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The Hot Mikado / Bill "Bojangles" Robinson [theatrical performance]

Title

The Hot Mikado [Theatrical Performance]

Performers

Robinson, Bill "Bojangles"

Three Poms

Atkins, Charles "Cholly"

Cotton Club Boys

Whitey's Lindy Hoppers

Published/Created

1939-03-23

Genre

Theatrical Performance

Venue

Broadhurst Theater

Abstract

A swing version of the Gilbert and Sullivan operetta in two acts. Book and lyrics by William S. Gilbert. Music by Arthur Sullivan. Swing orchestrations by Charles L. Cooke. chorale direction by William Parson. Dance arrangements by Tryly Mcgee. Produced by Michael Todd. Entire production, book and ensembles staged by Hassard Short. Opened 23 March 1939 at the Broadhurst Theatre and closed 3 June 1939 after 85 performances. And subsequently transferred to the 1939 World Fair in Flushing Meadows, Queens for an extended run through the end of September 1939.

Cast: Robert Pharris (Nanki-Poo), Eddie Green (Ko-Ko), Maurice Ellis (Pooh-Bah), Rosetta LeNoire (Peep-bo), Rosa Brown (Katisha), Bill Robinson as the Mikado.

Singing Girls (19), Singing boys (23); Dancing Girls: Ronetta Batson, Valerie Black, Mitzi Coleman, Elaine Dash, Elizabeth Dozier, Claudie Hayward, Sylvia Lee, Jackie Lewis, Cleo Law, Pearl Mccormack, Ruby Richards, Mary Robinson. Jitterbug Girls: Cladys Croder, Geneva Davis, Belle Hill, Connie Hill, May Miller, Mildred Pollard. Jitterbug Boys: Eddie Davis, Leon James, Walter Johnson, Lee Lyons, Albert Minns, Russell Williams. "Tap-a-Teers": Louis Brown, Jules Adger, Ernest Frazier, Fred Heron, Chick Lee, Eddie John Williams, Luther Williams. Quartet: Travers Crawford, Otho Gains, Harry Lewis, Elmaurcie Miller.

Mike Todd's version of "The Hot Mikado" had Bill Robinson in the title role. Robinson strutted in a gold suit, gold shoes, with a gold derby and gold cane. Todd's chorus girls tapped away bedecked nattily in slacks on a stage filled with stylized, modern decor. Todd moved his production lock, stock and barrel to the World's Fair in Flushing to avoid losing money.

Marion Worthy Warner , one of the members of the tap dance team The Three Poms (Ludie Jones, Peggy Warton, and Warner), was a member of the Mikado dancing chorus.

Cholly Atkins in the summer of 1939 gets a job working as one of the Cotton Club boys in the Hot Mikado. A number of Whitey's Lindy Hoppers were in the show including Norma Miller, William Ricker, and Leon James. "All the dances were tap routines" remembers Atkins.

Wrote the Chicago Defender: "The G&S words and music were faithful in the main, save for the syncopated renditions, but Robinson's "Make the Punishment Fit the Crime" was more topical with phraseology about numbers, sweepstakes, Father Divine, Joe Louis, etc."

Parts of the show were broadcast over WJZ-NBC Radio, New York City on April 23, 1939 (Chicago Defender April 26, 1939 in Swinging On the Etherwaves: A Chronological History of African Americans in Radio and Television Broadcasting, 1925-1955, 288)

Source

Bordman, Gerald: American Musical Theatre: A Chronicle. New York: Oxford University Press (1992).

Sampson, Henry T.: Swingin' On the Etherwaves: A Chronological History of African Americans in Radio and Television Broadcasting, 1925-1955. Lanham, Md.: Scarecrow Press (2005).

Norton Anthology of Drama: Norton Anthology of Drama: Nineteenth Century to the Present (Vol. 2). W.W. Norton & Company (2009).

Last Updated: 12-16-2015