgewater, and Mabel King. The Wiz swept the Tony Award ceremonies in 1975 winning seven awards including Best Musical. The creative team was honored too. Geoffrey Holder and George Faison won Best Director and Best Choreographer, respectively. It was one of the longest-running black musicals in the history of Broadway with 1,672 performances.

Ain’t Misbehavin’, another popular black musical of the 1970s, opened on May 8, 1978. Based on a cavalcade of songs composed by Thomas “Fats” Waller, Ain’t Misbehavin’ starred Nell Carter, André De Shields, Armelia McQueen, Ken Page, and Charlaine Woodard. It played to Broadway audiences for 1,604 performances and Nell Carter received a Tony Award as Best Featured Actress.

Three spectacular black musicals premiered on Broadway in the 1980s. Dreamgirls, which opened at the Imperial Theater on December 20, 1981, captivated Broadway audiences with a cast that included Obba Babatunde, Ben Harney, Cleavant Derricks, Loretta Devine, Jennifer Holiday, and Sheryl Lee Ralph. Dreamgirls ran for 1,522 performances on Broadway and had an extensive road tour. Ben Harney and Jennifer Holiday won Tony Awards for Best Actor/Actress and Cleavant Derricks won for Best Featured Actor. In 2006, Dreamgirls was adapted into a film starring, Beyonce Knowles, Jennifer Hudson and Anika Noni Rose—a Tony Award winner for Best Featured Actress in Caroline, Or Change (2004)

In 1986, Debbie Allen opened in the lead role of Sweet Charity. Reviews were favorable and the show established Debbie Allen as a musical theatre actress. Black and Blue opened in 1989 at the Minskoff Theatre. The show was reminiscent of a 1920’s musical revue, spotlighting the illustrious composers of that era. Black and Blue won three Tony Awards including Best Actress for blues singer, Ruth Brown.

A few new all-black musicals opened in the early 1990s. Five Guys Named Moe was a tribute to musician Louis Jordan, written by Clarke Peters and directed by Charles Augin. Once On This Island told a star-crossed love story set in the French Antilles. The popular musical earned eight 1991 Tony nominations and launched the career of 2006 Tony Award winner, LaChanze. Jelly’s Last Jam was the brainchild of writer/director, George C. Wolfe. The imaginative tribute to Jelly Roll Morton was a commercial success and received 11 Tony nominations. Tonya Pinkins won a Tony Award for Best Featured Actress and Gregory Hines, as Jelly Roll Morton, won the Tony for Best Actor in 1992.

The monumental hit Bring in ’Da Noise, Bring in ’Da Funk opened in 1995. Starring young tap wizard Savion Glover and directed by George C. Wolfe, Noise/Funk celebrated 300 years of African American history in poetry, music, song and dance. The musical won four 1996 Tony Awards, including Best Choreograher for Glover, Best Director for Wolfe and Best Featured Actress for Ann Duquesnay in her role as ’Da Singer.

Featured in a lavish production of Carousel, a young African American actress, Audra McDonald, won her first Tony Award in 1994 as Best Featured Actress in a Musical. She won her second Tony in 1996 for a featured role in Master Class and third in 1998 for a featured performance in the musical Ragtime. In 2004, Audra McDonald won not only her fourth Tony for Best Featured Actress in the revival of A Raisin in the Sun but the distinction of being the first African American to do so.

In the latter half of the 1990s, African Americans began winning awards in shows that were not considered “all-black musicals.” Lillias White and Chuck Cooper won Best Featured Actress/Actor for their performances in The Life, the 1997 musical which garnered 12 Tony nominations. In 2000, two African Americans captured the Tony Awards for Best Actress/Best Actor in a Musical. Heather Headley won for her title role in the musical adaptation of Verdi’s opera Aida, and Brian Stokes Mitchell won Best Actor in a revival of Kiss Me Kate.

The 21st century ushered in the age of the African American producer. Whoopi Goldberg was the first African American woman to receive a Tony as a producer of the 2002 Best Musical, Thoroughly Modern Millie. In 2003, Russell Simmons, Stan Lathan and Kimora Lee Simmons won Tony Awards as producers of the Best Special Theatrical Event, Russell Simmons’ Def Poetry Jam; while in the same year, George C. Wolfe won a Tony as a producer of the Best Play, Take Me Out.

Produced and directed by George C. Wolfe, Caroline, Or Change was nominated for six Tony Awards, including Best Director and Best Play for Wolfe; Best Actress for Tonya Pinkins; but it was Anika Noni Rose who took home the Tony for Best Featured Actress in 2004.

The Color Purple, produced by Oprah Winfrey, received 11 Tony nominations in 2006, including Best Musical for Winfrey; Best Choreography for Donald Byrd; Best Featured Actor/Actress for Brandon Victor Dixon, Felicia P. Fields and Elisabeth Withers-Mendes; and a Tony Award that went to LaChanze for Best Actress. Sarah Jones also won a 2006 Special Tony Award for her innovative one-woman show, Bridge and Tunnel.

AFRICAN AMERICAN COMEDY INTO THE TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY

The earliest black comedians in America, like other early black entertainers, were slaves who in their free time entertained themselves and their masters. In the early

minstrel shows, white comedians in blackface created comic caricatures of blacks, whom they referred to as “coons.” When African Americans began appearing in minstrel shows shortly after the Civil War, they found themselves burdened with the “coon” comic caricatures created by white performers. The dance-comedy team of Bert Williams and George Walker were the most famous of the early black comedians, appearing in numerous black musicals between 1899 and 1909.

In the all-black musicals of the 1920s, a new comic movement emerged: the comedy of style which emphasized such antics as rolling the eyes or shaking the hips. The venom and bite of black “folk” humor was replaced by a comedy of style that was more acceptable to the white audiences of these all-black musicals.

Real black folk humor, however, did survive and thrive in black nightclubs and black theaters such as the Apollo in Harlem and the Regal in Chicago in the 1930s, 1940s, and 1950s. In these settings, known as the “Chitterlin’ Circuit,” such African American comedians as Tim Moore, Dusty Fletcher, Butterbeans and Susie, Stepin Fetchit, Jackie “Moms” Mabley, Redd Foxx, and Slappy White performed without restrictions.

African American comedians enjoyed greater exposure during the 1960s. No longer confined to the “Chitterlin’ Circuit,” comedians such as Jackie “Moms” Mabley, Redd Foxx, and Slappy White began to perform to audiences in exclusive white clubs as well as to audiences within the black community. They used black folk humor to comment on politics, civil rights, work, sex, and a variety of other subjects. Jackie “Moms” Mabley made two popular recordings: Moms Mabley at the UN and Moms Mabley at the Geneva Conference. In January of 1972, Redd Foxx premiered on television as Fred Sanford on Sanford and Son, which remained popular in syndication for decades.

Several younger African American comedians came into prominence in the early 1960s. Dick Gregory used black folk humor to make political commentary. Bill Cosby specialized in amusing chronicles about boyhood in America. Godfrey Cambridge, although successful, did not rely on black folk humor. During the late 1960s and the early 1970s, Flip Wilson, who parodied historical and social experience by creating black characters who lived in a black world, became extremely popular on television. His cast of characters, which included “Freddy the Playboy,” “Sammy the White House Janitor,” and “Geraldine,” used black folk humor as commentary on an array of issues.

Another pivotal African American comedian who began his career in the 1960s was Richard Pryor. His well-timed, risqué, sharp folk humor quickly won him a large group of faithful fans. Pryor, who has recorded extensively, also starred successfully in several films including Lady Sings the Blues, Car Wash, and Stir Crazy.

During the 1980s, numerous African American comedians became successful in the various entertainment media. Eddie Murphy made his first appearance on the television show Saturday Night Live in 1980. From television, Murphy went on to Hollywood, making his movie debut in the film 48 Hours in 1982. Starring roles in such films as Beverly Hills Cop, Trading Places, Coming To America, Boomerang, The Nutty Professor, Dr. Dolittle and their sequels, have made Murphy the top-grossing African American actor of all time.

Murphy established his own company, Eddie Murphy Productions, to create and produce television and films such as his stand-up concerts, Delirious (1983) and Raw (1987). More recent projects include The P.J.’s (1999), Life (1999) The Nutty Professor II: The Klumps (2000) and Norbit (2007). Murphy’s vocal talents animated characters such as Mushu in Disney’s Mulan and Donkey in the Dreamworks’ Shrek franchise. In 2007, Murphy was nominated for an Oscar and won the Golden Globe and Screen Actor’s Guild (SAG) Awards for his portrayal of James “Thunder” Early in the film remake of Dreamgirls.

After achieving success on the stand-up circuit, several African Americans earned opportunities on television and in films in the 1990s. Keenan Ivory Wayans and his brother Damon created and starred in the Emmy Award-winning show, In Living Color. The sketch-comedy show provided a vehicle for social commentary and launched the careers of Jamie Foxx, Jim Carrey and Jennifer Lopez. With his brothers Damon and Marlon, he went on to write and produce the popular slapstick comedies, Scary Movie, White Chicks and Little Man.

Martin Lawrence appealed to audiences in a self-titled sitcom which featured him portraying himself, his mother and his female neighbor, Sheneneh. He teamed up with Will Smith and their comic antics made block-buster hits of Bad Boys and Bad Boys II. Lawrence produced his two successful stand-up films, You So Crazy and Runteldat; as well as the immensely popular film, Big Momma’s House and its sequel.

Chris Rock gained popularity on Saturday Night Live with brash, politically-informed characters that helped him earn roles in such movies as Lethal Weapon 4, Dogma and Nurse Betty. A true stand up comedian, Rock won two Emmys in 1996 for his HBO special, Bring the Pain and a 2000 Grammy Award for the CD recording of another HBO special, Bigger & Blacker. His self-titled variety show on HBO garnered a third Emmy for Best Writing and Everybody Hates Chris, a sitcom inspired by Rock’s childhood, became one of the most popular shows on the CW Network in 2005.

Steve Harvey, Bernie Mac, D.L. Hughley, and Cedric the Entertainer reign as “The Original Kings of Comedy.” Their two-year comedy tour was the most successful in history. It grossed $37 million for the comedians and their promoter, Walter Latham, and brought them to the attention of Spike Lee. In 2000, he produced a documentary of the tour that propelled the “Kings” into the forefront of mainstream media. They all joined the ranks of comedians with self-titled sitcoms.

After a five-year run, Harvey went on to host the Steve Harvey Morning Show, a popular a radio drive show, syndicated in 25 markets. In 2006, he returned to his stand up roots with a 15 city tour and a film he produced, Don’t Trip . . . He Ain’t Through With Me Yet. Mac focused on his film career starring in the remake of Ocean’s Eleven and its sequels, Mr. 3000, Charlie’s Angels: Full Throttle, Guess Who?, Pride and the Transformers. Cedric the Entertainer’s vocal talents were featured in Dr. Doolittle 2, The Proud Family, Ice Age, Madagascar and Charlotte’s Web. Some of his other popular movies include Barbershop, Be Cool and The Honeymooners. In the 2006-2007 season, Hughley returned to television starring in the critically acclaimed series, Studio 60.

Dave Chappelle developed his satirically aggressive style doing street comedy in New York City, a skill he honed as a regular on Russell Simmons’Def Comedy Jam. In 1998, he co-wrote his first film, Half-Baked, a cult classic that gave him a loyal fan base. He also appeared in such films as the Nutty Professor, You’ve Got Mail and Undercover Brother. A successful HBO special, Dave Chappelle: Killin’ Them Softly increased his popularity and in 2003, Comedy Central offered Chappelle his own sketch comedy show.

Chappelle’s Show was an instant critical and commercial success, featuring a talented ensemble cast, progressive hip hop artists and Chappelle’s biting social commentary on matters of race and American culture. The DVD sales of the show’s first season were over 3 million copies. At the end of the second season, it was one of the highest rated shows on basic cable, prompting Comedy Central to offer Chappelle 50 million dollars to continue the show for two more seasons. At the height of his popularity and the middle of taping the third season, Chappelle abruptly left the show. He cited stress and creative differences with the show’s executives as the reason. In 2005, a documentary titled Dave Chappelle’s Block Party, captured Chappelle, in rare form, hosting a star-studded free concert in Brooklyn.

AFRICAN AMERICAN DANCE INTO THE TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY

Black dance, like other forms of black entertainment, had its beginnings in Africa and on the plantations of early America, where slaves performed to entertain themselves and their masters. White minstrels in blackface incorporated many of these black dance inventions into their shows, while dancers in black minstrelsy like “Master Juba” (William Henry Lane) thrilled audiences with their artistry.

Many performers in the early black musicals that appeared on Broadway from 1898 through 1910 were expert show dancers, such as George Walker and Bert Williams. Similarly, in the all-black musicals of the 1920s, performers such as Florence Mills and Bill “Bojangles” Robinson captivated audiences with their show dancing. The musical Runnin’ Wild (1926) was responsible for creating the Charleston dance craze of the “Roaring Twenties.”

By the early 1930s, African American pioneers of modern dance were appearing on the dance stage. Four of these African American innovators were Hemsley Winfield, Asadata Dafore, Katherine Dunham, and Pearl Primus.

Hemsley Winfield presented what was billed as “The First Negro Concert in America” in Manhattan’s Chanin Building on April 31, 1931. Two suites on African themes were performed, along with solos by Edna Guy and Winfield himself. In 1933, Winfield became the first African American to dance for the Metropolitan Opera, performing the role of the Witch Doctor in The Emperor Jones.

Austin Asadata Dafore Horton, a native of Sierra Leone, electrified audiences in New York with his 1934 production of Kykunkor. Dance historian Lynne Fauley Emery concluded that Kykunkor “was the first performance by black dancers on the concert stage which was entirely successful. It revealed the potential of ethnic material to black dancers, and herein lay Dafore’s value as a great influence on black concert dance” (1988, Black Dance from 1619 to Today).

Katherine Dunham had her first lead dance role in Ruth Page’s West Indian ballet La Guiablesse in 1933. In 1936, Dunham received a master’s degree in anthropology from the University of Chicago. Her thesis, “The Dances of Haiti,” was the result of her onsite study of native dances in the West Indies. For the next 30 years, Dunham and her dance company toured the United States and Europe, dazzling audiences with her choreography. During the 1963-1964 season, Dunham choreographed the Metropolitan Opera’s production of Aida, becoming the first African American to do so.

Pearl Primus, like Katherine Dunham, was trained in anthropology. Her research in primitive African dance inspired her first professional composition, African Ceremonial, was presented on February 14, 1943. Primus made her Broadway debut, on October 4, 1944, at the Belasco Theater in New York. Her performance included dances of West Indian, African, and African American origin. The concert was widely acclaimed and launched her career as a dancer. Primus has traveled to Africa many times to research African dances. In 1959, she was named director of Liberia’s Performing Arts Center. She later opened the Primus-Borde School of Primal Dance with her husband, dancer Percival Borde and the Pearl Primus Dance Language Institute in New Rochelle, New York. In 1991, President George W. Bush, Sr. honored Primus with the National Medal of Arts. She died October 29, 1994 at the age of 73.

By the late 1950s, several African American dancers and dance companies were distinguishing themselves on the concert stage. Janet Collins was the “premiere danseuse” of the Metropolitan Opera Ballet from 1951 until 1954. Arthur Mitchell made his debut as a principal dancer with the New York City Ballet in 1955. Alvin Ailey established his company in 1958. In addition, Geoffrey Holder, who made his Broadway debut in 1954 in House of Flowers, became a leading choreographer.

Since the early 1960s, two of the leading dance companies in the United States have been headed by African American males and composed largely of African American dancers. They are the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater and the Dance Theatre of Harlem. In the 1970s, several prominent African American women dancers established schools and trained young dancers in regional companies throughout the United States.

THE ALVIN AILEY AMERICAN DANCE THEATER

The Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater (AAADT), since its founding in 1958, has performed before more people throughout the world than any other American dance company. With a touring circuit that has included 48 states, 68 countries on six continents, the AAADT has been seen by more than 21 million people. Today, the Alvin Ailey Dance Foundation (AADF) is the umbrella organization for the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, Ailey II, the Ailey School, Ailey Arts in Education & Communication Programs and the Ailey Extension.

Between 1958 and 1988, AAADT performed 150 works by 45 choreographers, most of whom were African American. Notable among these African American choreographers have been Tally Beatty, Donald McKayle, Louis Johnson, Eleo Romare, Billy Wilson, George Faison, Pearl Primus, Judith Jamison, Katherine Dunham, Ulysses Dove, Milton Myers, Kelvin Rotardier, Geoffrey Holder, and Gary DeLoatch. More than 250 dancers, again mostly African American, have performed with the dance theater. Among its star performers have been Judith Jamison, Clive Thompson, Dudley Williams, Donna Wood, Gary DeLoatch, George Faison and Sara Yaraborough. A prolific choreographer, Alvin Ailey created numerous works for his dance theater and other dance companies including: Revelations (1958), Reflections in D (1962), Quintet (1968), Cry (1971), Memoria (1974) and Three Black Kings (1976). Alvin Ailey choreographed Carmen for the Metropolitan Opera in 1973 and Precipice for the Paris Opera in 1983.

Alvin Ailey died in December of 1989. Since his death, Judith Jamison has taken over as Artistic Director and has expanded Ailey’s concept of cultural community exponentially. The Ailey Arts in Education & Community Programs and the Ailey Extension provide opportunities for dance performances, training and community programs for all people.

The Ailey School is the official school of the Ailey organization. It attracts students from across the United States and abroad and offers a certificate in dance. The center’s curriculum includes training in ballet, the Dunham Technique, jazz, and modern dance. It has an affiliation with Fordham University and offers a Bachelor in Fine Arts to eligible dance students. They graduated their first class in 2002.

Ailey II was established in 1974 as a training and performing company. Many of its graduates advance to AAADT or perform with other dance companies.

AAADT celebrated its 40th year in December of 1998 by presenting the works of many choreographers including Artistic Director Judith Jamison. Long-time Ailey choreographer, Geoffrey Holder, redesigned and restaged his lavish 1967 production of The Prodigal Prince, the story of a Haitian folk artist and voodoo priest who painted with a feather, for the anniversary celebration.

Judith Jamison carried the Olympic Torch prior to the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City and AAADT performed at the Olympic Arts Festival. In that same year, President George W. Bush, Jr. awarded the National Medal of the Arts to both Jamison and the Alvin Ailey Dance Foundation. It is the first time in history that a dance organization has received such an honor.

As the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theatre approaches its 50th anniversary, it continues to be a trailblazing leader among dance companies worldwide.

THE DANCE THEATRE OF HARLEM

In 1969, Arthur Mitchell, who had established himself as one of the leading ballet dancers in the United States, and Karel Shook, a white ballet teacher, founded the Dance Theatre of Harlem (DTH). It was established after Martin Luther King Jr.’s death to provide the arts of dance and theater to young people in Harlem. DTH made its formal debut in 1971 at the Guggenheim Museum in New York City. Three of Mitchell’s works were premiered at this concert: Rhythmetron, Tones, and Fete Noire.

Their repertory was wide-ranging. It included works in the Balanchine tradition such as Serenade, as well as culturally inspired works such as Geoffrey Holder’s Dougla. Among the most spectacular works performed by the theater are Firebird, Giselle, Scheherazade, and Swan Lake. Some of the dancers who have had long associations with the theatre are Lowell Smith, Virginia Johnson, Shelia Rohan, and Troy Game. Many of the theatre’s graduates have gone on to perform with other dance companies in the United States and Europe.

