Clorindy: The Origin of the Cakewalk

Playbill from 1898 showing Edward E. Rice's Production of *Clorindy* featuring the song "Darktown is Out Tonight"

Clorindy, or The Origin of the Cake Walk^[1] is a one-act musical by composer Will Marion Cook and librettist Paul Laurence Dunbar.

The piece premiered in 1898 and was the first Broadway musical with an all-black cast. It starred the famous African-American performer Ernest Hogan. Popular songs from the show included "Who Dat Say Chicken In Dis Crowd" (one of the first documented uses of the well-known "Who Dat?" comedy motif)^[2] and the finale, "Darktown Is Out Tonight".^[3]

^ The original title was The Origin of the Cake Walk. By the end of the first run, it had evolved into Clorindy, or the Origin of the Cake Walk. See, for example, New York Herald, July 31, 1898, and Edward E. Rice's advertisement in the August 20, 1898 New York Dramatic Mirror.
^ Hollis Robbins, "The Origin of 'Who Dat?' It goes back to minstrelsy, but it’s OK to say it now" Archived 2011-08-18 at the Wayback Machine, The Root, February 9, 2010.
^ Cite error: The named reference Peterson was invoked but never defined (see the help page).

[1] The original title was The Origin of the Cake Walk. By the end of the first run, it had evolved into Clorindy, or the Origin of the Cake Walk. See, for example, New York Herald, July 31, 1898, and Edward E. Rice's advertisement in the August 20, 1898 New York Dramatic Mirror.

[2] Hollis Robbins, "The Origin of 'Who Dat?' It goes back to minstrelsy, but it’s OK to say it now" Archived 2011-08-18 at the Wayback Machine, The Root, February 9, 2010.

[Peterson-3] Cite error: The named reference Peterson was invoked but never defined (see the help page).

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