Dahomey J. Leubrie Hill performer Walker, George performer Williams, Bert A. performer Walker, Ada Overton performer Theatrical Performance 1903-02-18 New York Theater A musical farce in three acts, 5 scenes. book by Jesse A. Shipp. Music by Will Marion cook. Lyrics by Paul Laurence Dunbar. The first full-length musical written and played by blacks to be performed at a major Broadway house. The lyrics were by the distinguished black poet Paul Laurence Dunbar and the music by Will Marion Cook. J. Leubrie Hil plays Bill Primrose in this prod. Williams as Shylock Homestead, Walker as Rareback Pinkerton his personal friend and advisor. Cook's numbers included a cakewalk in which the audience by its applause determined the winning pair of dancers, which included the superb cakewalk dancer Ada Overton as Rosetta Lightfoot. J.A. Shipp's libretto told how a group of unscrupulous Boston blacks form the Get-the-Coin Syndicate and broadcast their ambitions to colonize Africa with down-and-out American blacks. They send the hustling Pinkerton to Florida to bamboozle a senile old man out of his fortune. The good-natured simpleton, Homestead accompanies Rareback who makes the discovery that Shylock is worth far more money than the doting old fool he has been assigned to cheat. Rareback fast talks the slowwitted Shylock into making him his trustee and before long Rareback is strutting his way in the latest peacock clothes in the cream of Florida and Dahomey society. When the boys are made governors, the natives break out in an orgy of wild African dancing. The 53 performance run a triumphant breakthrough. 'The Theatre' pronounce Williams "a vastly funnier man than any white comedian now on the American stage." Opened 18 February 1903 at the New York theatre and closed 4 April 1903 after 53 performances. Musical numbers: "Musical Aristocracy"; "Society" (a recitative and grand conclusion, artistic song); "The Czar" appeals to the tastes of a musical comedy audience; "Mollie Green, a waltz song; "My Lady Frog" a sentimental song; "Emancipation Dance" a rhythmic march song, explicitly labeled "Song and Dance" soft-shoe tap. Performing Arts Encyclopedia http://www.loc.gov/performingarts Bordman, Gerald: American Musical Theatre: A Chronicle. New York: Oxford University Press (1992). Tap Dance America http://lcweb2.loc.gov/diglib/ihas/html/tda/tda-home.html tda IHAS 151216 loc.music.tda.323