In 2004, DTH celebrated its 35th anniversary with an extensive tour of the U.S. and the U.K. Ironically, that same year, the theatre ran into severe financial straits and the Repertory Company has been forced into hiatus. The Dance Theatre of Harlem School (DTHS), however, remains open for training and community outreach. Their “Dancing Through Barriers” Ensemble, comprised of students, renowned and emerging guest artists, performs for the public every second Sunday of the month.

BLACK REGIONAL DANCE SCHOOLS

While Ailey and Mitchell built their companies in New York, African American women such as Joan Myers Brown, Ann Williams, Cleo Parker Robinson, Lula Washington, and Jeraldyne Blunden established young, mostly African American dance companies in major American cities. Robinson founded her Cleo Parker Robinson Dance Ensemble in 1970 in her native city, Denver. That same year, Blunden created her company in Dayton, Ohio and Brown opened her school in Philadelphia. In 1976, Williams founded the Dallas Black Dance Theater and in 1980 Washington created a troupe in Los Angeles that is now known as the Lula Washington Dance Theater.

Each institution began as a school with deep roots in African American urban communities. They all started on a shoestring with a few eager young dancers. Their focus was on the discipline of dance and the values of integrity and intelligence. Today these troupes are nationally known for the high quality of their dancing and for repertories that include modern dance classics, some by African American choreographers. These five women have developed a cooperative network through which they exchange ideas and dancers. Collectively, they have trained thousands of dancers, some of whom have gone on to major companies.

In 1997, they were honored with a daylong tribute entitled “Dance Women: Living Legends,” in which all five companies performed and celebrated the efforts of these five tenacious women in the pursuit of dance.

Debbie Allen founded the Debbie Allen Dance Academy (DADA) as a training institution because she saw a lack of quality in the arts education programs available to children. DADA enrolls close 400 children annually, ages 5-18, in three programs based on age and ability—Early Bird Academy, Pre-Academy and Academy. The school focuses on artistic and academic achievement. DADA students must maintain a 3.0 average while undergoing a rigorous dance curriculum. Students in the Academy are required to take a minimum of 12 classes a week in ballet, African, modern, flamenco, character, tap, jazz, hip hop, salsa and Dunham Technique, with optional classes in aerial training, voice and acting. DADA’s mission is to train young people how to sustain professional careers in dance, musical theatre, film and television.

Between 1960 and 2007, many African American dancers have led distinguished careers in concert dance and show dancing. Among them have been Eleo Pomare, Debbie Allen, Rod Rogers, Fred Benjamin, Pepsi Bethel, Eleanor Hampton, Charles Moore, Garth Fagan, Carmen de Lavallade, and Mary Hinkson. Fagan earned a Tony Award in 1998 for choreographic work on the Disney-produced spectacle, The Lion King. Foremost among African American choreographers have been Geoffrey Holder, Louis Johnson, Donald McKayle, Bebe Miller, George Faison, Bill T. Jones, and Donald Byrd who garnered a Tony nomination in 2006 for his choreography on The Color Purple.

Prominent among the African American dancers who revived the tap dance tradition are Buster Brown, Honi Coles, Hinton Battle, Gregory Hines, Lavaughn Robinson, Nita Feldman, Ted Levy and Savion Glover. Glover came to prominence in the 1995 Broadway production of Bring in ’Da Noise, Bring in ’Da Funk.

Two notable small companies that have twenty-five years or more of innovative dance history are Bill T. Jones/Arne Zane Dance Company and Forces Of Nature Dance Theater.

Bill T. Jones founded his multiracial, multicultural company in 1982 with his partner Arne Zane. The ten member company has a distinctive repertoire that incorporates musically and text driven work. Collaborations with artists such as Max Roach, Keith Haring, The Orion String Quartet, Cassandra Wilson and Fado allow the Bill T. Jones/Arne Zane Dance Company to push dance vernacular to the edge. Last Supper at Uncle Tom’s Cabin/The Promised Land, Still/Here and We Set Out Early, Visibility Was Poor are some of the award-winning, evening-length works Jones in known for.

Choreographer Abdel Salaam and Executive Director Dele Husbands founded Forces of Nature Dance Theatre in 1981 to synthesize the traditions of the African diaspora and American culture into dance. With the use of live and recorded music, Forces’ repertoire blends mythology and ritual with Modern, West African, Ballet and Contemporary House dance forms, forging a new vocabulary of movement. The Legend of Marie Laveau, Ancestral Earths, Passionfruit and From the Mud Below are some of Salaam’s most celebrated creations.

STAGE ACTORS, DIRECTORS, COMEDIANS, CHOREOGRAPHERS, AND DANCERS

(Playwrights appear in the Literature chapter. To locate biographical profiles more readily, please consult the index at the back of the book.)

ALVIN AILEY (1931–1989) Dancer, Choreographer

Alvin Ailey was born in Rogers, Texas, on January 5, 1931. He was the founder of the Alvin Ailey Dance Theater and won international fame as both dancer and choreographer. Ailey studied dancing after graduating from high school, where he was a star athlete. After briefly attending college, Ailey joined the stage crew of the Lester Horton Theater in Los Angeles, for which Ailey eventually performed as a dancer. In 1953, after Horton’s death, Ailey became the company choreographer. In 1954, Ailey performed on Broadway as the lead dancer in House of Flowers.

Ailey formed his own dance group in 1958 and began giving four performances annually. In 1962, the Ailey troupe made an official State Department tour of Australia, receiving accolades throughout the country. One critic called Ailey’s work “the most stark and devastating theater ever presented in Australia.”

After numerous appearances as a featured dancer with Harry Belafonte and others, Ailey performed in a straight dramatic role with Claudia McNeil in Broadway’s Tiger, Tiger Burning Bright. Other Broadway appearances included roles in Ding Dong Bell, Dark of the Moon, and African Holiday. Ailey also choreographed or staged several operas including Samuel Barber’s Anthony and Cleopatra, Leonard Bernstein’s Mass, and Georges Bizet’s Carmen. In addition, Ailey created works for various international ballet stars and companies.

In 1965, Ailey took his group on one of the most successful European tours ever made by an American dance company. In London, it was held over six weeks to accommodate the demand for tickets, and in Hamburg it received an unprecedented 61 curtain calls. A German critic called this performance “a triumph of sweeping, violent beauty, a furious spectacle. The stage vibrates. One has never seen anything like it.” In 1970, Ailey’s company became the first American modern dance group to tour the Soviet Union.

During the mid-1970s Ailey, among his other professional commitments, devoted much time to creating special jazz dance sequences for America’s Bicentennial celebration. Among numerous honors including several honorary degrees, Ailey was awarded the NAACP’s Spin-garn Medal in 1976. Ailey died on December 1, 1989.

IRA ALDRIDGE (1807–1867) Actor

Born on July 24, 1807 in New York City, Ira Aldridge was one of the leading Shakespearean actors of the nineteenth century. Although he was denied the opportunity to perform before the American public in his prime, the fame that he won abroad established him as one of the prominent figures of international theater.

Aldridge’s early dramatic training centered around the African Grove Theatre in New York in 1821. His first role was in Pizarro and he subsequently played a variety of small roles in classical productions before accepting employment as a steward on a ship bound for England.

After studying briefly at the University of Glasgow in Scotland, Aldridge went to London in 1825 and appeared in the melodrama Surinam, or a Slave’s Revenge. In 1833, he appeared in London’s Theatre Royal in the title role of Othello, earning wide acclaim. For the next three decades, he toured the continent with great success, often appearing before European royalty.

Aldridge died in Lodz, Poland, on August 7, 1867. He is honored by a commemorative tablet in the New Memorial Theatre in Stratford-upon-Avon, England and Howard University’s main stage theater is named after him.

DEBBIE ALLEN (1950– ) Actress, Singer, Dancer, Director

Debbie Allen was born on January 16, 1950, in Houston, Texas. From the age of three, she trained as a dancer with the Ballet Nacional de Mexico, the Houston Ballet and the National Ballet School. A cum laude graduate of Howard University, she became head of the Dance Department at the Duke Ellington School of Performing Arts.

Allen began her career on the Broadway stage in the chorus line of the hit musical Purlie (1972). She then portrayed Beneatha in the Tony and Grammy award-winning musical Raisin (1973). Other early stage roles were in the national touring company of Guys and Dolls and in Anna Lucasta performed for the New Federal Theatre at the Henry Street Settlement in New York.

Allen was selected to star in an NBC pilot 3 Girls 3 and then appeared on other television hits including Good Times and The Love Boat. Other roles included the television special Ben Vereen: His Roots (1978) and the miniseries Roots: The Next Generation (1979).

Allen returned to the stage in Ain’t Misbehavin’ (1979) and a revival of West Side Story (1980), which earned her a Tony Award nomination and a Drama Desk Award. Her talent as a choreographer garnered work on such television projects as Midnight Special as well as two films The Fish that Saved Pittsburgh (1979) and Under Fire (1981).

The year 1982 was pivotal for Allen. She appeared in the film Ragtime, as well as the Joseph Papp television special, Alice at the Palace. She also starred in a dance performance for the Academy Awards ceremonies and her work on the television series Fame won her an Emmy for Best Choreography.

As each season passed on Fame, Allen became more involved as choreographer and was soon regularly directing episodes of the series. In 1988, she was selected by the producers to become director of the television sitcom, A Different World.

Because of her versatility as a performer and creative talent, Allen has been afforded many opportunities to act, dance, choreograph, direct and produce. She starred in her own television special in 1989 and choreographed the Academy Awards five times. She appeared with LL Cool J in the television show In the House (1995) and starred in Michael Jordan: An American Hero (1999). She also appeared in The Old Settler (2001) and The Painting (2002), both “PBS Hollywood Presents” productions which she executive produced.

In 1998, Allen co-produced the historic film Amistad with Steven Spielberg directing and also produced the musical Brothers of the Knight for the Kennedy Center. She published a book version of the play in 2000.

Allen has been a recurring director on popular sitcoms such as All of Us, That’s So Raven, Girlfriends and Everybody Hates Chris. She also directed the inspirational story, Life Is Not a Fairytale: The Fantasia Barrino Story. The biographical drama, about the 2004 American Idol winner who triumphed over an abusive childhood, aired on Lifetime in 2007.

Allen made a move to engage community youth in 2001 when she opened the Debbie Allen Dance Academy. The Academy offers students lessons in ballet, modern, jazz, salsa, hip hop, flamenco, tap, Dunham and African dance. The school also offers “pre-academy”

and “early bird” preparatory programs. In 2006, the Academy premiered Bayou Legend, a musical adaptation of Ibsen’s Peer Gynt, conceived by Owen Dodson and realized by Debbie Allen, James Ingram and Jeff Stetson.

EDDIE “ROCHESTER” ANDERSON (1905–1977) Comedian

For many years, Eddie Anderson was the only African American performing regularly on a network radio show. As the character Rochester on the Jack Benny program, he became one of the best-known African American entertainers.

Anderson was born in Oakland, California on September 18, 1905. He was the son of “Big Ed” Anderson, a minstrel performer and Ella Mae, a tight-wire walker. During the 1920s and early 1930s, Anderson traveled throughout the country singing, dancing, and performing as a clown in small clubs. On Easter Sunday, 1937, he was featured on Jack Benny’s radio show, in what was supposed to be a single appearance; Anderson was such a hit that he quickly became a regular on the program.

Anderson is best known for his work with Benny, in television as well as on radio, but he also appeared in a number of movies including What Price Hollywood? (1932), Cabin in the Sky (1943), and It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World (1963).

Anderson died on February 28, 1977, at the age of 71.

PEARL BAILEY (1918–1990) Singer, Actress

Born on March 29, 1918, in Newport News, Virginia, Pearl Bailey moved to Philadelphia with her family in 1933. She sang at small clubs in Scranton, Pennsylvania and in Washington, DC before becoming the vocalist for the band of Cootie Williams and later for Count Basie. In the early 1940s, Bailey had her first successful New York engagements at the Village Vanguard and the Blue Angel. During World War II, she toured with the USO. Bailey made her New York stage debut in 1946 in St. Louis Woman, for which she won a Donaldson Award as the year’s most promising new performer. She also appeared in the films Variety Girl (1947) and Isn’t It Romantic? (1948).

In the 1950s, Bailey appeared in the movies Carmen Jones, That Certain Feeling, and Porgy and Bess. On Broadway, she was in House of Flowers. A versatile performer, Bailey worked as a recording artist, nightclub headliner and an actress. In 1967, she received a special Tony Award for her starring role on Broadway in Hello, Dolly! In 1969, she published an autobiography “The Raw Pearl.” Her other books include: “Talking to Myself” (1971), “Pearl’s Kitchen” (1973), “Duey Tale” (1975) and “Hurry Up, America, and Spit” (1976).

In 1975, Bailey was named a special adviser to the United States Mission to the United Nations. In 1976, she appeared in the film Norman, Is That You? with Redd Foxx and on stage in Washington, DC, in Something To Do, a musical saluting the American worker. She also received an award in 1976 from the Screen Actors Guild for outstanding achievement in fostering the finest ideals of the acting profession. Georgetown University made her an honorary Doctor of Humane Letters in 1977.

In January of 1980, Bailey gave a one-night concert at Radio City Music Hall in New York. In 1981, she performed as the voice of the cartoon character “Owl” in the Disney movie The Fox and the Hound.

Bailey married the jazz drummer Louis Bellson in 1952. She died on August 17, 1990, in Philadelphia.

JOSEPHINE BAKER (1906–1975) Dancer, Singer

Born in St. Louis on June 3, 1906, Josephine Baker received little formal education; she left school at the age of eight to supplement the family income by working as a kitchen helper and baby-sitter. While still in elementary school, she took a part-time job as a chorus girl. At 17, she performed as a chorus girl in Noble Sissle’s musical comedy Shuffle Along, which played in Radio City Music Hall in 1923. Her next show was Chocolate Dandies, followed by a major dancing part in La Revue Negre, an American production that introduced le jazz hot to Paris in 1925.

In Paris, Baker left the show to create her most sensational role, that of the “Dark Star” of the Folies Bergère. In her act, she appeared topless on a mirror, clad only in a protective waist shield of rubber bananas. The spectacular dance made her an overnight star and a public figure with a loyal following. In true “star” tradition, she catered to her fans by adopting such flamboyant eccentricities as walking pet leopards down Les Champs Elysées.

In 1930, after completing a world tour, Baker made her debut as a singing and dancing comedienne at the Casino de Paris. Critics called her a “complete artist, the perfect master of her tools.” In time, she ventured into films starring alongside French idol Jean Gabin in Zouzou (1934), and into light opera, performing in La Creole (1934), an operetta about a Jamaican girl.

During World War II, Baker served first as a Red Cross volunteer, and later did underground intelligence work through an Italian Embassy attaché. After the war, the French government decorated her with the Legion of Honor. She returned to the entertainment world, regularly starring at the Folies Bergère, appearing on French television, and going on another extended international tour. In 1951, in during a successful American tour, Baker made headlines by speaking out against discrimination and refusing to perform in segregated venues.

Beginning in 1954, Baker earned another reputation—not as a lavish and provocative entertainer, but as a progressive humanitarian. She used her fortune to begin adopting and tutoring a group of orphaned babies of all races and retired from the stage in 1956 to devote all her time to her “rainbow family.” Within three years, however, her “experiment in brotherhood” had taken such a toll on her finances that she was forced to return to the stage, starring in Paris, Mes Amours, a musical based in part on her own fabled career.

Baker privately survived numerous financial crises. Illness hardly managed to dampen her indomitable spirit. Through her long life, she retained her most noteworthy stage attributes—an intimate, subdued voice, coupled with an infectiously energetic and vivacious manner.

Baker died in Paris on April 12, 1975, after opening a gala to celebrate her 50th year in show business.

JAMES HUBERT “EUBIE” BLAKE (1883–1983) Musician, Composer

Eubie Blake was born in Baltimore on February 7, 1883. The son of former slaves, Blake was the last of ten children and the only one to survive beyond two months. His mother worked as a laundress, his father as a stevedore.

At the age of six, Blake started taking piano lessons. He studied under the renowned teacher Margaret Marshall and subsequently learned musical composition from Llewelyn Wilson, who at one time conducted an all-black symphony orchestra sponsored by the city of Baltimore. At the age of 17, Blake was playing for a Baltimore night club.

In 1915, Blake collaborated with Noble Sissle. That year, Blake and Sissle sold their first song “It’s All Your Fault” to Sophie Tucker and her introduction of the

song started them on their way. Blake and Sissle moved to New York. In 1921, they teamed, with Flournoy Miller and Aubrey Lyles and created one of the pioneering black musicals, Shuffle Along. The show was produced again on Broadway in 1952. Chocolate Dandies and Elsie followed in 1924.

During the early 1930s, Blake collaborated with Andy Razaf and wrote the musical score for Lew Leslie’s Blackbirds. Out of this association came the hit “Memories of You.” During World War II, Blake was appointed musical conductor for the United Services Organization’s (USO) Hospital Unit. In 1946, he announced his retirement and enrolled in New York University.

For many years, Blake’s most requested song was “Charleston Rag,” which he composed in 1899 and which was written down by someone else because Blake could not then read music. Among his most famous songs were “How Ya’ Gonna Keep ’Em Down on the Farm,” “Love Will Find a Way,” and “You’re Lucky to Me.” Some of his other works include “I’m Just Wild About Harry,” “Serenade Blues,” “It’s All Your Fault,” and “Floradora Girls,” with lyrics by Sissle.

Though known as a master of ragtime, Blake always most loved the music of the classical masters. In the intimacy of his Brooklyn studio, Blake rarely played the music for which the world reveres him. In 1978, Blake’s life and career were celebrated in the Broadway musical Eubie! Several thousand people attended concerts at the Shubert Theatre and St. Peters Lutheran Church celebrating Blake’s 100th birthday on February 8, 1983. Blake also received honorary doctorates from numerous colleges and universities. He died on February 12, 1983.

JOHN BUBBLES (1902–1986) Dancer, Singer

John Bubbles was born John William Sublett on February 19, 1902, in Louisville, Kentucky. At the age of seven, he teamed with a fellow bowling alley pinboy, Ford “Buck” Washington, to form what became one of the top vaudeville acts in show business. Masters of rhythm tap dancing, Buck and Bubbles played the top theaters in the country at fees of up to $1,750 a week throughout the 1920s and 1930s. The two appeared in several films including Cabin in the Sky (1943). Bubbles captured additional fame as Sportin’ Life in the 1935 version of Porgy and Bess. After Buck’s death in 1955, Bubbles virtually disappeared from show business until 1964, when he teamed up with Anna Maria Alberghetti in a successful nightclub act.

In 1979, at the age of 77 and partially crippled from an earlier stroke, Bubbles recreated his characterization of Sportin’ Life for a one-night show entitled Black Broadway at New York’s Lincoln Center. The show was repeated in 1980 for a limited engagement at the Town Hall in New York. In the fall of 1980, Bubbles received a Lifetime Achievement Award from the American Guild of Variety Artists and a Certificate of Appreciation from the City of New York.

Bubbles died on May 18, 1986, at the age of 84.

ED BULLINS. SEELITERATURE CHAPTER.

ANITA BUSH (1883–1974) Actress, Singer

Born in 1883, Anita Bush was involved with the theater from early childhood. Her father was the tailor for the Bijou, a large neighborhood theater in Brooklyn. Anita would carry the costumes to the theater for him, giving her a backstage view of performers and productions. Her singing/acting career took off in her early 1920s, when she was in the chorus of the Williams and Walker Company. With Williams and Walker, she performed in such Broadway hits as Abyssinia and In Dahomey, which also had a successful European tour. When the group split up in 1909, she went on to form the Anita Bush Stock Company, which included her own show of chorus girls and such greats as Charles Gilpin and Dooley Wilson, with whom she also founded the Lafayette Players.

