Month: April 2017

“Did you know,” asked the Tribune’s Joe Rainey in July 1931, “that never in the history of theatricals has one playhouse presented to the amusement lover as many stars as the Pearl Theatre…in the past six months?”

“A vaudeville and picture house” at 21^st Street and Ridge Avenue, the Pearl opened Thanksgiving Day, 1927. First up was Lottie Gee, “the scintillating star of ‘Chocolate Dandies,’ ‘Running Wild’ and ‘Shuffle Along.’” Edith Spencer performed her “clever, original and unique song and dance numbers.” The audience enjoyed Sheldon Brooks, the Okeh recording artist, as well as the Taskiana Four, “melodic harmonizers without peers.” Don Heywood and his New York Syncopators were joined by Beano, “The Dancing Phool” and Watts and Ringold provided a comic finale before the “feature picture:” Tom Mix and his horse Tony in “Silver Valley.”

“Come end enjoy vaudeville and photoplays at their best,” promised the Pearl. “Watch our shows each week grow bigger and greater. Nothing in the history of amusements in Philadelphia has even equaled our effort for novelty, variety, comedy, ensemble, beauty and importance.”

The Pearl paired up Wilbur Sweatman, “The Colored King of Jazz with “The Loves of Carmen” starring Delores Del Rio. Soon after came Clara Bow in her Paramount production, “Hula,” directed by Victor Fleming. But not before a live feature with heavyweight pugilist George Godfrey, “The Black Shadow” and Wilbur De Paris with his band.

A seat in the orchestra? Fifty cents in the evening, thirty cents for a matinee. Balcony seats? Thirty five cents in the evening, twenty cents for a matinee.

“Meet your family, your girl or boy friend but do not stand outside or in the lobby. Meet them where you will be comfortable while waiting in our Salon on our Mezzanine Floor.” The ushers—and the Pearl’s want ads said only “light colored” and “good looking” applicants need apply—would welcome you.

“One of the greatest dispensers of rhythm in the land today,” Cab Calloway, stood for a long run, from January to July, 1931. “Night after night, millionaires have been seen rubbing elbows with the colored patrons…when their desires have carried them to this uptown house to see the paramount colored performers of the land under the spotlight. Many have driven from sixty to one hundred miles to see some of the sable actors and actresses who have made history for themselves…”

“Colored people didn’t have to go to a white house to see a stellar attraction.” Instead, “whites had to come to a colored house”—and according the Tribune, “it looked as if they liked it.”

“All races and classes have apparently been willing to form lines sometimes two blocks long just to gain entrance and see the ‘Duke,’ the ‘Cab,’ (and) the ‘Bojangles.” Ethel Waters, Bennie Moten and his band, Nina Mae McKinney (the star of “Hallelujah”) and Earl (Snakehips) Tucker who had recently headlined at the Lincoln downtown at Broad and Lombard. Audiences applauded George Dewey Washington, Eddie Green, Tim Moore, Chick Webb, Miller and Lyles and Butterbeans and Susie.

The 1,400-seat Pearl and the other Ridge Avenue Jazz emporiums are all gone. But there’s no stopping memory. On Saturday May 6^th, Jazz history advocate Faye Anderson will lead a “Ridge Avenue Stroll Through Philly’s Jazz History” starting at the site of the Blue Note at 15^th and Ridge. You’ll spot her holding a sign proclaiming “This Place Matters.”

The 13-stop stroll, organized by PlanPhilly as part of their Jane’s Walk series, will visit and recall the entire set of star-struck sites, from the Nite Cap, the Bird Cage Lounge, Butler’s Paradise Café, Ridge Cotton Club, Checker Café, Mr. Chips Bar, Irene’s Café, and, of course, the Pearl on Ridge.

