Shuffle Along

Shuffle Along
Sheet music for "Love Will Find a Way", a song from the show
MusicEubie Blake
LyricsNoble Sissle
BookF. E. Miller
Aubrey Lyles
Productions1921 Broadway
1933 Broadway sequel
1952 Broadway sequel
2016 Broadway adaptation

Shuffle Along is a musical composed by Eubie Blake, with lyrics by Noble Sissle and a book written by the comedy duo Flournoy Miller and Aubrey Lyles.[1][2][3] One of the most notable all-Black hit Broadway shows, it was a landmark in African-American musical theater, credited with inspiring the Harlem Renaissance of the 1920s and '30s.[4]

The show premiered at the 63rd Street Music Hall in 1921, running for 504 performances,[5] a remarkably successful span for that decade. It launched the careers of Josephine Baker, Adelaide Hall,[6] Florence Mills, Fredi Washington and Paul Robeson, and was so popular it caused "curtain time traffic jams" on West 63rd Street.[7]

A 2016 adaptation, Shuffle Along, or, the Making of the Musical Sensation of 1921 and All That Followed, focused on the challenges of mounting the original production as well as its lasting effects on Broadway and race relations.

  1. ^ "Shuffle Along (1921)". www.blackpast.org. 16 March 2008. Archived from the original on 24 March 2016. Retrieved March 18, 2016.; and Tanner, Jo. "Shuffle Along: The Musical at the Center of the Harlem Renaissance" Archived 2011-10-15 at the Wayback Machine, ArtsEdge, The Kennedy Center. Retrieved March 14, 2016.
  2. ^ Sullivan, John Jeremiah (March 24, 2016). "'Shuffle Along' and the Lost History of Black Performance in America". The New York Times Magazine. Archived from the original on March 27, 2016. Retrieved March 27, 2016.
  3. ^ McWhorter, John (January 19, 2023). "The Black Musical That May Have Inspired Gershwin". The New York Times. Archived from the original on January 19, 2023. Retrieved January 19, 2023.
  4. ^ Franklin, Marc J. (23 February 2021). "Black History on Broadway: Celebrating the Legacy of Shuffle Along". Playbill. Archived from the original on 2021-06-07. Retrieved 2021-06-07.
  5. ^ Thompson, David S. (2012-10-21). "Shuffling Roles: Alterations and Audiences in Shuffle Along". Theatre Symposium. 20 (1): 97–108. doi:10.1353/tsy.2012.0002. ISSN 2166-9937. S2CID 191478707. Archived from the original on 2018-06-02. Retrieved 2020-08-14.
  6. ^ Williams, pp. 29–47
  7. ^ Kenrick, John, "History of The Musical Stage, 1920s Part III: Black Musicals" Archived 2005-11-20 at the Wayback Machine, musicals101.com. Retrieved August 22, 2009.