Bush died on February 16, 1974.

DONALD BYRD (1949– ) Choreographer

Donald Byrd, one of the most important choreographers in modern dance, has created his own unique style of dance based on the influences of some great predecessors. From the styles and movements of Alvin Ailey, the classic ballet of George Balanchine and the innovative creations of Twyla Tharp, Byrd has established his own distinct contributions to dance.

Byrd was born on July 21, 1949, in New London, North Carolina and raised in Clearwater, Florida. He was trained in classical flute, active in school theatrics and the debate team. When he was 16, two dancers from Balanchine’s New York City Ballet, Edward Villella and Patricia McBride, conducted a lecture-demonstration in Clearwater, which left a lasting impression on him. An excellent student, Byrd received a scholarship for minority students to Yale University. He majored in philosophy but his exposure to the Yale Theater groups led him to consider being an actor. The racist attitudes of his classmates at Yale discouraged him; so, he transferred to Tufts University in Boston.

Through his friend at Tufts, William Hurt, Byrd learned about the Alvin Ailey Dance Theater. At a performance of Alvin Ailey’s signature work Revelations, Byrd felt the theatrical power of dance. Inspired, he began taking dance classes at Tufts and eventually went to New York in the early 1970s to study with a variety of dance teachers, among them, the Ailey School, Twyla Tharp, and the Gus Solomons Jr. company in 1976. When Solomons was named dean of the dance program at the California Institute of the Arts, he took Byrd along to teach.

While in California, Byrd began receiving acclaim for his choreography. By 1977, he was producing shows of his own work on the West Coast as well as at the Dance Theater Workshop back in New York. Byrd founded his own company, Donald Byrd/The Group in 1978. His style was now a unique blend of classical ballet, modern dance, and urban street dancing. Despite his company’s success, Byrd struggled for several years with alcohol and drug dependency. After a scathing review by a supporter of his work in 1985, Byrd entered treatment and soon returned to his career.

In 1987, Byrd choreographed a new piece for the Ailey Repertory Company. The work, Crumble, was well received and from then on, he continued to contribute works to the Ailey companies. Byrd staged his next piece Shards in 1988 with strong influences of Balanchine. In 1991, the Ailey Dance Theater debuted Dance at the Gym, a work about teen culture. Byrd’s own troupe, Donald Byrd/The Group, presented Prodigal in 1990, a dance inspired by Balanchine’s Prodigal Son. The next year they produced a controversial piece about racial stereotypes called The Minstrel Show. This show won a Bessie Award for Donald Byrd/The Group in 1992.

The 1990s were creative years for Donald Byrd. He and his company toured the United States and Europe in 1993 presenting a repertoire of works choreographed by Byrd, among them Bristle, a long work exploring tensions between the genders. For Christmas of 1994, Byrd developed The Harlem Nutcracker, an African American version of the classic Nutcracker Suite, using Duke Ellington-style big band arrangements of Peter Tchaikovsky’s original music. Byrd’s The Beast premiered in 1996 at the Brooklyn Academy of Music; the piece examines various types of domestic violence. By 1998, Byrd and his work were honored in a program of dances created by African American male choreographers called Young Choreographers Defining Dance.

In 2000, Byrd adapted another fairy-tale spun to jazz music entitled Sleeping Beauty, where he played with the notions of what was beautiful and how people viewed beauty in dance.

In June of 2002, due to financial reasons, Byrd was forced to disband his company after twenty-four years; but by December of that same year, he became the Artistic Director of the Spectrum Dance Theater in Seattle where he has mounted new cutting-edge work such as Bhangra Fever, A Cruel New World, and Fado.

Byrd continues to choreograph numerous stage productions including The Color Purple, for which he received a 2006 Tony nomination. And in 2007, the Seattle Opera featured Byrd’s choreography in their staging of Handel baroque opera, Julius Caesar.

GODFREY CAMBRIDGE (1933–1976) Actor, Comedian

Godfrey Cambridge was born in New York on February 26, 1933, to parents who had emigrated from British Guiana. He attended grammar school in Nova Scotia, while living with his grandparents. After finishing his schooling in New York at Flushing High School and Hofstra College, he went on to study acting.

Cambridge made his Broadway debut in Nature’s Way (1956), and was featured in Purlie Victorious, both on stage in 1961 and later on screen. He also appeared off-Broadway in Lost in the Stars (1958), Take a Giant Step, and The Detective Story (1960). Cambridge won the Obie Award for the 1960-961 season’s most distinguished Off-Broadway performance for his role in The Blacks. In 1965, he starred in a stock version of A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum.

As a comedian, Cambridge appeared on the Tonight Show and many other variety hours. His material, drawn from the contemporary racial situation, was often presented in the style associated with the contemporary wave of African American comedians. One of Cambridge’s most memorable roles was as the star of a seriocomic Hollywood film The Watermelon Man (1970) in which the comedian played a white man who changes color overnight. Cambridge has also performed dramatic roles on many television series.

During the mid-1970s, Cambridge remained in semi-retirement, making few public appearances. Cambridge died at the age of 43 in California on November 29, 1976. His death occurred on a Warner Brothers set, where he was playing the role of Ugandan dictator Idi Amin for the television film Victory at Entebbe.

DAVE CHAPPELLE (1973– ) Actor, Writer, Comedian

Dave Chappelle is one of the most controversial comedians of the twenty-first century; partially because of his

aggressively satiric style of comedy but mostly because of his decision to leave the immensely popular Chappelle’s Show after signing a 50 million dollar contract with Comedy Central.

Chappelle was born on August 24, 1973, in Washington, D.C. His experiences growing up black in the capital city and the nearby suburb of Silver Springs, Maryland, became fodder for his stand up comedy act. Chapelle’s mother, a Unitarian minister, was supportive of her son’s talent and accompanied him as a chaperone when he began performing stand up comedy at the age of fourteen. His nerve and resilience were tested at the famous Apollo Theater in Harlem when Chappelle was booed off the stage during his standup comedy debut, an experience chronicled in the Apollo Theatre Hall of Fame.

By the time he was a senior in high school at the Duke Ellington School of the Arts, Chappelle was periodically excused from school by the principal so that he could pursue his career “on the road.” After graduation, Chappelle felt confident he could make a name for himself in the New York comedy scene; so he made a deal with his parents. Instead of college, he would go to New York and if he did not successfully launch a career in one year, he would enroll in school.

Chappelle began building his reputation at the Boston Club in Greenwich Village. His irreverent diatribes on racism and racial division shocked the audience into laughter. Word quickly spread and within weeks he was working in clubs all around the New York City circuit. To bolster his courage and infuse his comedy with a “street-wise” edge, Chappelle also performed in the parks and sidewalks of the city.

In 1992, Chappelle won critical and popular acclaim for his television appearances on Russell Simmons’ Def Comedy Jam on HBO. He became a regular guest on late-night television shows such as Politically Incorrect, The Late Show With David Letterman, The Howard Stern Show, and Late Night With Conan O’Brien.

Chappelle landed his first film role, Robin Hood: Men in Tights (1992), a comedy by Mel Brooks. He had several small character roles in other films, but it was his featured role as the nasty comic who picked on Eddie Murphy in The Nutty Professor (1996) that captured Hollywood’s attention.

In 1998, Chappelle co-wrote his first film, Half Baked, as a tribute to the drug-related slapstick comedies of Cheech Marin and Tommy Chong. Though Half Baked was a cult classic, Chappelle felt that the studio had weakened the film by trying to make it “more acceptable” to conservative audiences. This loss of control was an experience that would influence Chappelle’s interactions with studio executives for years to come. As much as possible, he would always refuse to compromise his principles or his comedy.

After a very successful one-man show on HBO called Dave Chappelle: Killin’ Them Softly, Chappelle was offered a chance to do television on his own terms. In 2003, Comedy Central, a basic cable network, premiered Chappelle’s Show, a half-hour program, featuring Chappelle, a cast of regulars and guests artists performing satirical sketch comedy. Even the musical guests reflected the show’s hard-hitting social critique by featuring hiphop artists, whose music contained pointed political messages and an appreciation of black culture.

Cable television proved to be a more suitable location for Chappelle’s razor sharp satire. The show garnered two Emmy nominations and a devoted following for Chappelle’s brand of comedy. His first season DVD sold over three million copies. At the end of the second successful season, Viacom, Comedy Central’s parent company, offered Chappelle a 50 million dollar contract for two more seasons. He accepted, but while taping the third season, Chappelle abruptly left the show for an extended stay in South Africa. In a 2006 Oprah Winfrey interview, Chappelle deflected rumors that he was in drug or psychiatric therapy; stating an “incredibly stressful” work environment and creative content differences as the reasons for his break with Comedy Central.

Dave Chappelle’s career is consistently marked by his refusal to compromise his work in order to make his comedy palatable for mainstream sensibilities. As a result, he has become especially popular with young audiences who appreciate his wry social commentary. In 2005, he produced Dave Chappelle’s Block Party, a documentary where he hosted an outdoor party and reunion concert of the 90s rap group, The Fugees.

HOPE CLARKE (1943– ) Stage Director, Actress, Choreographer

From duets with Alvin Ailey to a complete revisioning of Porgy and Bess, Hope Clarke’s career continues to expand the influences of African American culture in the American arts.

Hope Clarke was born in Washington, DC, in 1943. She grew up in a segregated, close-knit African American community. However, her talent and determination propelled her into a career in show business. In 1960, she won a part in the original touring company of Leonard Bernstein’s West Side Story. From there, she became a principal dancer in two African American dance troupes: the Katherine Dunham Company and the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater. Her duets with the late Alvin Ailey became legendary. Armed with talent and discipline, she left the company in the 1970s to pursue a new career in acting.

As an actress, Clarke’s most notable feature film performance was in the classic film, A Piece of the Action, starring Bill Cosby and Sidney Poitier. Other film performances include Basquiat (1996) and Men Without Jobs (2004). She has also made television guest appearances on The Jeffersons, Hill Street Blues, Three’s Company, As the World Turns, New York Undercover and most recently Law & Order.

Besides acting, Clarke was called in to choreograph various stage and television shows. Her years as a dancer prepared her well. She worked for the New York City-based Opera Ebony, helping to produce Porgy and Bess in such unlikely venues as Brazil and Finland. She received a Tony nomination for Best Choreography for her work on the 1992 Broadway hit, Jelly’s Last Jam, written and directed by George C. Wolfe.

Clarke continued to stage projects as diverse as Dorothy Rudd Moore’s Freedom and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s Cosi Fan Tutte. She choreographed the production of Frida for the Houston Grand Opera. And in 1995, she became the first African American woman, to direct and choreograph a major staging of the George Gershwin opera-musical Porgy and Bess.

The Houston Grand Opera’s production of Porgy and Bess was staged in celebration of the work’s 60th anniversary. Clarke based the opera’s setting around the Charleston-based Gullahs, an African American group believed to be Angolan in origin. She infused the work with the cultural and linguistic integrity of this unique community. Porgy and Bess toured major American cities including San Diego, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Houston, and Minneapolis. It also played engagements in Japan and at Italy’s famed La Scala opera house in Milan.

In 1998, Clarke received a New York Dance and Performance Award, known as a “Bessie,” for her outstanding achievements as a performance professional. She collaborated with George C. Wolfe on two more Broadway productions, the Tempest (1995) and the Tony nominated musical, Caroline, Or Change (2004).

BILL COSBY. SEEFILM & TELEVISION CHAPTER.

ANDRÉ DE SHIELDS (1946– ) Actor, Director, Choreographer

The ninth of 11 children born and reared in Baltimore, Maryland, Broadway veteran Andre De Shields began his professional career in the Chicago production of Hair. This controversial production led to a role in The Me Nobody Knows and membership in Chicago’s Organic Theatre Company where he created the role of Xander the Unconquerable in Warp.

Many doors opened for De Shields in the 1970s. He debuted on Broadway in Warp (1973); co-choreographed two Broadway shows for Bette Midler, the critically acclaimed Bette Midler (1973) and Bette Midler’s Clams on the Half Shell Revue (1975); and starred in two Tony Award-winning musicals that made him a Broadway legend, The Wiz (1975), a remake of The Wizard of Oz, with an all-black cast, and Ain’t Misbehavin’ (1978), a musical tribute to legendary Fats Waller. In 1982, De Shields won an Emmy Award for his performance as Viper in the television special presentation of Ain’t Misbehavin’.

De Shields garnered his first Tony and Drama Desk Award nominations in 1997 for his featured role as Jester in Play On! In 2001, he received Tony, Drama Desk, and Astaire Award nominations and won an Outer Critics’ Circle Award for his performance as Noah T. “Horse” Simmons in The Full Monty, a role he also originated in London. Other Broadway credits include Haarlem Nocturne (1984) and Stardust (1987).

On the concert stage, De Shields performed Mood Ellington, an original one-man tribute to the Duke, directed and choreographed by Mercedes Ellington. Other concert stage performances include the cabaret opera Casino Paradise, Songs of Innocence and Experience at Carnegie Hall and the Royal Festival Hall in London. He has also toured with the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center as the narrator for Wynton Marsalis’s A Fiddler’s Tale.

Recent directing credits include a restaging of Play On! at the Crossroads Theatre Company, featuring Leslie Uggams and Stephanie Mills. He has also directed at the Denver Center Theatre, the Cortland Repertory Theatre, the Victory Gardens Theatre, and La Mama, E.T.C.

De Shields was featured in the films Extreme Measures with Hugh Grant and Prison directed by Renny Harlin. His television credits include guest appearances on Sex and the City, Another World, and Law and Order; I Dream of Jeannie: 15 Years Later; and two PBS “Great Performances”: Alice in Wonderland and Ellington: The Music Lives On.

A dedicated educator, De Shields served as director of Carnegie Hall’s Jazzed, an educational strategy for restoring the arts to the public schools. He was the Dr. Martin Luther King Jr./Rosa Parks/Cesar Chavez Visiting Professor at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, and in 2002 was an adjunct professor of Shakespeare at his graduate alma mater, New York University-the Gal-latin School of Individualized Study, where he received his first “Distinguished Alumni Award” in 1992. The Alumni Association of his undergraduate institution, the University of Wisconsin-Madison, honored De Shields with the Distinguished Alumni and the Person of the Year awards in 2001. De Shields returned to the Broadway stage in 2004 playing a gorilla named Graham in the controversial play, Prymate and revitalized King Lear at the Classical Theatre of Harlem in 2006.

KATHERINE DUNHAM (1909–2006) Choreographer, Dancer

World-renowned as a dance pioneer, Katherine Dunham was the premier exponent of African and Caribbean dance in the world of modern choreography.

Born in Chicago, Illinois, on June 22, 1909, Dunham attended Joliet Township Junior College and the University of Chicago, where she majored in anthropology. With funding from a Rosenwald Fellowship, she was able to conduct anthropological studies in the Caribbean and Brazil. She later attended Northwestern University, where she earned her Ph.D.

In the 1930s, she founded the Negro Dance Group whose repertory drew on techniques Dunham learned while studying in the Caribbean. She used her training in anthropology and her study of rituals to infuse ballet and modern dance techniques with traditional Caribbean and African rhythms, forging a vocabulary of dance known as the Dunham Technique.

In 1940, the Katherine Dunham Dance Company appeared in the stage musical Cabin in the Sky, which she choreographed with George Balanchine. Alone or with her company, Dunham was featured in such movies as Carnival Of Rhythm (1939), Star-Spangled Rhythm (1942), Stormy Weather (1943), Casbah (1948), Boote E Riposta (1950) and Mambo (1954).

Among Dunham’s renowned choreographic pieces are: L’Ag’Ya (1938), Tropics and le Jazz Hot (1939), Bhahiana (1939) Plantation Dances (1940), Haitian Suite (II) (1941), Tropical Revue (1943), Havana 1910/1919 (1944), Carib Song (1945), Bal Negre (1946); Rhumba Trio (1947), Macumba (1948), Adeus Terras (1949), Spirituals (1951), Afrique du Nord (1953), Jazz Finale (1955) Ti Cocomaque (1957); and Anabacoa (1963).

Dunham received numerous awards including the Albert Schweitzer Music Award (1979), Kennedy Center Honor’s Award (1983), the Samuel H. Scripps American Dance Festival Award (1987) and induction into the Hall of Fame of the National Museum of Dance (1987).

In East St. Louis, Dunham founded the Katherine Dunham Center for Arts & Humanities to promote research and training. Its mission is to promote “arts-based communication techniques for people of diverse cultures, and [provide] a multi-art training program to humanize and socialize individuals as well as provide them with marketable skills.”

During the 1990s, it was feared that the legacy of Dunham would eventually be lost due to lack of funding and the volume of material that needed to be preserved. But in 2000, the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation gave the Library of Congress $1 million to purchase and preserve the dancer/choreographer’s archives. In addition, Illinois set aside a matching $1 million to make sure Dunham’s legacy would remain alive in her home state.

Over the years, Dunham influenced the careers of many dancers and choreographers such as Syvilla Fort, Talley Beatty, Lavinia Williams, Walter Nicks, Hope Clark, Vanoye Aikens, and Carmencita Romero. The Dunham Technique remains a mainstay at Alvin Ailey studios and the Debbie Allen Dance Academy.

Katherine Dunham died on May 21, 2006, at the age of ninety-six.

GARTH FAGAN (1940– ) Choreographer

Garth Fagan was born on May 3, 1940, in Kingston, Jamaica. He discovered dance by way of gymnastics but was discouraged from a dance career by his father, an academic. However, he studied and danced with Ivy Baxter and the Jamaican National Dance Company, touring throughout Latin American while still in high school.

In 1960, Fagan left Jamaica and enrolled at Wayne State University in Detroit to study psychology. After completing his master’s program, he commuted to New York to study with Martha Graham, Jose Limon, and Alvin Ailey. Fagan helped launch several Detroit-based dance companies: Detroit’s All-City Dance Company, Detroit Contemporary Dance Company and Dance Theatre of Detroit. Eventually, he moved to Rochester, New York, to become a Distinguished Professor at the State University of New York at Brockport. There he taught young, untrained dancers who became his first company, Garth Fagan Dance.

Fagan always sought to transform dance, using the polyrhythms of Afro-Caribbean dance, modern floor techniques, the theatrics of Alvin Ailey, and the agility of ballet to create new movement. In 1986, Fagan directed and choreographed Queenie Pie, the Duke Ellington street opera at the Kennedy Center.

Fagan’s numerous honors include a Guggenheim Fellowship, the three-year Choreography Fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Dance Magazine Award for “significant contributions to dance during a distinguished career,” and the “Bessie” Award (New York Performance Award) for sustained achievement. In 1996, he was named among 25 American scholars, artists, professionals, and public figures to receive the title, Fulbright Fiftieth Anniversary Distinguished Fellow.

In 1998, Fagan received the Tony Award for best choreography for his critically acclaimed work in the Broadway hit The Lion King, which also won the Tony for best musical. Fagan himself danced in the show. In 1998, he also received the Drama Desk Award, the Outer Critics Circle Award, and the Astaire Award.

Fagan’s Nkanyit premiered in 1997 at the John F. Kennedy Center in Washington, DC, and opened at the Joyce Theatre in New York again in November of 1998. The title means “an all-encompassing respect for life, elders, and each other instilled early in childhood.” This piece juxtaposes African ancestors dancing to American songs, and modern folk moving to Kenyan percussion. The heart of the work is the dynamic relationship between parent and child and the struggle to create “family.” In 2001, Fagan’s work was recognized when he received the Samuel H. Scripps American Dance Festival Award.