[Sources: Irvin R. Glazer, Philadelphia Theatres, A-Z (New York: Greenwood Press, 1986); The Philadelphia Tribune: “Joe Wood to Manage New Pearl Theatre.” Nov 17, 1927; “Want Ad, November 18, 1927; “Lottie Gee, Edith Spencer and Sheldon Brooks Open The Pearl,” November 24, 1927; “New Million Dollar Colored Theatre,” (Advertisement) December 5, 1927;  “The Pearl Theatre,” December 8, 1927;  “Snappy Show At Pearl,” December 20, 1927; “Where to Go and What to See,” May 14, 1931; “Theatres: Did You Know That?,” by Joe Rainey, July 2, 1931; and “Jules Bledsoe at Pearl,” May 10, 1932.]

In the Spring of 1919, “Marian Dawley and a few other girls of color…went to the movie theater at 59th and Market Streets.” They lined up to buy tickets and were told “all tickets for colored people have been sold.”

They left “disgusted,” according to the Philadelphia Tribune.

Other than The Standard Theatre on the 1100 block of South Street, audiences of color had few options for entertainment. “The white theatres are and have been for some time drawing the color line,” pointed out the Tribune. “We have but one theatre owned and controlled by our race in this city, and when it is full, which is at every performance, there is practically no place for our people to go.”

But change was coming, readers learned. “In a few months the new Dunbar theatre will be completed at the corner of Broad and Lombard Streets.” This theatre, The Dunbar, will be “owned and controlled by citizens of color” to serve the city’s African American theatregoers, which, as a result of the Great Migration, was estimated at 50,000.

“The Quality Amusement Company, of which Mr. E. C. Brown, of the Brown and Stevens, Bankers is the head” soon had “ten Negro Theatres…in cities including Savannah, Richmond, Washington (Howard) New York (Lafayette) and Chicago.” Philadelphia’s promised to be “the finest theatre in the world owned, managed and controlled by colored people.”

“It was a grand spectacle December 29, [1919] to see the thousands of happy souls, men and women, boys and girls, as they wended through the streets of Philadelphia and filled every available space in the new Dunbar Theatre…  The colored citizens of Philadelphia have something really their own,” something “that they will be and are proud of and can boast about” something “wonderful, marvelous, almost inconceivable, yet so true.”

“Within The Law,” starring Cleo Desmond and Andrew Bishop filled the 1600-seat house twice daily for a solid week. And thanks to the Lafayette Players, the productions kept coming.

John T. Gibson, owner of the Standard Theatre responded by cutting his ticket prices. Gibson, according to A History of African American Theatre knew that the Dunbar’s parent company “had overextended itself by building the $500,000 Douglass Theatre in Baltimore, as well as the Renaissance Theatre in Harlem.” And in September 1921, just a few months after the “Shuffle Along” premiered at the Dunbar, Gibson bought the theater.

As the stage of choice, “Gibson’s New Dunbar Theatre” hosted the full array of African American talent: Will Marion Cook’s Internation Orchestra and Entertainers in the Quintessence of Jazz; the Ethiopian Art Theater’s version of Oscar Wilde’s “Salome” fresh from its run on Broadway;  The  Lafayette Players productions of “The Shoplifters” and “The Hunchback of Notre Dame;” the Manhattan Players’ “Cat and the Canary; “Sunshine Sammy;” “Runnin’ Wild;” “Swanee River Home;” “Struttin’ Time;” “Come Along Mandy;”  Mamie Smith; and “The Chocolate Dandies,” featuring Josephine Baker’s first Philadelphia appearance.

The Great Depression forced the sale of Gibson’s Dunbar to new (white) owners, who added a giant marquee, dubbed it The Lincoln and continued to bring in the talent including Duke Ellington and his Orchestra and Cab Callaway, “the Heidi Ho King and his original Cotton Club Orchestra,” who brought “Mini the Moocher” back to life once more. The Lincoln stage saw “Fats” Waller, Louis Armstrong, Bill “Bojangles” Robinson, Earl Hines, Ethel Waters, as well as other headliners.

