- Description
Tap Dance America is a reference work of bibliographic information and does not point to digitized versions of the items described. The Library of Congress may or may not own a copy of a particular film or video. To request additional information Ask a Librarian.
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From:
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Liza / Maceo Pinkard [theatrical performance]
- Title
- Liza [Theatrical Performance]
- Performers
- Pinkard, Maceo
- Greenlee and Drayton
- R. Eddie Greenlee
- Drayton, Thaddius
- Rector, Eddie
- Weinglass, Dewey
- Published/Created
- 1922-11-27
- Genre
- Theatrical Performance
- Venue
- Daly's
- Abstract
- A musical comedy in two acts, 10 scenes. Book by Irvin C. Miller. Music and Lyrics by Maceo Pinkard. Entire production staged by Walter Brooks. Opened 27 November 1922 at Daly's Theatre, moved 12 March 1923 to the Nora Byes Theatre, and closed 21 April after 172 performances.
Starring Margaret Simms, Gertrude Saunders, R. Eddie Greenlee (as Ras Johnson) and Thaddius Drayton (as Dandy). A chorus of eight female Brown Skin Vamps; eight female Jimtown flappers; eight Dancing Girls; and eight Struttin' Dandies.
In what many felt was a worthwhile successor to Shuffle Along (5/23/21), audiences were transported back to Jimtown, South Carolina, where an effort is being made to erect a monument to the town's deceased mayor where the town's dandies grow rich pocketing the funds. There was much praise for Maceo Pinkard's music but the highest praise reserved for the dancing, especially for that of the four dancing choruses. Words like "joyous" "zesty" "vital" filled the morning after columns. "After seeing Liza we have a vague impression that all others dancers whom we ever saw did nothing but minuets." wrote Heywood Broun in The New York World (28 November 1922)
R. Eddie Greenlee and and Thaddeus Drayton, in top hats and tails, wearing monocles and carrying canes, danced the Virginia "Essence" with the Boys, in addition to a number of dance specialties; "It was the first time that any Negro dancer had done those steps in anything but overalls" said Drayton. 'Before out act, it was always a blackface comedian and a straight man, like Williams and Walker." Greenlee and Maude Russell danced the Charleston. Johnny Nit in the program dancing "Jimtown Speedster" but apparently did not perform in Liza; Eddie Rector (neither mentioned in the program nor by the reviewers, having substituted at the last minute for Johnny Nit) closed the show with a waltz clog.
Other dances were the Charleston, Russian, tap, legomania. - Source
- Bordman, Gerald: American Musical Theatre: A Chronicle. New York: Oxford University Press (1992).
Last Updated: 12-16-2015