His company, Garth Fagan Dance, is now in its 36th anniversary season. Repertory works include Trips and Trysts (2000), Music of the Line/Words in the Shape (2001), Translation Transition (2002), DANCECOLLAGEFOROMIE (2003); ——ING (2004), Life: Dark/Light (2005) and Senku (2006). With his ability to produce entertaining, dramatic, and insightful movement, Fagan continues to push the limits, inside and out, of postmodern dance.

REDD FOXX (1922–1991) Actor, Comedian

Redd Foxx’s most famous role was Fred Sanford, the junkman on the popular NBC series Sanford and Son, which began in 1972. It was the second most popular role on television after Archie Bunker in All in the Family. As a result, Foxx became one of the highest paid actors in show business. In 1976, it was reported that he was earning $25,000 per half-hour episode, plus 25 percent of the producer’s net profit.

Sanford is actually Foxx’s family name. He was born John Elroy Sanford in St. Louis on December 9, 1922, and both his father and his brother were both named Fred. As a boy, he concocted a washtub band with two friends and played for tips on street corners, earning as much as $60 a night. At 14, Foxx and the band moved to Chicago but the group broke up during World War II.

Foxx then moved to New York, where he worked as a rack pusher in the garment district as he sought work in night clubs and on the black vaudeville circuit. While in New York, he played pool with a hustler named Malcolm Little, who was to change his name to Malcolm X.

In the early 1950s, Foxx tried to find work in Hollywood. He had a brief stint with The Dinah Washington Show, but mostly survived by performing a vaudeville act and working as a sign painter. This comedy act contained adult content, which limited his bookings.

Foxx’s first real success came in 1955, when he began to record party records. He ultimately made more than 50 records, which sold over 20 million copies. His television career was launched in the 1960s with guest appearances on The Today Show, The Tonight Show and other variety programs. He also began to appear in Las Vegas nightclubs.

Throughout the long run of Sanford and Son, Foxx disputed with his producers over money. Originally, he was not receiving a percentage of the show’s profits, which led him to sit out several episodes. A breach of contract suit filed by the producers resulted. There were racial undertones to these disputes, with Foxx referring to himself as a “tuxedo slave” and pointing to white stars who owned a percentage of their shows. Eventually, Foxx broke with the show and with NBC.

Foxx then signed a multimillion dollar, multiyear contract with ABC, which resulted in a disastrous comedy variety hour that he quit on the air in October of 1977. The ABC situation comedy My Buddy which he wrote, starred in and produced followed. In 1978, however, ABC filed a breach of contract suit. In 1979, Foxx was back at NBC planning a sequel to Sanford and Son. He also made a deal with CBS, which in 1981 was suing him for a second time, allegedly to recover advances not paid back.

In 1976, Foxx appeared in the MGM movie, Norman, Is That You? He continued his appearances in nightclubs in Las Vegas and New York. In 1979, the book Redd Foxx, B.S. was published, comprised of chapters written by his friends.

In 1973, Foxx received the Entertainer of the Year Award from the NAACP. In 1974, he was named police chief of Taft, Oklahoma, an all-black village of 600 people. He also ran a Los Angeles nightclub to showcase aspiring young comedians, both black and white. In addition, Foxx did numerous prison shows, probably more than any other famous entertainer, which he paid for out of his own pocket. Foxx died on October 11, 1991.

AL FREEMAN JR. (1934– ) Actor

A veteran actor with more than forty years of experience, Al Freeman Jr. has won recognition for his many roles in the theater, television and motion pictures. His title role in the television film, My Sweet Charlie (1970), earned him an Emmy Award nomination.

Albert Cornelius Freeman Jr. was born in San Antonio, Texas, on March 21, 1934. After attending schools in San Antonio and then Ohio, Freeman moved to the West Coast to study law at Los Angeles City College. Following a tour of duty with the U.S. Army in Germany, Freeman returned to college and decided to change his major to theater arts after being encouraged by fellow students to audition for a campus production.

Freeman did radio shows and appeared in theater productions in the Los Angeles area before performing in his first Broadway play The Long Dream (1960). Other Broadway credits include: Kicks and Company (1961), Tiger, Tiger Burning Bright (1962), Blues for Mr. Charlie (1964), Conversations at Midnight (1964), The Dozens (1969), Look to the Lilies (1970) and Medea (1973).

Off-Broadway, Freeman worked in The Living Premise (1963), Trumpets of the Lord (1963), The Slave (1964) and Great MacDaddy (1974). He also appeared in Troilus and Cressida (1965) and Measure for Measure (1966) for the New York Shakespeare Festival. He has also done more than a dozen feature films including: Black Like Me (1964) Dutchman (1967), Finian’s Rainbow (1968), Malcolm X (1992), and Once Upon a Time When We Were Colored (1995). In 1998, Freeman appeared in the poignant film, Down in the Delta, with Alfre Woodard and Wesley Snipes, which was directed by poet Maya Angelou.

Throughout his career, Freeman has appeared in such television series as The FBI, The Mod Squad, Kojak, Maude, The Cosby Show and Law & Order, with a recurring role on Homicide. He won an Emmy for his portrayal of Lieutenant Ed Hall in ABC’s daytime drama, One Life to Live. He also served as a director on the show, making him one of the first African Americans to direct a soap opera.

CHARLES GILPIN (1878–1930) Actor

Charles Gilpin was born in Richmond, Virginia, on November 20, 1878. After a brief period in school, he

took up work as a printer’s devil. In 1890, he began to travel intermittently with vaudeville troupes, a practice that continued for two decades. He worked as a printer, elevator operator, prizefight trainer, and porter during long interludes of theatrical unemployment.

From 1911 to 1914, Gilpin toured with a group called the Pan-American Octette. In 1914 he had a bit part in a New York production Old Ann’s Boy. Two years later he founded the Lafayette Theatre Company, one of the earliest black stock companies in New York.

After Eugene O’Neill saw Gilpin in Abraham Lincoln, he was chosen to play the lead in The Emperor Jones, the role in which he starred from 1920 to 1924. In 1921, Gilpin was awarded the NAACP Spingarn Award for his theatrical accomplishment.

Gilpin lost his voice in 1926 and was forced to earn his living once again as an elevator operator. He died on May 6, 1930.

SAVION GLOVER (1974– ) Dancer, Choreographer

Tap dance wizard Savion Glover was born in Newark, New Jersey, in 1974. His mother noticed his keen sense of rhythm early on, and he began learning percussion at four years old. Ready to try something new, he began tap lessons at the Broadway Dance Center in New York City three years later. By the time he was ten, Glover was the understudy for the lead in The Tap Dance Kid and later starred in the role of the Kid. After two years in that show, he went on to perform in Black and Blue which opened first in Paris before moving to New York. His work earned him a Tony Award nomination in 1989.

Glover’s talent developed quickly as he learned by imitating the techniques and sounds of tap greats such as Sandman Sims, Harold Nicholas, Jimmy Slyde, and Sammy Davis Jr., who appeared with him in the film Tap in 1988. He excelled in “close work” (taps without jumps or leaps), acrobatic tap, and admits to creating moves inspired by Michael Jackson.

Glover next appeared in Jelly’s Last Jam, which opened on Broadway in 1992, playing the young Jelly Roll Morton and co-starring with Gregory Hines. From Broadway, Glover went to television to appear, from 1991 to 1995, in Sesame Street and in several feature shows such as Dance in America: Tap!, Black Filmmakers Hall of Fame, and performing at the Academy Awards ceremony in 1996 and 1999.

Glover’s greatest stage success is Bring in ’Da Noise, Bring in ’Da Funk which opened in 1995 and for which Glover was the choreographer and prime performer. The show combined poetry, tap, and musical styles such as blues, rhythm and blues, jazz, hip hop, and street drumming in dramatic and satiric sketches that tell of the black experience in America. Glover won the Tony Award for best choreography in 1996 for Bring in ’Da Noise, Bring in ’Da Funk. That same year he earned a Dance Magazine Award, a National Endowment for the Arts award, and was named Best New Theater Star by Entertainment Weekly. Since then, Glover has been teaching tap classes for children and has moved to Hollywood to develop further shows to showcase his extraordinary talents.

In 2000, Glover appeared in the Spike Lee film Bamboozled as a street dancer who is recruited to play in a minstrel show in order to make fun of network executives. Glover was honored with the Flo-Bert award from the New York Committee to Celebrate National Tap Dance Day. He appeared in the 2002 film, Bojangles, which also starred Gregory Hines. He appeared on the DVD, The One, a retrospective look at Michael Jackson’s career in 2003.

Always an artist who stretches boundaries, Glover continues to forge innovative collaborations. In 2005, “If Trane Wuz Here,” an improvisational session inspired by the music of John Coltrane, featured spoken word artist, Reg E. Gaines and saxophonist, Mantana Roberts. “Classical Savion” partnered Glover with a chamber string group for a tour in 2006/2007. Warner Brothers’ animators found it a challenge to keep up with Glover’s footwork when he created the stop-motion choreography for Mumbles, the lead penguin in the Oscar-winning Best Animated Film, Happy Feet in 2007.

WHOOPI GOLDBERG (1955– ) Actress, Comedienne

Born Caryn E. Johnson in Manhattan’s Chelsea district on November 13, 1955, Whoopi Goldberg began performing at the age of eight at the children’s program at Hudson Guild and Helen Rubeinstein Children’s Theatre. After trying her hand at theater, improvisation, and chorus parts on Broadway, she moved to San Diego in 1974 and appeared in repertory productions of Mother Courage and Getting Out.

Goldberg joined the Black St. Hawkeyes Theatre in Berkeley as a partner with David Schein, and then went solo to create The Spook Show, performing in San Francisco and later touring the United States and Europe.

In 1983, Goldberg’s work caught the attention of Mike Nichols, who created and directed her self-titled Broadway show a year later. She made her film debut in The Color Purple (1985), winning an NAACP Image Award as well as the honor of being the first African American woman to win the Golden Globe Award for Best Actress.

Goldberg has starred in more than 150 movies including: Jumpin’ Jack Flash (1986); Clara’s Heart (1988); Ghost (1990); Sister Act (1992); The Player (1992); Sarafina! (1992) and Homie Spumoni (2007). Her voice has been cast in a myriad of animated projects such as, Captain Planet and the Planeteers (1991), The Lion King (1994), Rugrats: The Movie, (1998) Racing Stripes (2005), and Doogal (2006).

On television, she’s had recurring roles on Star Trek: The Next Generation, Everybody Hates Chris and her own short-lives series, Whoopi. Goldberg also brought the popular Hollywood Squares game show back to network television in 1998. She both produced and starred in the show until 2002. She also produced both What Makes a Family for Lifetime Television and Ruby’s Bucket of Blood for Showtime in 2000.

Goldberg is a trailblazer whose career is marked by firsts. During a period in the 1990s, she was the highest paid actress of all time. She was the first woman and the first African American to host of the Academy Awards in 1994 and was invited back three more times in 1996, 1999, and 2002. Goldberg is also one of the few people to have won an Oscar (Ghost), a Tony (Thoroughly Modern Millie), an Emmy (Beyond Tara: The Extraordinary Life of Hattie McDaniel) and a Grammy (Whoopi: Direct from Broadway). In 2001, she was awarded the Mark Twain Prize for American Humor and a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

Goldberg returned to Broadway starring in a revival of Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom in 2003; and revived the Broadway show that launched her career to commemorate its 20th anniversary in 2005. The next year, she reunited with fellow founding members, Robin Williams and Billy Crystal, to celebrate twenty years of humanitarian efforts by Comic Relief.

Ever evolving, a new addition to the list of Goldberg’s many talents is radio deejay. Her morning show, “Wake Up With Whoopi” premiered in 2006.

DICK GREGORY (1932– ) Comedian, Civil Rights Activist, Writer, Nutritional Advocate

Dick Gregory was born on October 12, 1932, in St. Louis. His father left the family in a state of poverty, and Gregory helped his mother by earning money through doing odd jobs. After high school, he entered Southern Illinois University on an athletic scholarship. In 1954 he was drafted into the U.S. Army. In the military his superiors, who were not fond of Gregory’s flippant attitude, challenged him to win a talent show or face court-martial charges. Gregory won the contest and continued his military stint in the Special Service’s Entertainment Division.

After his discharge from the army, Gregory went to Chicago and pursued a career as a stand-up comic. He opened a club called the Apex but failed to attract enough business to make the venue successful. The venture was not a total failure: Gregory ended up marrying his financial partner, Lillian Smith. In January of 1961, Gregory received the opportunity to perform at the Playboy Club for a group of Southern executives. Although initially turned away by the club’s booking agent, who had assumed that Gregory was white, the comedian insisted on doing his routine. Although the crowd was expectedly resistant at first, Gregory persevered and won them over. The performance resulted in a three-year contract with the club.

During the early 1960s Gregory’s popularity grew. His comedy relied upon discussions of himself and included social commentary on such matters as racism and civil rights. Several national commentators acknowledged Gregory as the first black comedian to gain acceptance as a social satirist. In the 1960s, he wrote “Back of the Bus” (1962) and “Nigger: An Autobiography” (1964).

In the 1960s Gregory involved himself in the burgeoning civil rights movement. He committed himself to events that resulted in increases in political fund raising and voter registration. Not one to contribute passively to causes, Gregory was arrested on numerous occasions and risked violence from local police. His views of nonviolent participation, fostered by Martin Luther King Jr., were challenged by his paying witness to a sheriff kicking his wife during a protest in Missouri.

As the 1960s progressed, Gregory withdrew from the entertainment arena and participated more actively in politics. He ran for mayor of Chicago in 1967 and earned nearly 200,000 votes for president as the candidate for the Freedom and Peace Party in the 1968 national election.

Nutritional issues have been a focus for Gregory since he became a vegetarian during the 1960s. At one point in his career, he refused to perform in clubs that allowed smoking and drinking. In the 1970s he co-wrote “Dick Gregory’s Natural Diet for Folks Who Eat: Cooking with Mother Nature” (1974) with Alvenia Fulton. In 1984 he founded Health Enterprises, a business focused on marketing a powdered diet drink. Gregory also participated in marathons.

In the 1990s, Gregory returned to the stage in Brooklyn to bring his comedy and social views to a new generation. His opinions on such issues as world hunger, “gangsta” rap music, drug use, and warfare come through during his performances. In 1993, he co-authored “Murder in Memphis: The FBI and the Assassination of Martin Luther King” and seven years later he published “Callous on My Soul: The Autobiography of Dick Gregory” in 2000.

Gregory received the Ebony-Topaz Heritage and Freedom Award, along with numerous honorary degrees from major universities. He also was honored with the Wellness of You 2001 Tree of Life Award.

In 2004, Gregory had a recurring role on the cable satire, Reno 911! and a guest spot on a One on One episode in 2006.

MOSES GUNN (1929–1993) Actor

Born on October 2, 1929, in St. Louis, Moses Gunn showed dramatic promise at a young age—reading monologues aloud when he was nine. Six scholarships from other schools were offered to Gunn before he chose to earn a degree in speech and drama from Tennessee State University. There he organized a student troupe called Footlights Across Tennessee, a group that toured the South and Midwest, staging shows written by little-known black playwrights. While completing some graduate work at the University of Kansas, Gunn performed in Othello.

With his eye on a career on the New York stage, Gunn raised money by teaching drama at Grambling College in the early 1960s. He served as an understudy for an Off-Broadway production, later joining the regular cast. Once he had gained more experience, Gunn gained a reputation as a leading Shakespearian actor. He appeared regularly with the New York Shakespeare Festival and won off-Broadway’s Obie Award for his portrayal of Aaron the Moor in a 1967 production of Titus Andronicus. During the same era, he became a founding member of the Negro Ensemble Company, whose production of The First Breeze of Summer led to the actor’s second Obie in 1975.

By the 1970s, Gunn had become a favorite on the national and international scenes. As a maturing performer, he did not limit his appearances to stage. Movie-goers enjoyed his supporting performances in films ranging from Shaft to The Great White Hope. As Booker T. Washington in Ragtime, Gunn earned an Image Award from the NAACP in 1981. On television, he appeared in Roots and earned an Emmy nomination for his portrayal of Kintango, a seventh-century African secret sect leader.

From a sensual Othello to a fiery Booker T. Washington, actor Moses Gunn specialized in crafting strong, memorable characters. His career spanned more than three decades. Beyond his own career, Gunn worked tirelessly as an advocate for other African American actors during a time when the theatrical establishment seemed all too willing to limit their presence both onstage and behind the scenes.

He died of asthma complications on December 17, 1993, at the age of 64.

JUANITA HALL (1902–1968) Singer

Born on November 6, 1902, in Keyport, New Jersey, Hall studied at the Juilliard School of Music after singing in Catholic Church choirs as a child. Hall devoted her life to music as a singer in stage and movie productions and choirs.

Her first major stage appearance was in Ziegfield’s Showboat in 1927. Her lengthy stage career culminated in her role as Bloody Mary in Rodgers and Hammer-stein’s South Pacific in 1949. Hall went on to appear in Flower Drum Song and the movie versions of both shows. She served as a soloist and assistant director of the Hall Johnson Choir (1931-1936); conducted the Works Progress Administration chorus in New York City (1936-1941) and organized the Juanita Hall Choir in 1942.

Hall performed at the Palladium in London and was a guest on the Ed Sullivan and Perry Como television shows. She was the recipient of the Donaldson award and the Tony Award.

Hall died February 29, 1968, in Bay Shore, New York.

LEONARD HARPER (1899–1943) Dancer, Choreographer, Producer

Leonard Harper was born into show business in Birmingham, Alabama. When he was just four years old, he began dancing and picking up stage tricks from his father, vaudeville actor William Harper. When Harper’s father died, leaving the family destitute, the ten year-old was thrust into show business full time as the only means of supporting his mother and little brother.

Harper took his act on the road in carnivals and small musical comedy theaters called “Jig Tops.” By the age of 12, he teamed up with comedian George Freeman. Together they formed a stock company and produced shows on the southern minstrel circuit. Harper longed for brighter lights, though, so he traveled to Chicago and joined an all-star minstrel show, where he met his future wife and partner, Osceola Blanks.

The new couple formed the vaudeville team of Harper and Blanks that became nationally known for their upscale attire and for introducing the dance craze, “Walking the Dog.” Harper and Blanks broke the theatrical color barrier. They were the first black act to tour the Shubert Vaudeville circuit of white theaters. They were billed as “The Smart Set Couple” and performed their act dressed in full formal wear.

In 1922, Harper pioneered a new form of musical production, the intimate nightclub review. He produced Plantation Days, featuring Ethel Waters, at the Green Mills Garden, a posh club on Chicago’s Gold Coast. The show toured America then sailed off to London to play before the royal family at the Empire Theatre.

When Harper returned to the United States, he was immediately hired as the main floorshow producer at Connie’s Inn. His name became synonymous with the popularity of nightclub revues in New York City throughout the 1920s. Harper featured Ethel Waters and put Josephine Baker in top hat and tails for the first time in the Plantation Club’s Tan Town Tropics; mounted Texas Guinan’s speakeasy shows with Ruby Keeler and integrated burlesque by being the first black to produce and direct a whole stage show, Hollywood Follies, for Columbia. He also staged the debut floorshow entertainment for famous nightspots such as the Cotton Club, Smalls Paradise, and the Apollo Theatre.

In 1924, Harper opened a dance studio in Times Square and personally trained the Marx Brothers, Mae West, Ruby Keeler, Jack Albert, Fred and Adele Astaire, the Busby Berkeley dancers, and other stars in what became know as the “Leonard Harper System.”

