History Of Shuffle Along

Shuffle Along easily became the most popular musical of the Harlem Renaissance. Shuffle Along opened on May 23, 1921 at the 63rd Street Theatre (which wasn’t technically considered part of the Broadway stretch at the time) and ran for 504 performances. This was also the longest running black musical on Broadway to date. Revivals of Shuffle Along would appear in later years but none were ever as successful as the original production. This is largely in part due to the time period that Shuffle Along came from. An upswing was given to the New Negro Movement due to the musical Shuffle Along, because it gave African American’s the opportunity to better represent themselves for themselves.

Shuffle Along was the creation of Eubie Blake, Noble Sissle, Flourney E. Miller and Aubrey Lyles. The two groups met while traveling with their own respective vaudeville acts and decided to try together to bring the Negro back to Broadway, which had not been successful up to this point. Miller and Lyles had the idea that the only form of black theatre that would be successful on Broadway was a musical comedy. This would give them the opportunity to please both sides of the audience they were aiming for. The two goals that Shuffle Along was aiming to achieve were, to create entertaining musical characters that were capable of human emotions and romance, and the second to successfully appeal to white audiences. Shuffle Along contained many aspects of theatre that made it popular to both races. It still portrayed some African American’s in blackface and the minstrel and vaudeville style but it also displayed the dignity and true character of African American’s for one of the first times on the stage. Shuffle Along was written and perf...

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...ntuate them in action and speech with a humorous relish that cannot be duplicated by a white man and in such a wholesome, whole-hearted way that none can take offense.”

This project/presentation was intended to educate on a musical that, despite its importance to the American musical, may be easily glanced over because it doesn’t fit the criteria for what makes a musical in the twenty first century. Shuffle Along adds another layer of history to the New Negro Movement and the civil rights movement. Negro theatre is very much responsible for the creation of the modern musical and it’s important to know where things come from. This topic was interesting because I had previously taken a class in African American Music and now seeing Shuffle Along and understanding how that ties in to something that I love helps put the world into a different perspective for me.