From the beginning, the theater played a critical role in addition to serving as the city’s most desirable stage for African American performers. The Lincoln was often dedicated to race relations, human rights and political protest.

In 1920, the Bramhall Players, an interracial troupe, presented Butler Davenport ‘s “Justice,” described as a “race drama.” Where “Uncle Tom’s Cabin “went far to free the Negro’s body from bondage” “Justice,” claimed one review, “will go far to liberate the white man’s mind from prejudice.”

Three years later, more than 3,500 packed a mass meeting in the theater to protest “The Shame of America” and support passage of the Dyer Anti-Lynching Bill.

And in December 1938, The Lincoln hosted a public meeting denouncing “Nazi Germany’s persecutions of racial and religious minorities” warning that “such actions are sympathetically received in some quarters in this country.” About 500 attended the event, sponsored by the United Committee Against Racial and Religious Persecutions. It began with a march up South Street, from 5^th to 15^th and then to The Lincoln, where “an effigy of Adolf Hitler, replete in brown shirt swastika and mustache…in front of the theatre…was publicly burned.”

Such was Broad and Lombard’s well-earned niche, once-upon-a-time.

[Sources include: “All Seats For Colored People Are Sold Out,” Philadelphia Tribune, March 8, 1919; Philadelphia to Soon Have a New Colored Play House, Philadelphia Tribune, November  8, 1919; “The Dunbar Theatre has Swung Open its Doors to the Public,” Philadelphia Tribune, January 3, 1920; “Phila. Has “Something New Under the Sun,” by Anny Boddy, Philadelphia Tribune, January 3, 1920; The Crisis, 1920, vols. 21-22, Advertisement for  “Justice;” “Anti-Lynching Bill Support Asked,” The Philadelphia Inquirer, July 3, 1923; “Hitler’s Effigy Burned by Crowd,” The Philadelphia Inquirer, December 6. 1938; and Advertisements for The Dunbar and The Lincoln, 1920-1936 in The Philadelphia Inquirer. ]

“Fourteen Thousand Negro Actors in This Country Now Performing,” read a headline at the start of the 1922 theatrical season. “In vaudeville alone there are more than six hundred acts, of which are about sixty are now in Europe. There are twenty-two Negro minstrel shows touring the south.” According to Billboard, “368 theaters in the United States [are] devoted entirely to the colored race.” Among them, in Philadelphia: the Standard near 11th and South Streets, the Royal near 15th and South and the Nixon on 52nd Street. Plus the only theater built, owned and operated by African Americans: the Dunbar at Broad and Lombard.

From the moment it opened at the Dunbar on April 11, 1921, Eubie Blake’s “Shuffle Along” demonstrated the power of the African American Jazz Sensation. “A ball of merriment rolling at aero-plane speed,” “Shuffle Along” would complete its run on Broad in Philly and return again before opening on Broadway in New York where critics raved. “The biggest hit New York has witnessed in years… a breeze of super-jazz blown up from Dixie” that would, over the next 60 weeks, establish a 500-performance legacy before going on tour.

“Whether you like jazz or not,” admitted the Philadelphia Orchestra’s Leopold Stowkowski in 1924, “it is a modern featurization of our hectic times and it is with us to stay.” Eubie Blake suggested that jazz’s “flash and fire” generated “flamboyant effectiveness” both artistically and commercially. It offers up “ingredients of freshness in a world where there must be freshness constantly.”

“Shuffle Along” would become the gold standard for American musical theater and for the Dunbar. Time and time again, managers would mount jazz and vaudeville productions hoping for another hit. They promoted “Liza” as the “musical thrill that won’t let your feet behave,” the “logical successor to ‘Shuffle Along.’” They opened “Carolina Nights” with choreography by Charlie Davis, the “dancing cop” from “Shuffle Along.”

