Footnotes

The remarkable story of the 1921 trailblazing, all-Black musical, Shuffle Along, is explored in this well-researched and engrossing new book by pop-culture historian Gaines. We meet the innovative creators Noble Sissle, Eubie Blake, Flournoy Miller, and Aubrey Lyles on the show’s opening night as they nervously prepare to flee the theater, anticipating rioting crowds. With this tense opening chapter, the dichotomous experiences of Black artists on early-twentieth-century stages is exemplified perfectly; both dazzle and danger, and not always in equal measure. Through a well-paced and compelling narrative style, Gaines pays homage to the show that augured a new era for artists of color on Broadway. The book excels in describing the historical moment, seamlessly discussing a wide range of issues, including the role of African Americans in WWI and the racial violence in the country at large while also portraying the glamour of the time by introducing such Shuffle Along players as Josephine Baker, Paul Robeson, and Florence Mills, among others. Evocative and illuminating, Footnotes is an excellent addition to the canon of musical theater history. 

“Florence Mills, Gertrude Saunders, Lottie Gee, Josephine Baker—these are just a few of the women’s shoulders on which I stand. Before joining George C. Wolfe’s Black Broadway ‘Justice League’ in Shuffle Along, or, the Making of the Musical Sensation of 1921 and All That Followed, I knew nothing of Shuffle Along, its creators, nor the scope of the immaculate talent that ascended from its company. Shuffle Along will always be another example of rich history within the Black community, more specifically the Black artistic community, that is so often lost, erased, and forgotten. Learning about this show and performing in the 2016 Broadway production was life-changing in more ways than one. More importantly, it affirmed the responsibility to not only discover the treasures, work, and history of our ancestors, but to also shed light on such treasures and remind the world of the excellence and greatness of our people. For there is no ‘we’ without ‘them.’”

—Adrienne Warren, Tony Award nominee

Gaines is in full command of the material he has fastidiously researched and assembled.

A less heralded entry from the pantheon of the performing arts gets its well-deserved canonization in FOOTNOTES: The Black Artists Who Rewrote the Rules of the Great White Way (Sourcebooks, 435 pp., $26.99), by the journalist Caseen Gaines. The project at the heart of Gaines’s exuberant and thoroughly captivating book is the stage musical “Shuffle Along,” which became a Broadway hit in 1921 and was among the few shows of its time to feature a Black cast and creative team.

In telling the tale behind “Shuffle Along,” Gaines unpacks the stories of two different creative partnerships: one between the actors and book writers Flournoy Miller and Aubrey Lyles, and another between the composers and lyricists Noble Sissle and Eubie Blake. In an era when white and Black performers alike appeared regularly in blackface and a show ran the risk of instigating race riots in its audience if it depicted romantic love between two Black characters, the foursome strove to create a musical that would satisfy the tastes of Black audiences yearning for greater representation and less negative portrayals onstage while it flew under the radar of Jim Crow. The production that they devised — a loose revue with vaudeville roots about two Black business partners who compete against each other in a mayoral election — ran what was then a record-setting 504 performances over 60 weeks while helping to make popular standards out of songs like “I’m Just Wild About Harry.”

Gaines is in full command of the material he has fastidiously researched and assembled, and there is a lot of it here — even players like Josephine Baker and Paul Robeson, who both got early career breaks in “Shuffle Along,” have to settle for smaller supporting roles in his narrative. Still, by the conclusion of the book, I found myself wishing to hear even a little bit more about George C. Wolfe’s underappreciated 2016 Broadway staging of “Shuffle Along,” which dramatized the making of the original show; despite a starry cast and creative team, including the actors Billy Porter, Joshua Henry and Audra McDonald and choreography by Savion Glover, it played only 100 performances and won none of the 10 Tonys for which it was nominated. (The awards that year were dominated by another show called “Hamilton.”)

“With meticulous research and smooth storytelling, Caseen Gaines significantly deepens our understanding of one of the key cultural events that launched the Harlem Renaissance. Footnotes reminds us of the many talented, but forgotten, Black actors and musicians whose innovative productions helped shape our shared culture and history.”

—A’Lelia Bundles, New York Times bestselling author of On Her Own Ground: The Life and Times of Madam C. J. Walker

“What a gift! Footnotes is beautifully written, with Caseen Gaines telling a story that is absolutely vital to both the past and future of the theater.”