On Broadway, Harper starred in Lew Leslie’s Blackbirds with Florence Mills. He staged the musical numbers in Keep Shufflin’ (1928), and in 1929, conceived and staged Hot Chocolates with music composed by Fats Waller and lyrics by Andy Razaf. Hot Chocolates featured newcomers Cab Calloway and Louis Armstrong and introduced two numbers that later became the title songs of two Broadway musicals, “Ain’t Misbehavin”’ and “Black and Blue.”

Leonard Harper died while rehearsing a small nightclub show in 1943.

ROBIN HARRIS (1953–1990) Comedian, Actor

Robin Harris was born August 30, 1953, in Chicago, Illinois. He attended Ottawa University in Kansas, where he ran a 4:18 mile on the track team. After college, he pursued a career in comedy rather than athletics, doing stand-up comedy as much as possible while working at Hughes Aircraft and Security Pacific Bank to support himself. Harris’s interest in 1970s comedians such as Redd Foxx motivated to create his own act in a similar style. Finally in 1985, after years of hard work, he began to build a name for himself as the master of ceremonies at Comedy Act Theater in Los Angeles. Due primarily to Harris’s influence, the Comedy Act Theater became a stopping spot for black celebrities.

Spike Lee was the first in the film industry to recognize Harris’s talent and cast him in his 1989 film Do The Right Thing, which Harris followed with roles in I’m Gonna Git You Sucka and Harlem Nights. In 1990, he continued his successfully growing film career playing Pops in House Party. His movie career vaulted him into a new level of stardom, and he started playing 2,000-seat auditoriums with his comedy act, though continuing his much smaller and less profitable gigs at the Comedy Act Theater.

In 1990, Harris’s life became very hectic between his comedy act gigs, an HBO special, his album and soon-to-be movie Bebe’s Kids. The schedule proved too much for him and he died on March 18, 1990 of heart failure in his hometown of Chicago. The animated film version of

Harris’s comedy album Bebe’s Kids was released posthumously as was his HBO comedy special.

RICHARD B. HARRISON (1864–1935) Actor

Richard B. Harrison was one of the few actors to gain national prominence on the basis of one role, his characterization of De Lawd in Green Pastures.

Harrison was born in Canada in 1864 and moved to Detroit as a young boy. There he worked as a waiter, porter, and handyman, saving whatever money he could to attend the theatrical offerings playing in town. After studying drama in Detroit, he made his professional debut in Canada in a program of readings and recitations.

For three decades, Harrison entertained black audiences with one-man performances of Macbeth, Julius Caesar, and Damon and Pythias, as well as with poems by William Shakespeare, Edgar Allan Poe, Rudyard Kipling and Paul Laurence Dunbar. In 1929, while serving on the faculty of North Carolina A&T as drama instructor, he was chosen for the part in Green Pastures.

By the time of his death in 1935, Harrison had performed as De Lawd 1,656 times. His work earned him the 1930 Spingarn Medal and numerous honorary degrees.

GREGORY HINES (1946–2003) Actor, Dancer

After a distinguished career as a tap dancer, Gregory Hines made an unusual transition to dramatic actor.

Born in New York City on Valentine’s Day, 1946, Hines began dancing with his brother Maurice under the instruction of tap dancer Henry LeTang. When Gregory was five, the brothers began performing professionally as the Hines Kids. Appearing in nightclubs and theaters around the country, they were able to benefit from contact with dance legends such as “Honi” Coles, Sandman Sims, the Nicholas Brothers, and Teddy Hale.

As teenagers, the two performed as the Hines Brothers. When Gregory reached age 18, the two were joined on drums by their father, Maurice Sr. The trio became known as Hines, Hines and Dad. They performed internationally and appeared on The Tonight Show. Eventually, Gregory tired of the touring and settled in California, where he formed the jazz-rock band Severance.

Gregory Hines subsequently moved back to New York and landed a role in The Minstrel Show (1978). He would later appear in such Broadway musicals as Eubie! (1978), Sophisticated Ladies (1981), and Comin’ Uptown (1990), as well as feature films including The Cotton Club (1985), White Nights (1985), Running Scared (1985). Hines starred in the 1989 Tri-Star film Tap with Sammy Davis Jr., not only acting and dancing, but singing as well. Other notable films include White Man’s Burden (1994), Renaissance Man (1995), Waiting to Exhale (1995) and The Preacher’s Wife (1996).

On television, Hines appeared in the series Amazing Stories and the special Motown Returns to the Apollo, which earned him an Emmy nomination. His 1997 show, The Gregory Hines Show, was favorably reviewed but short-lived. He was the voice of Big Bill on the Nick, Jr. animated series, Little Bill and had a recurring role on Will & Grace. Hines also appeared as the lead character in the 2001 television movie, Bojangles.

When not appearing in films or television, he toured internationally as a solo club act. His first solo album, was released by CBS/Epic in 1988. The album was produced by Luther Vandross, who teamed with Gregory for a single “There’s Nothing Better Than Love,” which reached number one on the R&B charts in 1987.

Hines has received numerous awards including the Dance Educators Award and the Theater World Award. Hines has been nominated for several Tony Awards, and in 1992 received the award for Best Actor in a Musical for his role in Jelly’s Last Jam.

Gregory Hines died of liver cancer on August 9, 2003.

GEOFFREY HOLDER (1930– ) Actor, Dancer, Choreographer, Costume Designer, Director

Geoffrey Holder has succeeded as an artist in many areas. Holder was born on August 1, 1930, in Port-of-Spain, Trinidad. At an early age, he left school to become the costume designer for his brother’s dance troupe, which he took over in 1948. Holder led the dancers, singers, and steel band musicians through a series of successful small revues to the Caribbean Festival in Puerto Rico, where they represented Trinidad and Tobago. His appearances with his troupe in the mid-1950s were so popular that he is credited with launching the calypso vogue.

Early in his career, Holder appeared in New York as a featured dancer in House of Flowers (1954). He later performed with the Metropolitan Opera and as a guest star on many television shows. Film credits include: Live and Let Die (1973), the James Bond adventure and Dr. Dolittle (1967), the children’s classic starring Rex Harrison.

Holder received two Tony Awards in 1976, as director and costume designer for the Broadway show The Wiz, the all-black adaptation of The Wizard of Oz. In 1978, he directed and choreographed the successful Broadway musical Timbuktu. In 1982, Holder appeared in the film Annie based on the hit Broadway musical, playing Punjab, a character from the original comic strip.

Holder received a Guggenheim Fellowship to pursue his painting, and his impressionist paintings have been shown in galleries such as the Corcoran in Washington, DC. In 1995, an exhibition of Holder’s paintings was held at the State University of New York in Albany. Holder also has written two books. “Black Gods, Green Islands” is a retelling of West Indian legends and his “Caribbean Cookbook” is a collection of recipes that Holder also illustrated.

In 1998, Holder restaged his 1967 production The Prodigal Prince for the 40th anniversary celebration of the Alvin Ailey Dance Theater. In 2000, he appeared along side Mercedes Ellington in a cooking show called Harmony in the Kitchen. In 2002, Holder was honored by the International Association of Blacks in Dance for his career.

Holder’s commanding voice was cast in the recurring role of Master Pi in Cyberchase (2002/2003) and the Narrator in Tim Burton’s remake of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (2005)

Holder has been married to dancer Carmen de Lavallade for over 50 years. The two met in 1955 while performing in House of Flowers, and married a year later.

LENA HORNE (1917– ) Actress, Singer

Lena Horne has been called the most beautiful woman in the world, and her beauty has been no small factor in the continued success of her stage, screen, and nightclub career.

Horne was born on June 30, 1917, in Brooklyn, New York. She joined the chorus line at the Cotton Club in 1933, and then left to tour as a dancer with Noble Sissle’s orchestra. She was given a leading role in Blackbirds of 1939, but the show folded quickly; so, she left to join Charlie Barnett’s band as a singer. She made her first records, including the popular “Haunted Town,” with Barnett. In the early 1940s she also worked at New York’s Cafe Society Downtown.

Horne then went to Hollywood, where she became the first black woman to sign a term contract with a film studio. Her films included Panama Hattie (1942), Cabin in the Sky (1943), Stormy Weather (1943) and Meet Me in Las Vegas (1956). In 1957, she took a break from her film and nightclub schedule to star in her first Broadway musical, Jamaica. Her popular recordings included “Stormy Weather,” “Blues in the Night,” “The Lady Is a Tramp,” and “Mad about the Boy.”

Throughout the 1960s and 1970s, Horne appeared in nightclubs and concerts. She returned to Broadway in 1981. She opened a one-woman show called Lena Horne: The Lady and Her Music to critical and box-office success. Although it opened too late to qualify for the Tony Award nominations, the show was awarded a special Tony at the June ceremonies. The production ran for two years and the soundtrack, produced by Quincy Jones, won two Grammy Awards. In December of 1981, she received New York City’s highest cultural award, the Handel Medallion.

Horne was married for 23 years to Lennie Hayton, a white composer, arranger and conductor who died April 24, 1971. She had been married previously to Louis Jones.

In 1994 Horne released her first recording in a decade, entitled We’ll Be Together Again. This album was followed by An Evening with Lena Horne (1995), Lena Horne at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (1996) and Being Myself (1998). In 1999, a gala in her honor was held at New York’s Avery Fisher Hall.

Although she does not perform now, her renditions of classic recordings score many films and television shows such as Take the Lead, Dirty Dancing: Havana Nights, Miss Match, Six Feet Under, and The Family Man.

EDDIE HUNTER (1888–1974) Comedian

Eddie Hunter got his start when working as an elevator operator in a building frequented by the great tenor Enrico Caruso. Hunter had been writing vaudeville comedy parts on the side and Caruso encouraged and helped him. In 1923, Hunter’s show How Come?, a musical revue, reached Broadway.

Hunter performed in his own persona in the majority of the shows he wrote. Going to the Races, produced at the Lafayette Theatre in Harlem, had Hunter and his partner live onstage, interacting with a movie of themselves playing on the screen. Hunter considered this show one of his best. As one of the principal performers in Blackbirds, he toured Europe during the late 1920s. His show Good Gracious also toured Europe.

Depicting himself as “the fighting comedian,” Hunter developed a reputation for speaking out against racial discrimination in the performing arts. He frequently told of his experience in Phoenix, Arizona, where the male members of the show were forced to sleep in the theater where they were performing; accommodations for blacks simply did not exist at the time. Hunter characterized his European reception as being relatively free of prejudice and felt that he only received the respect and recognition due to him when abroad.

By 1923, Hunter had a full recording contract with Victor Records. His recordings included “It’s Human Nature to Complain,” “I Got,” and “My Wife Mamie.” Shortly thereafter, he suspended his recording career to begin traveling with a new show he had developed. But when “talking” movies came into being, vaudeville fell out of favor. Eddie Hunter thus retired from show business and entered the real estate business in the 1930s.

EARLE HYMAN (1926– ) Actor

Earle Hyman was born in Rocky Mount, North Carolina, on October 11, 1926. He began his acting career with the American Negro Theatre in New York City.

In 1963, Hyman made his foreign-language acting debut in Eugene O’Neill’s The Emperor Jones in Oslo, Norway, becoming the first American to perform a title role in a Scandinavian language. Hyman had originally become acquainted with Norway during a European trip made in 1957. He had planned to spend only two weeks in the Scandinavian country, but found himself so enchanted with Norway that he all but forgot the rest of Europe. When Hyman returned to New York, he resolved at once to learn Norwegian, and for practice, began to study the role of Othello (which he was performing for the Great Lakes Shakespeare Festival of 1962) in that language. By sheer coincidence, the director of Den Nationale Scene of Bergen, Norway, invited him to play Othello there in the spring of the following year, a performance which marked Hyman’s first success in the Norwegian theater.

In 1965, Hyman returned to Norway to play The Emperor Jones for a different theater company and received high critical acclaim for his portrayal. Hyman remained in Norway intermittently for six years and has been the subject of several Norwegian radio broadcasts and television interviews. He still spends six months each year in Scandinavia playing Othello and other classical roles. He played Halvard Solness to Lynn Redgrave’s Mrs. Alvine Solness in Henrik Ibsen’s The Master Builder at the National Actor’s Theatre in 1992. A bronze bust of the actor as Othello has been erected in the Norwegian theater where Hyman performed, and he has also been presented with an honorary membership in the Norwegian Society of Artists, the third foreigner and first American to be so honored. Hyman is also the first black actor to have played all four of the Shakespeare giants, Hamlet, Othello, Macbeth, and King Lear.

Hyman’s many on and off-Broadway credits include: No Time for Sergeants (1955), St. Joan (with Diana Sands at Lincoln Center) (1956), Mister Johnson (1956), Waiting for Godot (1957), Lorraine Hansberry’s Les Blancs (1970); Edward Albee’s Lady from Dubuque, the black version of Eugene O’Neill’s Long Day’s Journey into Night (at the Public Theatre, 1981); and East Texas Hot Links (1994).

Among other film and television work, Hyman has appeared on the daytime drama Love of Life and was nominated for an Emmy for his role as Cliff Huxtable’s father in The Cosby Show. In more recent years, Hyman has been seen in the television movies Hijacked: Flight 285 in 1996, The Moving of Sophia Myles in 2000 and the series, Twice in a Lifetime in 2001.

Hyman returned to the stage in the Atlantic Theater Company’s double bill of Harold Pinter plays, which paired the Nobel Prize winner’s most recent work, Celebration, with his first, The Room.

JUDITH JAMISON (1944– ) Dancer, Choreographer

Born in Philadelphia on May 10, 1944, Judith Jamison started to study dance at the age of six. She was discovered in her early twenties by the choreographer Agnes De Mille, who admired her spontaneous style.

From 1965 to 1980, Jamison was a principal dancer for Alvin Ailey’s American Dance Theater for 15 years, performing a wide gamut of roles, especially choreographed for her by Ailey. She has made guest appearances with many other dance companies, including the American Ballet Theatre, and with such opera companies as the Vienna State Opera and the Munich State Opera. In the 1980s, Jamison scored a great success on Broadway in Sophisticated Ladies, a musical featuring the music of Duke Ellington. In 1988, she formed the Jamison Project.

Since 1989, Jamison has served as Artistic Director of the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater and has expanded the vision of her mentor in many directions, artistically and fiscally. Under the auspices of Jamison, all of the Ailey companies and schools now fall under an umbrella organization, the Alvin Ailey American Dance Foundation. The repertory company has had two groundbreaking engagements in South Africa; a tour of mainland China and performed in the 1996 Olympic Games and the Cultural Olympiad in 2002. Jamison actually carried the Olympic torch during the opening ceremonies in Salt Lake City.

Jamison developed the Women’s Choreography Initiative to encourage female dancers to explore their creativity in leadership roles. A celebrated choreographer in her own right, Jamison’s formidable body of work includes Hymn (1993) and Riverside (1995). Hymn is featured in the PBS documentary Hymn: Remembering Alvin Ailey which premiered in 1999. Her 1996 work, Sweet Release, was a collaboration with celebrated trumpeter Wynton Marsalis. Her ballet, Echo: Far From Home, opened in New York in December of 1998. Double Exposure, another ballet, premiered at the Lincoln Center Festival in 2002.

In 1993, Jamison wrote the book “Dancing Spirit: An Autobiography.” She is the youngest recipient ever to receive the Dance USA Award which was presented at the Spoleto Festival, USA, in May of 1998. In 2000, President Bill Clinton paid tribute to Jamison at the Kennedy Center Honors program in Washington D.C. In 2002, Jamison was named as a recipient of the National Medal of Arts. In 2003, she received the “Making a Difference” Award from the NAACP ACT-SO. Most recently, Ms. Jamison received the Paul Robeson award from the Actors’ Equity Association in recognition for her outstanding contribution to the Performing Arts and commitment to the right of all people to live in dignity and peace.

VIRGINIA JOHNSON (1950– ) Dancer

Virginia Johnson was the prima ballerina for the Dance Theatre of Harlem from its very beginning in 1969. Her career started very early. She was born in Washington, DC, on January 25, 1950, and began studying ballet when she was three years old at the Washington School of Ballet. She continued to study there under scholarships throughout high school and performed in productions with the American Light Opera Company and in the annual staging of the Washington Ballet’s The Nutcracker Suite.

Although black ballerinas were rare, Johnson received a scholarship to study dance at New York University’s School of the Arts. However, the emphasis on modern dance there dissatisfied her, so she joined a ballet school in Harlem being run out of a church basement by the former New York City Ballet dancer Arthur Mitchell. At 19, she left NYU to become part of the fledgling company. Mitchell created the Dance Theatre of Harlem (DTH) as a commitment to the Harlem community after the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. His aim was to establish a company of black dancers and add a new style to contemporary classical ballet. DTH and Johnson were a perfect match.

In 1974, Johnson danced her first solo role for the Dance Theatre of Harlem and became its star ballerina. Emotive, romantic, and long-limbed, Johnson was a natural for legendary choreographer George Balanchine’s dances, performing them clearly and smoothly. In her tenure at DTH, she danced many traditional roles such the title role in Giselle. The DTH then reset the European tale in the bayous of Louisiana to tell the stories of a community of free Creole blacks. Critics praised Johnson’s performances as “glorious and subtle touching and authoritative.”

Johnson continued to add modern roles to extend her technical facility. She danced Balanchine’s Serenade and Allegro Brilliante, Glen Tetley’s Voluntaries, Bronoslava Nijinska’s Les Biches, and portrayed the Accused (Lizzie Borden) in Agnes de Mille’s dramatic Fall River Legend.

Johnson toured the world with DTH in her capacity as dance diva. During the late 1980s, Johnson was one of the first American ballerinas to visit the Soviet Union where she performed at the Kirov State Theater of Ballet and Opera in Leningrad. In the early 1990s, Johnson traveled to post apartheid South Africa with the DTH where she strove to be an ambassador of change through the beauty of dance.

Among her television presentations, Johnson has danced in Public Broadcasting Service’s (PBS) Dance in America series and performed Creole Giselle for NBC. She also danced in and choreographed the television film Ancient Voices of Children.

Johnson continued to received accolades for her roles in the 1990s: as the Accused (Lizzie Borden) in Fall River Legend with the Cleveland Ballet in 1991, and as Blanche in A Streetcar Named Desire at the Dance Theatre of Harlem’s 25th anniversary season at Lincoln Center in New York City in 1994.

On September 21, 1997, Virginia Johnson retired from the stage at age 47. For 28 years as the Dance Theatre of Harlem’s prima ballerina, she brought to her dramatic performances great sensitivity, an intense ferocity, and total generosity to her company and her audiences.

BILL T. JONES (1952– ) Dancer, Choreographer

Jones was born into a family of 12 children in Florida in the early 1950s; eventually his migrant worker parents moved north to New York, where Jones excelled in high school athletics. Jones enrolled in the State University of New York at Binghampton in the early 1970s with the hope of pursuing a career in theater. He was already an accomplished actor, but eventually transferred into the university’s dance department. While in college, Jones developed a romantic relationship with fellow dancer Arnie Zane.

Jones and Arnie Zane left Binghampton for the wider pastures of Amsterdam for several years; when they returned to New York City, they founded the American Dance Asylum, whose early mid-1970s performances caused a stir because of the dancers’ onstage nudity. Next, Jones and Zane formed a more accessible dance company in 1982. They named the troupe after themselves, and one of their first performances that year earned critical praise at the Brooklyn Academy of Music’s innovative Next Wave Festival.

The Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane dance company continued to thrive until Zane fell ill with AIDS; the principal’s inability to tour almost ended the troupe’s existence financially, and his death in 1988 added greatly to Jones’ burden. However, Jones was able to use the grief to create a dance opus paying homage to his longtime partner, and the 1989 debut of Absence received laudatory reviews. The death of another member of the company resulted in another work that addressed issues of loss due to AIDS within the artistic community, D-Man in the Waters.

Jones has also addressed issues of the African American cultural experience, especially as experienced by those of alternative sexual orientation, in such productions as Last Supper at Uncle Tom’s Cabin. He has been candid about his own status as an HIV+ person. In 1994, he was awarded a MacArthur Foundation fellowship; the following year saw the premier of Still/Here at the Brooklyn Academy of Music. Jones co-authored a book in 1995, “Last Night on Earth,” and collaborated with jazz drummer Max Roach and novelist Toni Morrison on a dance piece entitled Degga performed at Lincoln Center that same year. Later, Still/Here became the subject of media sniping between Jones and New Yorker writer Arlene Croce, who termed it “victim art” in early 1996. Jones asserted that the New York media is biased in favor of Jewish matters. In 1997, Jones spoke to the American Dance Therapy Association members at their annual conference about the use of such works as Still/Here in dance therapy.

Jones has continued to create such works as Ursonata whose name comes from a poem by Dada artist Kurt Schwitters. Another work uses poems recorded by Dylan Thomas. Avant-garde musician Laurie Anderson was commissioned to score his Harriet and Rhonda Ten Rounds. In January of 1999, Jones staged We Set Out Early Visibility Was Poor, a new work exposing a more ecstatic and less political side of his work. It is symbolic and lyric, mixed with a marked desire for peace after the pain of loss. Jones continues to reach into his emotional life to manifest his art. In 2000, Jones went on a solo tour of America and Europe called The Breathing Show.

In 2001, Jones received a second Isadora Duncan Dance Award for his work, Fantasy in C-Major, with the Axis Dance Company. He won his first “Izzy” collaborating with Rhodessa Jones and Idris Ackamoor on Perfect Courage in 1990. Jones was also the recipient of the 2003 Dorothy and Lillian Gish Prize; and won three major awards in 2005—the Wexner Prize, the Samuel H. Scripps American Dance Festival Award for Lifetime Achievement, and a Harlem Renaissance Award.

His company celebrates their 25th anniversary in 2007.

ADRIENNE KENNEDY. SEELITERATURE CHAPTER.

WOODIE KING JR. (1937– ) Producer, Director, Writer

Born in Mobile, Alabama, but raised in Detroit, Woodie King became interested in acting while in his teens. During his last year at Cass Technical High School, King was offered a scholarship to the Will-O-Way School of Theatre in suburban Bloomfield Hills, Michigan. There he had the opportunity to study with such luminaries as Vincent Price and Helen Hayes; however, frustrated by the lack of roles for black actors in classical plays, King was prompted to produce.

While attending Detroit’s Wayne State University, King teamed up with several other black theater students to found Concept-East, a community-based black theater company. King served as director and manager from 1960 to 1963. One of the plays produced, Study in Color, received enough widespread praise that King brought a touring production of the show to New York in 1964, where it played at the American Place Theatre. Rather than return to Detroit, King chose to stay in New York, where he continued working at the American Place, staging five plays.

In 1970, King founded a new company, The New Federal Theatre (NFT), named after the Harlem-based, government-funded troupe of the 1930s. Based at the Henry Street Settlement, King envisioned the NFT as a community theater that promoted the work of writers from diverse backgrounds. Playwrights such as J. E. Franklin, Black Girl; Ron Milner, What the Winesellers Buy; Ed Bullins, The Taking of Miss Janie; David Henry Hwang, Dance and the Railroad; Damien Leake, Child of the Sun; Laurence Holder, When Chickens Came Home To Roost; Nikos Kazantzakis, Christopher Columbus; Alexis DeVeaux, No; and Dr. Endesha Ida Mae Holland, From the Mississippi Delta have been brought to national attention because their work was showcased at NFT.

Many notable actors including, Jackee Harry, Morgan Freeman, Denzel Washington, Debbie Allen, Phylicia Rashad, Glynn Turman, Esther Rolle, Samuel L. Jackson, Laurence Fishburne, Robert Downey Jr., Debbie Morgan, and Lynn Whitfield performed in NFT productions.

King also co-produced several plays on Broadway, Leslie Lee’s The First Breeze of Summer (1975) and Ntozake Shange’s For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide When the Rainbow Is Enuf (1976). In the 1980s, he executive produced a musical, Reggae (1980), and directed the Broadway cast of Ron Milner’s Checkmates (1988).

King wrote and directed The Black Theatre Movement: “A Raisin in the Sun” to the Present, which aired on PBS in 1979, and scripted teleplays for the series Sanford and Son. King also edited or co-edited a number of important anthologies, including “Black Drama Anthology,” “Black Short Story Anthology,” and “Black Poets and Prophets: The Theory, Practice and Esthetics of the Pan-Africanist Revolution.” King’s collection of essays, “Black Theater: Present Condition,” was published in 1981.

In 1997, King received an Obie Award for Sustained Achievement. American Visions dubbed Woodie King Jr., the “king of black theater producers,” in its April 2000 issue. King also won Actor’s Equity Association Paul Robeson Award in 2004.

In 2007, the theatre entered its 37th season and King produced two of the playwrights whose ground-breaking work was nurtured at NFT—a retrospective of Ntozake Shange’s work and a revival of Ed Bullins’ The Taking of Miss Janie.

MARTIN LAWRENCE. SEEFILM AND TELEVISION CHAPTER.

JACKIE “MOMS” MABLEY (1894–1975) Comedienne

Mabley was born Loretta Mary Aiken in Brevard, North Carolina, on March 19, 1894, and entered show business as a teenager when the team of Buck and Bubbles gave her a bit part in a vaudeville skit called “Rich Aunt from Utah.”

With the help of comedienne Bonnie Bell Drew, Mabley developed a monologue, and was soon being booked on the black vaudeville circuit. Influenced by such acts as Butterbeans and Susie, she developed her own comic character, a world-weary old woman in a funny hat and droopy stockings, delivering her gags with a mixture of sassy folk wisdom and sly insights.

Her first big success came in 1923 at Connie’s Inn in New York. Engagements at the Cotton Club in Harlem and Club Harlem in Atlantic City followed.

Moms Mabley was discovered by white audiences in the early 1960s. Her record album “Moms Mabley at the U.N.” became a commercial success and was followed by “Moms Mabley at the Geneva Conference.” In 1962, she made her Carnegie Hall debut on a program with Cannonball Adderley and Nancy Wilson. Her subsequent Broadway, film, television, and record successes made her the favorite of a new generation.

Moms Mabley died on May 23, 1975, at the age of 78 in a White Plains, New York, hospital.

BERNIE MAC (1957– ) Comedian, Actor

Bernard “Bernie Mac” McCullough was born in 1957, one of 15 children, and raised on the South Side of Chicago. Almost from the start he was destined to be a comic. He was just four when he witnessed his mother laughing until she cried as she watched Bill Cosby perform on television. The power Cosby had to elicit such reaction made an impact. By the time he graduated high school, his comic reputation was intact. Voted class clown by his fellow students, Mac turned the title down. “I thought it was an insult,” he told Entertainment Weekly.

Mac’s professional career started slowly. He worked a series of menial jobs to pay the rent and did impromptu stand-up in the subways, eliciting tips for laughs. Mac’s first break came in Chicago in 1990 when he won the Miller Lite Comedy Search, which led to a spot on HBO’s Def Comedy Jam. Damon Wayans was the host that night and was so impressed that he offered Mac a film debut in Mo’ Money (1992).

Over the next few years, Mac appeared in many films. Often cast as a funny sideman, he proved himself in dramatic roles as well, most notably as “Flip,” a homeless ex-basketball star in Above the Rim (1994). Mac wrote and starred in his own HBO show, Midnight Mac, which was nominated for a Cable Ace Award in 1995. He developed a following because of his recurring role on the TV series Moesha and his featured roles in the cult classics Friday (1995) and Life (1999).

Even as his small and large screen careers were taking off, Mac stepped up his live performance schedule. He went out on the road in 1994 with his own Who Ya Wit tour, which included a ten-piece band and five “Mac-ARoni Dancers.” In 1997, Mac joined four other comics, beginning the tour that would propel him into the realm of comedic royalty. Along with Steve Harvey, D. L. Hughley, and Cedric the Entertainer, Mac embarked on the Original Kings of Comedy tour.

The show was the first comedy tour to move from headlining theaters and small arenas to selling out 11,000 seat stadiums. In fact, it became the highest grossing comedy tour in history. The show’s success drew the attention of director Spike Lee, and in February of 2000 he headed to the Charlotte, North Carolina, show with 12 cameras, producing one of Hollywood’s most unexpected hits, The Original Kings of Comedy.

Fresh off his success as a Comedy King, Mac came into national prominence in 2001. He was part of an ensemble cast of stars, with Hollywood heavy-hitters such as Matt Damon, George Clooney, and Brad Pitt, in the remake of Ocean’s Eleven. Ocean’s was a hit and in 2007, Mac completed the second sequel, Ocean’s Thirteen. Also in 2001, his first book, I Ain’t Scared of You: Bernie Mac on How Life Is, was published, and FOX launched the Bernie Mac Show, which was an instant success and ran for five years. In addition to the Ocean’s franchise, Mac was featured in a string of popular movies including, Charlie’s Angels II (2003), Bad Santa (2003), Mr. 3000 (2004), Guess Who? (2005), Pride (2007) and the Transformers (2007).

AUDRA MCDONALD (1970– ) Singer, Actress

Audra McDonald is one of the American theater’s outstanding performers. Within only ten years, she won four Tony Awards for her work in Carousel (1994), The Master Class (1996), Ragtime (1998) and A Raisin in the Sun (2004). She is the first African American to earn this distinction.

McDonald was born in Berlin, Germany, on July 3, 1970, and grew up in Fresno, California, as part of a musical family. Her parents were trained singers and her aunts toured with a gospel singing group. McDonald’s professional career began at age nine when she performed in dinner theater for young people. She played roles in Hello, Dolly!, A Chorus Line, Grease and The Wiz. After graduating from the Roosevelt School of the Performing Arts in Fresno, McDonald enrolled at the prestigious Juilliard School of Music in Manhattan. However, since Broadway was always McDonald’s first love, she was discontented at the classically oriented Juilliard. She took a break from her studies and landed a role in The Secret Garden, both on Broadway and in the touring company. She eventually went back to Juilliard and completed a bachelor’s degree in 1993.

McDonald auditioned several times until she landed a role in the extravagant production of Carousel, staged at the Lincoln Center in 1994. She won critical praise for her role as Carrie Pipperidge, as well as the Tony, Drama Desk, Outer Critics Circle and Theatre World awards that year. Her next star turn was as Sharon, an aspiring singer in conflict with the great opera diva Maria Callas in Master Class. In the show, Sharon sings a technically demanding aria from Giuseppi Verdi’s Macbeth, a feat brilliantly carried off by McDonald. She earned her second Tony Award as Best Featured Actress in a Play.

Next, McDonald won a part in the musical Ragtime based on E. L. Doctorow’s best-selling 1975 novel about New York at the turn of the century. Her character, Sarah, a young black washerwoman who abandons her illegitimate child, is a relatively small but pivotal part. McDonald won her third Tony Award for Best Featured Actress in a Musical in 1998.

In 1999, she had the title role in a musical, Marie Christine, based on Medea and set in New Orleans and Chicago in the 1880s. McDonald appeared in the ABC remake of Rodgers and Hammerstein’s South Pacific, in 2001, as well as the HBO movie Wit, which gained her an Emmy nomination.

McDonald starred in two limited-run revivals in 2004, the Tony Award winning Henry IV and Lorraine Hansberry’s A Raisin in the Sun. Her role as Ruth Younger earned McDonald her fourth Tony for Best Featured Actress in a Play.

In 2007, McDonald starred in a Broadway revival of 110 in the Shade and a television movie adaptation of A Raisin in the Sun.

DONALD MCKAYLE (1930– ) Dancer, Choreographer, Company Director, Writer

Donald Cohen McKayle, born on July 6, 1930 in Harlem, New York, struggled from humble roots to become an eminent and distinguished American choreographer, performer, and director, in dance, theater, film, and television. As a teenager, when McKayle saw a performance by the legendary Pearl Primus, he eagerly auditioned for the New Dance Group and to his surprise, was awarded a scholarship. His voracious appetite for movement led him to take advantage of the multitude of dance offerings—modern, ballet, Haitian, Hindu, and tap.

There were few role models to guide his youthful aspirations, so he relied primarily on his own personal courage and persistence to pursue his dreams in the face of the social and racial restrictions. When he appeared for auditions during the late 1940s and was told no “Negroes” were wanted, he responded, “I am here, and I would like you to see me dance, maybe you’ll change your mind.”

In 1951, McKayle did change minds when he choreographed what would become an American classic, Games, based on childhood play, rhymes, and chants. Exploring the light, carefree innocence of youth and the darker social stigmas associated with racial and social divisions, Games brought to the concert stage over a century of inequities and prejudice. That same year, McKayle appeared on Broadway in Bless You All. Other Broadway performing credits include House of Flowers (1954), Copper and Brass (1957), and West Side Story (1957).

During the 1950s, he danced in the companies of such innovators as Jean Erdman, Mary Anthony, Merce Cunningham, Anna Sokolow, and Martha Graham. He was also artistic director and resident choreographer of Donald McKayle and Company, from 1951 through 1969. His company featured artists who would eventually become prominent leaders and performers in the world dance scene, including Carmen de Lavallade, Arthur Mitchell, Alvin Ailey, Mary Hinkson, and Eliot Feld.

McKayle received five Tony nominations for his work on Broadway including Best Choreographer for, Golden Boy (1964), Doctor Jazz (1975), Sophisticated Ladies (1981), and Raisin (1974), which won a Tony Award for Best Musical plus earned him another nomination for Best Director. For Sophisticated Ladies, he was also honored with an Outer Critics Circle Award and the NAACP Image Award. His most recent choreography for Broadway was showcased in It Ain’t Nothing’ But the Blues that earned a Tony nomination for Best Musical in 1999.

McKayle’s film choreography includes, The Great White Hope (1970), Bedknobs and Broomsticks (1971), and The Jazz Singer (1980). He received Emmy nominations for Minstrel Man (1977) and the children’s special, Free To Be You and Me (1974).

Many international companies perform his master works in concert dance, including the Alvin Ailey Dance Theater; the Batsheva Dance Company of Tel Aviv, Israel; Ballet Nuevo Mundo of Caracas, Venezuela; Ballet Contemporaneo of Buenos Aires, Argentina; and the San Francisco Ballet. In 2001, he choreographed the monumental ten-hour production of Tantalus, produced by the Royal Shakespeare Company for the Denver Center Theatre Company.

Appointed Claire Trevor Professor of Dance at the University of California, Irvine, McKayle received the UCI medal, the university’s highest honor. He has also been named “One of America’s Irreplaceable Dance Treasures: The First 100,” by the Dance Heritage Coalition of the Library of Congress. McKayle’s autobiography, “Transcending Boundaries: My Dancing Life,” was published in 2002 and Heartbeats of a Dancemaker, a PBS documentary on him aired in 2003.

BEBE MILLER (1950– ) Choreographer, Dancer, Artistic Director

Bebe Miller was born on September 20, 1950, to an elementary school teacher and a ship steward. Although she grew up in the housing projects of South Brooklyn, New York, her arthritic mother took the family to adult dance classes at Manhattan’s Henry Street Settlement every Saturday. Soon, Miller was learning creative dance from Murray Louis and Alwin Nikolais who taught children’s dance classes there. Miller went on to take traditional ballet classes at the Carnegie Hall school at the age of 13. She soon stopped, unhappy with the formality of classic dance styles.

Miller resumed taking modern dance when she was 20 and studied fine arts at Earlham College in Richmond, Indiana. After graduating from Earlham in 1971, she moved back to New York to resume dance classes with Nikolais. She won a fellowship to study dance at Ohio State University in Columbus and earned a master’s degree from there in 1975.

Two years later Miller joined the modern dance company of Nina Wiener, who had studied with Alvin Ailey and Twyla Tharp, and for six years was inspired by Wiener to infuse her technique with fun and intensity. Soon she was creating her own dances, and performing her group and solo pieces at New York City workshops devoted to developing modern dance choreographers. She left Weiner’s company in 1982 and formed the Bebe Miller Company two years later.

Miller’s dances have always reflected her inner and outer struggles. Her 1984 dance Trapped in Queens shows the difficulties of city life. Two, her collaborative duet with dancer Ralph Lemon, examines the changing relationships between men and women. Some of the black influences she brings to her dances show up in the accompanying music. She has used reggae (“Jammin”’ 1981), gospel (“Heart, Heart” 1986), Duke Ellington (“Spending Time Doing Things” mid-1980s), and Jimmie Hendrix (“The Hendrix Project” 1991) as accompaniment. In addition to music, Miller collaborates with writers, set designers, and visual artists to create her unique performance pieces.

Miller and her company spent much of the mid-1980s touring throughout the United States and earning numerous accolades. She won four National Endowment for the Arts Choreographer’s Fellowships, the New York Dance and Performance Award (“Bessie”) for choreography for 1986 and 1987, and the American Choreographer Award and John Guggenheim Memorial Fellowship in 1988.

Alvin Ailey commissioned Miller to create new works for his Alvin Ailey Repertory Ensemble in 1987. Miller produced her series of dances called Habit of Attraction the next year, another look at the mysteries of relationships. Another work, Allies, was commissioned in 1989 in part by New York’s Brooklyn Academy of Music. This was Miller’s first appearance at the Academy’s Next Wave festival and allowed her to work on a larger scale. Allies again studied human interaction and evolving relationships. Alongside Allies, Miller danced her signature solo, Rain, which describes in movement some of Miller’s own social and spiritual views.

Her 1991 work, The Hendrix Project tied music by Jimmie Hendrix and Bob Dylan and the vision of the 1960s to the cultural issues of the 1990s. It was danced in Los Angeles and San Francisco in a program titled Black Choreographers Moving Towards the 21st Century. Bebe Miller Company then took it to New York and Europe.

In 1993, Bebe Miller conducted a residency class at Walker Art Centre in Minneapolis which performed her work, In Mnemosyne’s House and Again and Again for which she collaborated with environmental sculptor Eve Laramie and the Minneapolis New Dance. The mid-1990s saw the premieres of Tiny Sisters, Yard Dance, Heaven and Earth, Blessed, and Rythem Studies.

In recent years, Miller has been investigating the combination of theatrical narrative and abstract movement to express the human condition through the physical body. Map of the Body was developed as part of a master’s class in September of 1999. In 2000, Miller was named a Bill Como Fellow as part of the New York Foundation for the Arts Artists’ Fellowships. Miller premiered Verge in 2001 at the Cultural Crossroads 651 festival. Verge would go on to win Miller three New York Dance and Performance (Bessie) Awards for choreography. In 2005, Miller’s company celebrated its 20th anniversary on the cutting edge. After two to three years of development Miller has created a multimedia improvisational performance piece whose collaborators include dancers, dramaturges and lighting, video and animation artists. Landing/Place is an exploration of motion capture technology as a potential choreographing tool.

FLORENCE MILLS (1896–1927) Singer, Dancer

Florence Mills was born in Washington, DC, on January 25, 1896. She made her debut there at the age of five in Sons of Ham. In 1903, the family moved to Harlem, and in 1910 she joined her sisters in an act called the Mills Trio. She later appeared with a group called the Panama Four, which included Ada “Bricktop” Smith.