In the first half of the 1920s, Dunbar audiences would enjoy “Creole Follies,” “Harlem Follies,” “Ebony Follies” and “Charleston Fricassee.” They came out for “Come Along Mandy;”  “Runnin’ Wild;” “Banville Dandies Revue;” Jimmie Cooper’s All Colored Revue “Hotsy Totsy” and Mamie Smith and her “Syncopators’ Revue Cyclonic Jazz Band.” None took off quite like “Shuffle Along.”

“There is no color line in the theater” proclaimed one Inquirer critic, claiming the broad and sustained appeal of “Shuffle Along” as proof. Yet there was a color line, possibly even several. Racial discrimination by mainstream theaters was one of the reasons the African American community built the Dunbar in the first place. And as quickly as the blockbuster “Shuffle Along” found a home at the Dunbar, after the extended Broadway run, it would return, but to greener pastures on Broad Street. In May 1923, “Shuffle Along” opened for a four-week run not at the Dunbar, but at the Forrest Theatre, then at Broad and Sansom Streets, a mainstream venue with a much larger stage and, more to the point, 400 additional seats for eager ticket buyers. Ironically, the success of African American productions would undercut the success of the Dunbar.

And this time, “Shuffle Along” came to Philadelphia with the 16-year-old Josephine Baker on its chorus line.

“When the best part of a capacity house singles out one little girl in the chorus and gives her attention every time she appears,” raved a critic, “it shows the recognition of qualities as stars are made of. There is a girl like this in the all-colored musical success, ‘Shuffle Along,’ at the Forrest Theatre. She is a sturdy youngster with a winning way and comedy that asserts itself in everything she does. She is one of the happy-honeysuckles and her name is Josephine Baker. Jolly as she seems to be in her work, the stage romping is serious business with Josephine. … Miss Baker has been in the professional only a short time but she has done much during that period. She knows how to make people laugh and how to sing and dance.”

Would Josephine Baker ever debut at the Dunbar?

She would. In November 1924, Baker performed in “Chocolate Dandies,” another Eubie Blake show. “With snap and zest and to the tune of much musical melody, ‘The Chocolate Dandies’ ‘strutted their stuff’ into Philadelphia… The lid was off and it was a race all evening” and the double-jointed “Josephine Baker carries off the honors.”

When “Chocolate Dandies” closed, it was Baker’s last appearance at the Dunbar and her next to the last appearance on Broad Street. In February 1928, after Baker had relocated to Paris and performed at the Folies Bergèr, a clip of her famous “banana skirt” dance made its way into a film travelogue, “Paris by Night,” being shown at the Academy of Music at Broad and Locust Streets. No matter that the film had been “viewed by more than 150,000 people and 15 cities without creating criticism on its alleged impropriety.” One Philadelphia “patron” had lodged her complaint about Baker’s “lack of garb” and the censors deleted Baker’s performance from all subsequent screenings.

It wouldn’t be the last time official censors would have their way with African-American artists and their work on stage in Philadelphia.

[Sources include: “Dunbar Theatre To Open Monday, December 29th ,” The Philadelphia Tribune, December 27, 1919; “Shuffle Along,” The Philadelphia Inquirer, April 12, 1921; “Shuffle Along: Biggest New York Hit,” The Philadelphia Inquirer, December 11, 1921; “There are Many Colored Thespians,” The Philadelphia Inquirer, September 17, 1922; “’Shuffle Along:’ Breezy Musical Show Scores a Big Hit at the Forrest,” The Philadelphia Inquirer, May 8, 1923; “She Is a Real Comedy Chorus Girl,” The Philadelphia Inquirer, May 20, 1923; “How a Jazzer Views Such Music,” The Philadelphia Inquirer, November 23, 1924; “Chocolate Dandies Score at Dunbar,” The Philadelphia Inquirer, November 25, 1924; “Paris Night Life Scene Cut From Travel Film,” The Philadelphia Inquirer, February 19, 1928.]