—Rachel Chavkin, Tony Award–winning director of Hadestown

“Think of history as a jigsaw puzzle. Caseen Gaines has unearthed one of those coveted, seemingly unremarkable pieces that suddenly turns a jumble of colors into a picture. In taking us through the story of Shuffle Along, Gaines brings the years surrounding the First World War to life, making a convincing case that the Roaring Twenties would have roared less loudly if it hadn’t been for this once-celebrated, now-forgotten show. A story of humans at once talented, flawed, courageous, blinkered, and visionary, Footnotes casts a valuable light on the role African Americans have played—and continue to play—in stage history.”

—Glen Berger, Emmy Award winner and author of Song of Spider-Man: The Inside Story of the Most Controversial Musical in Broadway History

In this well-researched compilation of behind-the-scenes stories and background, pop culture historian Gaines (Inside Pee-Wee’s Playhouse) celebrates the 100th anniversary of the original staging of the all-Black musical comedy Shuffle Along. The author introduces the four men behind the musical—vocalist Noble Sissle, comedian partners Flournoy Miller and Aubrey Lyles, and conductor/pianist Eubie Blake—and their struggles to keep the show afloat. The quartet were determined to change the narrative of the Black experience in America by presenting Black performers in roles that were nuanced and fully developed. However, the show was also steeped in stereotypes, used blackface, and cast only women who passed the colorist “brown paper bag test.” Still, Shuffle Along broke the taboo in American theater against depicting Black romantic love onstage, kick-started the career of a 16-year-old Josephine Baker, and gave us “I’m Just Wild About Harry,” which eventually became Harry Truman’s campaign song. And despite failures to revive the production owing to its racist tropes and stereotypes, Gaines persuasively argues that these four men shouldn’t be relegated to the footnotes of history, as their work resulted in monumental gains for many Black performers. VERDICT Theater buffs and students of Black history will be pleased by this cogent defense of Shuffle Along.

“Shuffle Along was the first of its kind when the piece arrived on Broadway. This musical introduced Black excellence to the Great White Way. Broadway was forever changed, and we, who stand on the shoulders of our brilliant ancestors, are charged with the very often elusive task of carrying that torch into our present. I am humbled to have been part of the short-lived 2016 historical telling of how far we’ve come, starring as Aubrey Lyles in Shuffle Along, or, the Making of the Musical Sensation of 1921 and All That Followed—and happy that Footnotes further secures his place in history.” 

—Billy Porter, Tony, Grammy, and Emmy Award–winning actor

“Footnotes is a remarkable, wonderful book. Caseen Gaines, a top-notch researcher and first-rate storyteller, vividly brings a colorful era to life, telling an important story that deserves to be better known. It’s a major contribution to culture and history, all told with Gaines’s usual empathy and wit.” 

—Brian Jay Jones, New York Times bestselling author of Jim Henson: The Biography

“A celebration of a groundbreaking musical that stands as a landmark in Black American cultural history. Journalist and historian of popular culture Gaines offers an animated, well-researched history of the creation, production, and long afterlife of Shuffle Along, a show that burst into the New York entertainment world in 1921 and was revived, in many iterations, as recently as 2016. Central to the story are four Black entertainers: composers and lyricists Noble Sissle and Eubie Blake, and comedians Flournoy Miller and Aubrey Lyles. Multitalented and determined, the men managed to transcend the racial prejudice that dominated the entertainment world at a time when Black characters—even when played by Blacks themselves—habitually darkened their skin with burnt cork. “They would cover their faces until they were the color of tar,” Gaines writes, “leaving just enough space for them to paint on a wide mouth with bright red or white exaggerated lips. The look would become complete with a natty wig, tattered clothing, white gloves, on occasion, and a heavy Southern drawl with English so broken, it was hardly intelligible.” While all-Black musicals and vaudeville acts were popular with diverse audiences in the early 1900s, they were characterized by minstrelsy, much to the growing resentment of the Black community. Shuffle Along was revolutionary, featuring “a fast-moving syncopated jazz score with snappy lyrics, beautiful brown dancers, political satire,” and a book that challenged social taboos. Opening at a time of intensified racial violence, particularly directed at Black soldiers returning from World War I, the musical’s success surprised everyone who participated. Gaines recounts in thorough detail the show’s performances, show-stopping songs, critical reception, financial woes and triumphs, and tours and singers, some of whom went on to stardom—e.g., Josephine Baker, who was hired for the chorus and, in 1925, found fame in Paris; and Florence Mills, who became one of the most popular Black entertainers in the world. A spirited, educative contribution to both theater history and Black history.”