In 1921, Mills appeared in Shuffle Along, a prototype for African American musicals. Her success led to a long engagement at the Plantation, a New York night spot. After a successful appearance in London, she returned to the United States in 1924 to star in From Dixie to Broadway, in which she performed her trademark song “I’m Just a Little Blackbird Lookin’ for a Bluebird.” Later, her own Blackbirds revue was a great success in London and Paris.

Mills returned to the United States in 1927. Exhausted by her work abroad, she entered the hospital on October 25 for a routine appendectomy and died suddenly on November 1.

ABBIE MITCHELL (1884–1960) Singer, Actress

Most celebrated as a concert artist, Abbie Mitchell also performed on the stage and in light musical comedy. At the age of 13, she returned to her native New York City from Baltimore, joining Will Marion Cook’s Clorindy Company, and later achieving her first real success with the Williams and Walker Company.

By 1923, having performed in almost every European country, Mitchell returned home to give the first of her many voice concerts in the United States. Mitchell also performed with many opera companies and acted in several plays including Coquette (with Helen Hayes; 1927), Stevedore (1934) and Langston Hughes’s Mulatto (1937). She also headed the voice department at Tuskegee Institute for three years.

ARTHUR MITCHELL (1934– ) Dancer, Choreographer

Mitchell was born in Harlem on March 27, 1934, and attended New York’s famed High School of the Performing Arts. Mitchell was the first African American male to receive the high school’s dance award in 1951.

Upon graduation in 1952, Mitchell enrolled as a scholarship student in the School of American Ballet, run by the eminent choreographer George Balanchine, who also directed the New York City Ballet. In 1955, Mitchell was invited by Balanchine to join the New York City Ballet. Before long, he was a principal dancer in the company, performing in such works as Agon and A Midsummer Night’s Dream.

Mitchell left the New York City Ballet in 1969 to establish the Dance Theatre of Harlem, which he founded to give young African Americans an opportunity to get out of the ghetto through the arts. Mitchell and the studio have received numerous awards and citations including the Changers Award given by Mademoiselle Magazine in 1970 and the Capezio Dance Award in 1971.

In 1993, New York City Mayor David Dinkins presented Mitchell with the Handel Medallion, the city’s highest cultural honor. He was also one of the winners of the Kennedy Center Honors and the National Medal of Arts in 1993. The School of American Ballet presented Mitchell with a lifetime achievement award at its annual dinner on February 6, 1995. In 1999, Mitchell was inducted into the Dance Hall of Fame and a year later he was the only dancer to win a gold medal at the Sixth New York International Ballet Competition. In 2005, in recognition of his contributions to African American culture, Mitchell won a Fletcher Foundation Fellowship.

Although the DTH touring company is currently on hiatus due to financial hardship, Mitchell continues to keep the school open and viable. “Dancing Through

Barriers” is more than an education initiative; it speaks to the heart and spirit of Dance Theatre of Harlem and its co-founder Arthur Mitchell.

EDDIE MURPHY. SEEFILM AND TELEVISION CHAPTER.

FAYARD AND HAROLD NICHOLAS (1914–2006 / 1924–2000) Dancers

The Nicholas Brothers were one of the great tap dance teams of the first half of the twentieth century. Their acrobatics and precision were admired by the likes of Fred Astaire and George Balanchine, and their appearances in motion pictures provide a record of their astounding abilities.

Fayard Nicholas was born in 1914; Harold in 1924. Their professional debut was, ironically, on the radio program “The Horn and Hardart Kiddie Hour” in 1931. In 1932, they became a featured act at Harlem’s Cotton Club. They made their first Broadway appearance in the Ziegfeld Follies of 1936; this was followed by Babes in Arms in 1937.

The Nicholas Brothers’s film debut was in Pie Pie Blackbird in 1932, and they appeared in several other movies in the 1930s and 1940s including The Big Broadcast of 1936 (1936), The Great American Broadcast (1941), Sun Valley Serenade (1941), Stormy Weather (1943), and The Pirate (1948). The latter is particularly memorable for the sequence in which they are featured.

Harold Nicholas married actress Dorothy Dandridge in 1942, but the couple later divorced. The two brothers continue to be active in the world of dance: Harold co-starred with Gregory Hines in the movie Tap in 1989, and Fayard won a Tony Award for Best Choreographer for the Broadway musical Black and Blue in the same year.

In 1992, the Nicholas Brothers were honored by the Kennedy Center. They received awards from Dance Magazine in 1995. A gala for the Nicholas Brothers was celebrated at Carnegie Hall in April of 1998 called “From Harlem to Hollywood: A Tribute to the Nicholas Brothers, ‘Tap Legends.”’ It starred Gregory Hines, Lena Horne, Savion Glover, Maya Angelou, Maurice Hines, Ben Vereen, and Jimmy Slide, representing the many generations influenced and inspired by these “Tap Legends.” And in 2003, The Nicholas brothers were inducted into the Hall of Fame of the National Museum of Dance.

FREDERICK O’NEAL (1905–1992) Actor

Frederick O’Neal was the first black person to hold the position of president of Actor’s Equity, a fitting tribute to his long years of service to the American theater as both actor and teacher.

O’Neal was born on August 27, 1905 in Brookville, Mississippi. After his father’s death in 1919, he moved with his family to St. Louis, finishing high school there and appearing in several Urban League dramatic productions.

In 1927, with the help of some friends in St. Louis, O’Neal founded the Ira Aldridge Players, the second African American acting troupe in America. For the next ten years, he played in 30 of its productions. In 1937, he came to New York, and three years later helped found the American Negro Theater. Today, its alumni include such established stars as Sidney Poitier, Earle Hyman, Harry Belafonte, Ruby Dee, Ossie Davis, and Hilda Simms.

O’Neal himself starred in Anna Lucasta (1944), for which he won the Clarence Derwent Award and the Drama Critics Award for the best supporting performance by an actor on Broadway. He was later featured in Take a Giant Step, The Winner, and several other stage productions. His films include Pinky (1949) and The Man with the Golden Arm (1956). He also appeared on several televised dramatic and comedy shows.

In 1964, O’Neal became the first black president of Actor’s Equity. After devoting himself full-time to Actor’s Equity, O’Neal was in 1970 elected international president of the Associated Actors and Artists of America, the parent union of all show business performers’s unions. He became president and chairman of the board of the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, a position which included such responsibilities as raising money to conserve and preserve materials in the center, soliciting resources for the institution, and lobbying for the construction of a new building. He was a member of the New York State Council on the Arts, President of the Catholic Interracial Council, chairman of the AFL-CIO Civil Rights Committee, and vice president of the A. Philip Randolph Institute. In 1980, he received the National Urban Coalition’s Distinguished Trade Unionist Award. In 1990, he received a special tribute from the Black Filmmakers Hall of Fame. O’Neal died on April 27, 1992.

PEARL PRIMUS (1919–1994) Dancer, Choreographer

Pearl Primus’s anthropological approach to dance made her one of the most purposeful figures in that medium: for her, dance was education, not merely entertainment. Her aim was to show audiences and dancers alike the African roots of dance and to bring the African American experience alive.

Primus was born in Trinidad on November 29, 1919. Originally intending to pursue a career in medicine, she received a Bachelor of Arts degree in pre-medical sciences and biology from Hunter College, with graduate work in medical education and psychology. But 1940s America did not welcome blacks or women in medicine, and after seeking employment in vain, Primus sought assistance from the government’s National Youth Administration. She was put into a youth administration dance group and by 1941 was accepted into New York City’s New Dance Group. Her professional debut was at the Young Men’s Hebrew Association in New York City on February 14, 1943. In April of that year, she began appearing at Cafe Society Downtown, the famed New York City nightclub. She left after ten months for an appearance on Broadway at the Belasco Theater. By this time she had her own dance company, Pearl Primus, Percival Borde, and Company. She toured Africa and the southern United States, and incorporated what she learned into her dance style.

Primus is best known for the dances African Ceremonial and Strange Fruit, which were incorporated into her Solos for Performance at the Cafe Society (ca. 1944) and Hard Times Blues (1945).

Primus died on October 29, 1994.

RICHARD PRYOR (1940–2005) Comedian, Actor

Comedian Richard Pryor had great success as a stand-up comedian, writer, actor, and recording star. He often used elements of his unconventional upbringing and adult life as material in his comedy routines.

Born Richard Franklin Lennox Thomas Pryor III on December 1, 1940, in New York City, he was raised by his grandmother in a brothel she ran in the Peoria, Illinois. His mother worked there as a prostitute. His parents married when he was three years old, but the union did not last. His grandmother was a strict disciplinarian and young Richard was often beaten.

Pryor joined the army in 1958 and spent two years in Germany. He returned to Peoria after his military service and during the early 1960s began his work as a stand-up comic on a local circuit. He moved to New York City’s Greenwich Village in 1963 where he honed his stand-up routine. A 1964 appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show led to his first movie role in The Busy Body (1966), followed by bit parts in the 1968 films, The Green Berets and Wild in the Streets. During this time Pryor continued to play to live audiences.

Pryor played Piano Man in Lady Sings the Blues (1972) and earned an Academy Award nomination for his performance. Throughout the 1970s, Pryor continued his work as a stand-up comic and contributed his writing talents to The Flip Wilson Show, Sanford and Son, Mel Brooks’ film Blazing Saddles and Lily Tomlin’s television special, Lily, for which he won an Emmy Award. He won two of his five Grammy Awards for his comedy albums “That Nigger’s Crazy” (1974) and “Bicentennial Nigger” (1976). The comedian’s film, Richard Pryor Live in Concert (1979), brought his stand-up act to millions.

In 1976, Pryor wrote and starred in Bingo Long Traveling All-Stars & Motor Kings and received raves for his work with Gene Wilder in Silver Streak. The two scored another hit with Stir Crazy (1980) directed by Sidney Poitier.

Pryor suffered a major heart attack in 1978, and while freebasing cocaine in 1980 he set himself ablaze and suffered severe injuries. He addresses these incidents in his second concert movie, Live on Sunset Strip (1982). Pryor also co-wrote, directed and starred in Jo Jo Dancer, Your Life Is Calling (1985), a semi-autobiographical tale of a comedian who relives his life immediately following a near fatal accident. Pryor’s health continued to deteriorate. He began his battle with multiple sclerosis in 1986 but continued working well into the 1990s.

Pryor’s other popular films include: Uptown Saturday Night, Car Wash, Which Way Is Up?, Greased Lightning, Blue Collar, The Wiz, California Suite, Bustin’ Loose, The Toy, Superman III and Brewster’s Millions. In 1989, Pryor co-starred with Eddie Murphy in Harlem Nights. He teamed with Gene Wilder for the last time in the 1991 film, Another You. In 1993, Pryor was awarded a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

In 1995, Pryor’s collection of memoirs, “Pryor Convictions and Other Life Sentences,” was published, detailing his difficult childhood, failed marriages, and battles with cocaine addiction and multiple sclerosis. In 1998, Pryor was honored with the first Mark Twain Prize for American Humor and in 2000 he won the MTV Lifetime Achievement Award.

Pryor successfully sued for the legal rights to the master tapes of his early comedy recordings. Rhino Records released them as a double CD set, “Evolution/Revolution: The Early Years (1966-1974).” Richard Pryor: I Ain’t Dead Yet, #*%$#@!!, a television documentary which aired in 2003, featured archival footage of Pryor and testimonials from fellow comedians, like Dave Chappelle, on Pryor’s influence on comedy. In 2004, Comedy Central voted Pryor the best stand-up comedian of all time.

Richard Pryor died of cardiac arrest on December 10, 2005, nine days after his 65th birthday. He was posthumously awarded a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award in 2006.

PHYLICIA RASHAD. SEEFILM AND TELEVISION CHAPTER.

LLOYD RICHARDS (1923–2006) Theatrical Director, Educator

Lloyd Richards, renowned actor, stage director, and educator, was born in Toronto, Ontario, in the early 1920s. He moved to Detroit while still young where he worked to support his family and eventually studied at Wayne State University, first law and then theater, receiving his degree in 1944. After serving in World War II as one of the first black pilots, he returned to Detroit and became active in radio drama and regional theater.

Soon Richards moved to New York to earn a living acting in plays and television dramas and coaching others in his own studio. In 1959, Sidney Poitier convinced him to direct an important Broadway play, Lorraine Hans-berry’s classic story A Raisin in the Sun. This play, the first by a black woman to be produced on Broadway, explores issues of segregation, thwarted ambition, and family tensions. It ran for 530 performances and made its stars and Richards famous. In the wake of that success, Richards began teaching drama at Hunter College and New York University.

In 1968, Richards was named Artistic Director of the prestigious National Playwrights’ Conference at the Eugene O’Neill Memorial Theatre Center in Waterford, Connecticut. He continued to nurture and produce new plays for regional theaters by such promising playwrights as August Wilson, Athol Fugard, Wendy Wasserstein, John Patrick Shanley, Charles Fuller, and David Henry Hwang. In 1979, Richards became Dean of the Yale School of Drama and Artistic Director of the Yale Repertory Theater.

Many famous plays debuted at the Yale Repertory Theater under Richards’s direction. These include South African playwright Athol Fugard’s Master Harold and the Boys and two Pulitzer Prize-winning works by August Wilson, Fences and The Piano Lesson. He won the Tony Award for Best Director for Fences in 1986.

Richards’s most creative partnership was with playwright Wilson for whom he directed, not only Fences and The Piano Lesson, but also Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom, Joe Turner’s Come and Gone, and Two Trains Running, for which he was awarded the Helen Hayes Award for Best Director in 1992.

The Yale Repertory Theater also attracted a number of notable actors while Richards was in residence including James Earl Jones, Glenn Close, Jason Robards, Colleen Dewhurst, and Angela Bassett. In 1979, Richards directed Jones in a one-man show about the life and career of black actor Paul Robeson.

Lloyd Richards left the Yale Repertory Theater in 1991, after 12 years as Dean and Artistic Director. However, he held his post as Artistic Director of the Eugene O’Neill until 1999 and continued to direct, lecture, and mentor new talent in the theater. In 1995, he directed a Hallmark Hall of Fame production of The Piano Lesson for television, starring Charles S. Dutton and Alfre Woodard.

Among his many honors, Richards was inducted into the Theater Hall of Fame in 1990. Other distinctions include the Directors Award from the National Black Theatre Festival, a National Medal of Arts from President Bill Clinton in 1993, the Huntington Award for lifetime achievement in 1995 and a 1996 Outer Critics Award for Best Director of Wilson’s play, Seven Guitars.

Lloyd Richards died of heart failure on his 87th birthday, June 29, 2006.

BILL “BOJANGLES” ROBINSON (1878–1949) Dancer

Bill Robinson was born in May of 1878, in Richmond, Virginia. Orphaned early, he was raised by his grandmother, a former slave. By the time he was eight, he was earning his own way by dancing in the street for pennies and working as a stable boy.

In 1887, Robinson toured the South in a show called The South Before the War. The following year, he moved to Washington, DC, where he again worked as a stable boy. By 1896, he had teamed up with George Cooper. This act was successful on the circuit until the slump of 1907 caused it to fold. Robinson returned to Richmond and worked as a waiter until a year later when he was taken up by a theatrical manager and became a cabaret and vaudeville headliner.

In 1927, Robinson starred on Broadway in Blackbirds, and in 1932 he had top billing in Harlem’s Heaven, the first all-black motion picture with sound. Later, he scored a Hollywood success by teaching his famous stair dance to Shirley Temple in The Little Colonel (1936). Robinson made 14 movies including The Littlest Rebel (1935), In Old Kentucky (1936), Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm (1938), Stormy Weather (1943), and One Mile from Heaven (1938).

Throughout his long career on stage and in movies, Robinson was known as the “King of Tap Dancers.” Robinson died on November 15, 1949.

CHRIS ROCK. SEEFILM AND TELEVISION CHAPTER.

NTOZAKE SHANGE. SEELITERATURE CHAPTER.

NOBLE SISSLE (1889–1975) Lyricist, Singer

Noble Sissle was born in Indianapolis, Indiana, on July 10, 1889. He reaped his early successes teamed up with the great Eubie Blake. Sissle wrote the lyrics and sang them in performance. Blake composed and played the music. Together the two created such songs as “I’m Just Wild about Harry,” “It’s All Your Fault,” “Serenade Blues,” and “Love Will Find a Way.”

In 1921, Shuffle Along, the first black musical with a love theme, made Sissle and Blake famous. Joining forces with the writing and comedy team of Flournoy Miller and Aubrey Lyles, Sissle and Blake wrote the words and music to over a dozen songs for the show. Shuffle Along became a huge success in the United States and Europe, where it had a prolonged tour. As with most black performers in the early 1900s, Sissle and his troupe would have to travel as far as 20 or 30 miles out of their way to find a place to eat and sleep, since blacks were not welcome in the white hotels of the towns where they played.

Other Sissle and Blake shows included Chocolate Dandies (1924) and Keep Shufflin’ (1928). Noble Sissle died December 17, 1975, at his home in Tampa, Florida.

LYNNE THIGPEN (1948–2003) Actress

Lynne Thigpen spent more than 25 years proving that she could make a living working on stage, screen, and television as a professional actress. She grew up in Joliet, Illinois, “always a singer and always a performer.” Her high school English teacher encouraged her theatrical pursuits so, after graduation, she enrolled at the University of Illinois in Champaign-Urbana, where she majored in English and speech. Although pursuing teaching certification, she won an acting fellowship to the University and began a master’s degree in theater. After one semester, she left school for New York and Broadway.

Soon after arriving in New York, Thigpen landed a two-year role in the popular musical Godspell on Broadway which later led to a role in the 1973 film version. She then worked as a musical performer in various stage productions including Tintypes, for which she earned a Tony nomination in 1980. Deciding that singing was not enough, Thigpen switched to acting and won recurring roles on such television shows as All My Children, L.A. Law, and Law and Order. Family shows such as The Cosby Show, Dear John, and Roseanne showcased her comedic talents. She also appeared in many films, among them, Tootsie, The Paper, Lean on Me, and Bob Roberts.

Serious drama highlighted Thigpen’s versatile talents. In 1988, she won the Los Angeles Drama Critic’s Award for her role opposite James Earl Jones in August Wilson’s Fences. She was also honored with an Obie Award for her portrayal of an itinerant South African woman in Athol Fugard’s Bozeman and Lena in 1992.

In the 1990s, Thigpen was probably best known for her role as the Chief on the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) children’s show, Where in the World Is Carmen Sandiego? Over her six years in this series, she was nominated four times for Emmys as outstanding performer in a daytime children’s television series. Thigpen was named associate artistic director of the Circle Repertory Company in New York City in 1995, along with Austin Pendleton, only to decline it a few months later to continue acting full-time. She played the role of a childless Jewish African American woman in Wendy Wasserstein’s An American Daughter, winning the 1997 Tony Award for Best Featured Actress.

Thigpen’s voice alone has won her recognition. She has narrated numerous documentaries for PBS. She was heard on radio on The Garrison Keillor Show. Listeners of books on tape know her melodic voice from thoughtful narrations of works such as The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman, Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry, One Better, and other audio productions. But few know she was the voice of the DJ in the cult classic film, The Warriors.

Lynne Thigpen continues to prove that stretching one’s creative muscles in the performing arts can shape a varied and viable career. In 1999, she appeared in the movies Random Hearts and Bicentennial Man. She also starred in the Off Broadway show, Jar the Floor, for which she won an Obie Award. In 2000, she was featured with Samuel L. Jackson in the remake of Shaft and became a regular on the popular television series, The District. A year later she appeared with Steve Martin in the comedy Novocaine. Her last film was Anger Management (2003) with Adam Sandler and Jack Nicholson.

