Egbert Austin Williams better known as Bert, was an African American performer during the late 19th and early 20th century. He was born in Nassau, Bahamas on November 12, 1874. He was the child of Frederick, who was a sailor and his mother Julia. When Williams was 11 he and his family moved to Riverside in southern California. While in Nassau, Williams encountered very little racism, southern California however was a much different story which troubled him deeply throughout his lustrous career. Although he faced racism throughout his career he still was extremely successful. By the time he died in March of 1922, he had broken down numerous racial doors that has had an everlasting impact on Broadway. He became a legend as a comedian, songwriter, singer, and dancer in American Musical Theater.
Bert Williams moved to San Francisco to attend college at the University of San Francisco in 1892. While in school Williams would write songs, and do impressions at local venues to earn some extra money. He met a man named George Walker, a fellow black artist, who was a young and talented performer. These two decided to put an act together, and to tell one’s story is to tell the others as well. Williams and Walker called themselves for a time, “The Two Real Coons”. They “worked in the minstrel tradition, originally created by Whites wearing blackface as a vehicle for demeaning humor aimed at African Americans” (BHS). Williams was able to turn this around however as he “avoided the racial stereotype as he transformed the sorrow of his race into the stuff of laughter” (Stempel 92). He would also find a way to tell a tale all races could share and relate to.
That was just the start for Williams and Walker. Their act which developed from mins...
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Detriot Public Library . Bert Williams - Biography. n.d. 5 March 2014. .
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For many years, American musical theatre was defined as being mere entertainment for the people. It ranged from operetta, burlesque, vaudeville, and more. If there is one towering figure in the history of American Musical Theater, that person is Oscar Hammerstein II. He was a lyricist-librettist, as well as a distinguished poet and director. For over forty years, as the theatre’s forms of entertainment shifted, he helped merge everything into the art form known today as the musical. Born twenty-three years after Hammerstein, came Alan Jay Lerner. Idolizing Hammerstein’s work, he would grow to become another distinguished lyricist-librettist in musical theatre history. In this paper, we will look deeper at who these lyricists are and their writing style. Then we will examine one of each of their works and factors that fueled their creation.
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Two plays, twenty years apart helped to depict two very important periods in African American history. Joe Turner’s Come and Gone, premiered in 1984, and Dutchman premiered in 1964 help to show the development of the black mind set in certain periods of history. Dutchman, written during the black arts period (1960-1975); helped to show how African Americans constantly fought to escape the classic stereotypes that they were associated with. Joe Turner’s Come and Gone, written for the Contemporary Period, told the story of how first generation black people after the signing of the emancipation proclamation, fought to find their identity, not only as black people but also religiously.
Robin, D. G. (2000). To Make Our World Anew: A History of African Americans. New York: Prentice Hall Publishers.
Motion pictures from Hollywood had taken Broadway’s place as the king of entertainment. The main reason behind this was that because it was culturally relevant and coming out with new flashy techniques such as Todd-AO and Cinerama.
... John, Fred Ebb, and Greg Lawrence. "Chicago on Broadway." Colored Lights: Forty Years of Words and Music, Show Biz, Collaboration, and All That Jazz. New York: Faber and Faber, 2003. 119-40. Google Books. Web. 1 May 2014.
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Both Dr. Manganelli in “The Tragic Mulatta Plays the Tragic Muse” and Dr. Ashton in “Entitles: Booker T. Washington’s Signs of Play” depict marginalized African-American characters who have to deal with being former slaves and get into the public light in performative roles. Both authors show that African-American always have to perform for white people, be it when they are slaves, in a concubine role or later when they are free.
Theatre has heavily evolved over the past 100 years, particularly Musical Theatre- a subgenre of theatre in which the storyline is conveyed relying on songs and lyrics rather than dialogue. From its origination in Athens, musical theatre has spread across the world and is a popular form of entertainment today. This essay will discuss the evolution and change of musical theatre from 1980-2016, primarily focusing on Broadway (New York) and the West End (London). It will consider in depth, the time periods of: The 1980s: “Brit Hits”- the influence of European mega musicals, the 1990s: “The downfall of musicals”- what failed and what redeemed, and the 2000s/2010s: “The Resurgence of musicals”- including the rise of pop and movie musicals. Concluding
Whitaker, Matthew C.. African American icons of sport: triumph, courage, and excellence. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 2008.
Brockett, Oscar G., and Oscar G. Brockett. The Essential Theatre. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1976. Print.