Lynne Thigpen created such resonant and memorable characters that when she died of a cerebral hemorrhage on March 12, 2003, The District also had a funeral for her character; and the Emmy award winning children’s series she was featured in, Bear in the Big Blue House, went on hiatus for three years.

LESLIE UGGAMS (1943– ) Singer, Actress

Born in the Washington Heights section of New York City on May 25, 1943, Leslie Uggams enjoyed a comfortable childhood. She made her singing debut at the age of six, performing with the choir of St. James Presbyterian Church in New York. Shortly thereafter she debuted as an actress in the television series Beulah. A year later, Uggams began performing regularly at the famed Apollo Theatre in Harlem, opening for such legends as Louis Armstrong, Ella Fitzgerald, and Dinah Washington. Uggams developed her poise and stage presence early in life, attending the Professional Child-ren’s School, where she was chosen student body president in her senior year.

Uggams subsequently won $25,000 on the popular television quiz show Name That Tune, which renewed her interest in a singing career. In 1961, while studying at Juilliard, Uggams became a regular on The Mitch Miller Show, a variety show featuring old favorites. She was at the time the only black performer appearing regularly on network television.

Throughout the 1960s, Uggams appeared in numerous nightclubs and had several supper club and television engagements. Her big break came when she was signed as a replacement for Lena Horne in Hallelujah Baby, a show that presented a musical chronicle of the civil rights movement. Uggams won instant stardom and received a Tony Award for her performance.

In 1977, Uggams appeared as Kizzy in the television adaptation of Alex Haley’s novel Roots. In May 1982, she performed in a new Broadway show Blues in the Night at the Rialto Theater in New York City. She has also appeared on television in the miniseries Backstairs at the White House and The Book of Lists; in the film Skyjacked; and in the musicals Jerry’s Girls, The Great Gershwin, and Anything Goes.

After touring during the early 1990s in Stringbean, a musical based on the career of Ethel Waters, Uggams joined the cast of the hit daytime soap opera All My Children in 1996. Returning to the stage in 1998, Uggams appeared at Primary Stages in New York in the title role of the well-reviewed play, The Old Settler by John Henry Redwood. In 2001, she received a Tony Award Best Actress nomination for the role in King Hedley II, a continuation of August Wilson’s play, Seven Guitars. A year later, Uggams helped garner critical acclaim for Keith Glover’s bluesical, Thunder Knocking on the Door.

Back on Broadway, Uggams got dazzling reviews when she joined the cast of Thoroughly Modern Millie in 2003. Uggams and James Earl Jones starred in a revival of On Golden Pond which was nominated for two 2005 Tony Awards but was forced to close early because Jones contracted pneumonia.

In 2007, Uggams honored the diva who inadvertently gave her that first break, In Stormy Weather: The Life of Lena Horne.

BEN VEREEN (1946– ) Dancer, Actor

Ben Augustus Vereen was born October 10, 1946, in Miami, Florida. After his family moved to the Bedford-Stuyvesant section of Brooklyn, New York, he attended the High School of Performing Arts in Manhattan. His dancing ability had been discovered almost accidentally after he had been sent to dance school by his mother. Vereen has since been called America’s premier song and dance man.

Vereen made his stage debut in 1965 in The Prodigal Son. He went on to appear in Sweet Charity (1966), Golden Boy (1968), Hair (1968), and No Place to Be Somebody (1970). Vereen is best known for his Broadway role in Pippin (1972), which won him a Tony Award. He was also nominated for a Tony for his co-starring role as Judas in Jesus Christ Superstar (1971), a role he reprised in the film. Other film appearances include roles in Funny Lady (1975), All That Jazz (1979), and The Zoo Gang.

Vereen starred in the ABC comedy series Tenspeed and Brown Shoe and is known for his television specials; the highly acclaimed Ben Vereen: His Roots (1978) won seven Emmy Awards. He also portrayed Louis “Satchmo” Armstrong, and received wide acclaim for his role of Chicken George in television’s adaptation of Alex Haley’s Roots (1977).

His concert tour in the late 1990s earned Vereen the highest honors awarded by the American Guild of Variety Artists: “Entertainer of the Year,” “Rising Star,” and “Song and Dance Star.” He is the first person to win three of these AGVA awards in one year.

In 2002, Vereen returned to Broadway in I’m Not Rappaport and in 2005 joined the cast of Wicked as The Wonderful Wizard of Oz.

Ben Vereen continues to work in television and appear in movies such as Why Do Fools Fall in Love? (1998), I’ll Take You There (1999), Anne Rice’s Feast of All Saints (2001), and Idlewild (2006) featuring Outkast—he played Andre Benjamin’s father.

FREDI WASHINGTON (1903–1994) Actress, Dancer, Civil Rights Activist

Born Fredericka Carolyn Washington in Savannah, Georgia, on December 23, 1903, Washington and her younger sister were sent to a convent after the death of their mother and subsequent remarriage of their father. As a teenager, she left this sheltered world to live with relatives in New York City in order to pursue a career in the performing arts.

One of Washington’s first big breaks came in 1919 when she was cast as a member of the Happy Honeysuckles, the back-up troupe for Josephine Baker. Two years later, she began earning a good salary in the stage production of an all-black musical called Shuffle Along. Washington was next discovered by Broadway impresario Lee Shubert, who urged her to audition for a play called Black Boy. In the 1926 production, she starred, under the stage name Edith Warren, opposite Paul Robeson, but unfortunately much media and audience attention at its debut was focused on Washington’s light complexion. Indeed, she was often able to pass as white, especially when traveling in the segregated areas of the South with her first husband, a member of Duke Ellington’s orchestra.

During the 1920s Washington continued to appear in stage roles and toured Europe for a time; she also appeared in the 1930 production of Sweet Chariot. Moving on to film, Washington again teamed with Robeson when she appeared in the 1933 drama The Emperor Jones. But Hollywood censors insisted she wear makeup to darken her complexion during her love scenes with him. The following year, Washington appeared in her most acclaimed role in the film, Imitation of Life, portraying a young woman who forsakes her heritage in order to pass as white.

Unfortunately, Washington found her acting career stymied by a lack of roles for African American women in general and especially for ones with light complexions. She fought for many decades to reverse such attitudes in the film industry in Hollywood. In 1937, she founded the Negro Actors Guild of America, and wrote extensively on the subject for the New York City-based paper, The People’s Voice, for which she served as theater critic and columnist. During the 1940s and 1950s, she worked as a cast consultant on numerous African American-themed films in Hollywood and continued to appear in stage productions. She died on June 28, 1994, in Stamford, Connecticut.

ETHEL WATERS (1896–1977) Actress, Singer

The distinguished career of Ethel Waters spanned half a century. She showed her versatility by contributing to virtually every entertainment medium—stage, screen, television, and recordings.

Ethel Waters was born on October 31, 1900, and spent most of her childhood in her hometown of Chester, Pennsylvania. By the age of 17, she was singing professionally at the Lincoln Theatre in Baltimore. During this early phase of her career, she became the first woman to perform W. C. Handy’s “St. Louis Blues” on stage.

After several years in nightclubs and vaudeville, Waters made her Broadway debut in the 1927 revue Africana. In 1930, she appeared in Blackbirds; and in 1931 and 1932 she starred in Rhapsody in Black. The following year she was featured, with Clifton Webb and Marilyn Miller, in Irving Berlin’s As Thousands Cheer. In 1935, she co-starred with Bea Lillie in At Home Abroad. Three years later she played the lead in Mamba’s Daughters.

In 1940, Waters appeared in the stage version of Cabin in the Sky and reprised the role in the 1943 movie version. Her other film appearances include: Rufus Jones for President (1931), Tales of Manhattan (1941), Cairo (1942), Stage Door Canteen (1943) and Pinky (1949).

Her autobiography “His Eye Is on the Sparrow” was a 1951 Book-of-the-Month Club selection. The title is taken from a song that she sang in her 1950 stage success, Member of the Wedding.

Waters died on September 1, 1977, in Chatsburg, California.

DAMON WAYANS. SEEFILM AND TELEVISION CHAPTER.

KEENAN IVORY WAYANS. SEEFILM AND TELEVISION CHAPTER.

BERT WILLIAMS (1874–1922) Comedian, Dancer

The legendary Bert Williams is considered by many to be the greatest black vaudeville performer in the history of the American stage.

Born on November 12, 1874, on New Providence Island in the Bahamas, Williams moved to New York with his family, and then on to California, where he graduated from high school. After studying civil engineering for a time, he decided to try his hand at show business.

In 1895, Williams teamed with George Walker to form a successful vaudeville team. Five years later, they opened in New York in The Sons of Ham and were acclaimed for the characterizations that became their stock-in-trade—Walker as a dandy and Williams in blackface, complete with outlandish costumes and black dialect. The show ran for two years.

In 1902, their show In Dahomey was so popular that they took it to England, where it met with equal success. The partners continued to produce such shows as The Policy Players, Bandanna Land, and Abyssinia until Walker’s death in 1909.

Thereafter, Williams worked as a featured solo performer in the Ziegfeld Follies, touring America for ten years in several versions of the show. His most famous songs were “Woodman, Spare That Tree”; “O, Death, Where is Thy Sting”; and “Nobody,” his own composition and trademark.

Williams died of pneumonia on March 4, 1922.

AUGUST WILSON. SEELITERATURE CHAPTER.

FLIP WILSON (1933–1998) Comedian, Actor

Flip Wilson reached the pinnacle of the entertainment world with a series of original routines and ethnic characters rivaled only by those of Bill Cosby. Wilson’s hilarious monologues, seen on a number of network television shows, made him the most visible black comedian of the early 1970s.

Born Clerow Wilson on December 8, 1933, Wilson was the tenth in a family of 24 children, 18 of whom survived. The family was destitute, and Wilson was a troublesome child during his youth in his hometown of Jersey City. He ran away from reform school several times and was ultimately raised in foster homes.

Wilson’s comic talents first surfaced while he was serving in the U.S. Air Force. Sent overseas to the Pacific, Wilson entertained his buddies with preposterous routines. Back in civilian life, he worked as a bellhop and part-time showman. Opportunity struck in 1959 when a Miami businessman sponsored him for one year at $50 a week, thus enabling Wilson to concentrate on the evolution of his routine. For the next five years or so, Wilson appeared regularly at the Apollo Theatre in Harlem. In 1965, he began a series of nationwide appearances on The Tonight Show. Long-term contracts and several hit records followed in quick sequence and Wilson became firmly established as one of the truly innovative talents in the comedy profession.

With The Flip Wilson Show in the early 1970s, Wilson became the first African American to have a self-titled, weekly prime time television show. He became famous for his original character creations such as “Geraldine.” On January 31, 1972, he appeared on the cover of Time Magazine. In 1976, he made his dramatic debut on television in the ABC series The Six Million Dollar Man.

During the early 1980s, Wilson appeared in numerous nightclubs and television specials. He starred in the television series People Are Funny in 1984 and Charlie & Co. in 1985. He has also made comedy albums including “The Devil Made Me Buy This Dress,” for which he received a Grammy Award.

Wilson died on December 1, 1998.

GEORGE C. WOLFE (1954– ) Playwright, Director, Producer

Wolfe was born September 23, 1954, in Frankfort, Kentucky. His father worked for the state and his mother was an educator and later a school principal. Wolfe grew up in an insular African American community that stressed self-sufficiency and achievement. A visit to New York City, as a teenager, instilled a desire for a career in the theater and by 1976, he had earned a BA in theater from Pomona College.

After working for a few years in the Los Angeles theater scene, Wolfe moved to New York City in 1979. He earned two MFA degrees in dramatic writing and musical theater from New York University. Minor recognition came with the 1985 Off-Off Broadway production of his play, Paradise; but Wolfe’s 1986 satire on African American cultural icons, The Colored Museum, garnered attention and mixed reviews from critics. Eventually the play was staged at New York’s Joseph Papp Public Theater. Wolfe won an Obie and the play was broadcast on PBS.

Wolfe continued his affiliation with the Public Theater, directing several plays, including Spunk and The Caucasian Chalk Circle. With the 1992 Broadway debut of Jelly’s Last Jam, a musical that Wolfe wrote and directed about 1920s jazz musician Jelly Roll Morton, he rose to prominence in New York’s theater community. In 1993, he directed parts one and two of the Pulitzer Prize-winning trilogy by playwright Tony Kushner, Angels in America. For his direction of first segment of the drama, Millennium Approaches, Wolfe won a Tony Award. For the second segment, Perestroika, he won a Tony Award for producing.

Another honor was accorded Wolfe in 1993 when he was named Artistic Director and Producer of the Joseph Papp Public Theater/New York Shakespeare Festival. During his tenure, he was praised for giving the venerable institution a more multicultural focus. Works under his directorial aegis included a revival of The Tempest and the hit Broadway musical Bring in ’Da Noise, Bring in ’Da Funk. Noise/Funk won four Tony Awards, one of them for Wolfe’s direction.

In 1998, Wolfe revived Macbeth starring Alec Baldwin and Angela Bassett; and restaged the classic musical, On the Town. In 1999-2000, Wolfe delved deeper into Shakespeare’s canon with The Taming of the Shrew and Julius Caesar; then took the theatre in a new direction, mounting original work such as Suzan Lori-Parks’ Topdog/Underdog in 2001 and Elaine Stritch at Liberty in 2002.

In addition to multiple Tony Awards, Wolfe has been the recipient of the Drama Desk, Outer Critics Circle, Dramalogue and Obie awards. He was named Person of the Year by the National Theater Conference and “a living landmark” by the New York Landmark Conservatory. His alma mater Pomona College gave him an honorary doctorate in 1995.

In 2004, Wolfe announced his intention step down as the Public Theater’s Artistic Director to pursue various creative endeavors; starting with an HBO film adaptation of Ruben Santiago Hudson’s play, Lackawanna Blues.

George Wolfe continues his affiliation with the Public, directing Tony Kushner’s Caroline, Or Change in 2004 and a New York Shakespeare Festival production of Bertolt Brecht’s Mother Courage and Her Children in the summer of 2006.

AWARD WINNERS

NEW YORK DRAMA CRITICS’ CIRCLE AWARD

Best New Play
1996: August Wilson, Seven Guitars
2000: August Wilson, Jitney

Best American Play
1975: Ed Bullins, The Taking of Miss Janie
1982: Charles Fuller, A Soldier’s Play
1992: August Wilson, Two Trains Running,

Best Play
1959: Lorraine Hansberry, A Raisin in the Sun
1985: August Wilson, Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom
1987: August Wilson, Fences
1988: August Wilson, Joe Turner’s Come and Gone
1990: August Wilson, The Piano Lesson
1994: Anna Deavere-Smith, Twilight—Los Angeles
2004: Lynne Nottage, Intimate Apparel

PULITZER PRIZE IN DRAMA

1970: Charles Gordone, No Place To Be Somebody
1982: Charles Fuller, A Soldier’s Play
1987: August Wilson, Fences
1990: August Wilson, The Piano Lesson,
2002: Suzan-Lori Parks, Topdog/Underdog

TONY AWARDS

Best Actor (Dramatic)
1969: James Earl Jones, The Great White Hope
1975: John Kani, Sizwe Banzi; Winston Ntshona, The Island
1987: James Earl Jones, Fences

Supporting or Featured Actor (Dramatic)
1982: Zakes Mokae, Master Harold and the Boys
1992: Larry Fishburne, Two Trains Running
1994: Jeffrey Wright, Angels in America: Perestroika
1996: Ruben Santiago-Hudson, Seven Guitars

Actor (Musical)
1970: Cleavon Little, Purlie
1973: Ben Vereen, Pippin
1982: Ben Harney, Dreamgirls
1992: Gregory Hines, Jelly’s Last Jam
2000: Brian Stokes Mitchell, Kiss Me Kate

Supporting or Featured Actor (Musical)
1954: Harry Belafonte, John Murray Anderson’s Almanac
1975: Ted Rose, The Wiz
1981: Hinton Battle, Sophisticated Ladies
1982: Cleavant Derricks, Dreamgirls
1983: Charles “Honi” Coles, My One and Only
1984: Hinton Battle, The Tap Dance Kid
1991: Hinton Battle, Miss Saigon
1997: Chuck Cooper, The Life

Best Actress (Dramatic)
2004: Phylicia Rashad, A Raisin in the Sun

Best Supporting or Featured Actress (Dramatic)
1977: Trazana Beverley, For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide/When the Rainbow Is Enuf
1987: Mary Alice, Fences
1988: L. Scott Caldwell, Joe Turner’s Come and Gone
1996: Audra McDonald, Master Class
1997: Lynne Thigpen, An American Daughter
2001: Viola Davis, King Hedley II
2004: Audra McDonald, A Raisin in the Sun
2005: Adriane Lenox, Doubt

Best Actress (Musical)
1962: Diahann Carroll, No Strings
1968: Leslie Uggams, Hallelujah, Baby
1974: Virginia Capers, Raisin
1982: Jennifer Holliday, Dreamgirls
1989: Ruth Brown, Black and Blue
2000: Heather Headley, Aida
2006: La Chanze, The Color Purple

Best Supporting or Featured Actress (Musical)
1950: Juanita Hall, South Pacific
1968: Lillian Hayman, Hallelujah, Baby
1970: Melba Moore, Purlie
1972: Linda Hopkins, Inner City
1975: Dee Dee Bridgewater, The Wiz
1977: Delores Hall, Your Arms’s Too Short To Box with God
1978: Nell Carter, Ain’t Misbehavin’
1985: Leilani Jones, Grind
1992: Tonya Pinkins, Jelly’s Last Jam
1994: Audra McDonald, Carousel
1996: Ann Duquesnay, Bring in ’Da Noise, Bring in ’Da Funk
1997: Lillias White, The Life
1998: Audra McDonald, Ragtime
2004: Anika Noni Rose, Caroline, or Change

Best Director (Dramatic)
1987: Lloyd Richards, Fences
1993: George C. Wolfe, Angels in America: Millennium Approaches

Best Play (Dramatic-Playwright)
1974: Joseph A. Walker, The River Niger
1987: August Wilson, Fences

Best Play (Dramatic-Producer)
1994: George C. Wolfe, Angels in America: Perestroika
2003: George C. Wolfe, Take Me Out

Best Director (Musical)
1975: Geoffrey Holder, The Wiz
1996: George C. Wolfe, Bring in ‘da Noise/Bring in ‘da Funk

Best Musical (Producer)
2002: Whoopi Goldberg, Thoroughly Modern Millie

Best Score (Music & Lyrics)
1975: Charlie Smalls, The Wiz

Best Choreographer
1975: George Faison, The Wiz
1982: Michael Peters, Dreamgirls
1989: Cholly Atkins, Henry LeTang, Frankie Manning, Fayard Nicholas, Black and Blue
1996: Savion Glover, Bring in ‘da Noise/Bring in ‘da Funk
1998: Garth Fagan, The Lion King

Best Costume Designer
1975: Geoffrey Holder, The Wiz

Special Tony Award
1981: Lena Horne, Lena Horne: The Lady and Her Music
2006: Sarah Jones, Bridge and Tunnel

Special Theatrical Event (Producer)
2002: George C. Wolfe, Elaine Stritch At Liberty
2003: Russell Simmons, Stan Lathan, Kimora Lee Simmons, Russell Simmons’ Def Poetry Jam on Broadway

About this article

Drama, Comedy, and Dance

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