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Edna Lewis Thomas
Edna Lewis Thomas (November 1, 1885 – July 22, 1974) was an American stage actress whose career began in New York City during the Harlem Renaissance. She appeared on Broadway, with the Lafayette Players theater company, and in productions by the Federal Theater Project of the Works Progress Administration. Her portrayal of Lady Macbeth in Orson Welles' all-Black "Voodoo" ''Macbeth'' in 1936 was much acclaimed. She was an influential figure in Black theater, and was a member of the Alhambra Players and the Harlem Experimental Theatre. She only appeared on screen once, in the 1951 film '' A Streetcar Named Desire''. Thomas was born in Virginia and raised in Boston. After moving to New York around 1916, she worked as a social secretary for the beauty entrepreneur Madam C. J. Walker. Though she was married to Lloyd Thomas, she started a long-term romantic relationship with British socialite Olivia Wyndham around 1930 and the three lived together for many years in a Harlem c ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Lady Macbeth
Lady Macbeth is a leading character in William Shakespeare's tragedy ''Macbeth'' (). As the wife of the play's tragic hero, Macbeth (a Scottish nobleman), Lady Macbeth goads her husband into committing regicide, after which she becomes queen of Scotland. After Macbeth becomes a murderous tyrant, she is driven to madness by guilt over their crimes, and commits suicide offstage. Lady Macbeth is a powerful presence in the play, most notably in the first two acts. Following the murder of King Duncan, however, her role in the plot diminishes. She becomes an uninvolved spectator to Macbeth's plotting and a nervous hostess at a banquet dominated by her husband's hallucinations. Her sleepwalking scene in the fifth act is a turning point in the play, and her line "Out, damned spot!" has become a phrase familiar to many speakers of the English language. The report of her death late in the fifth act provides the inspiration for Macbeth's "Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow" speech. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Vaudeville
Vaudeville (; ) is a theatrical genre of variety entertainment born in France at the end of the 19th century. A vaudeville was originally a comedy without psychological or moral intentions, based on a comical situation: a dramatic composition or light poetry, interspersed with songs or ballets. It became popular in the United States and Canada from the early 1880s until the early 1930s, but the idea of vaudeville's theatre changed radically from its French antecedent. In some ways analogous to music hall from Victorian Britain, a typical North American vaudeville performance was made up of a series of separate, unrelated acts grouped together on a common bill. Types of acts have included popular and classical musicians, singers, dancers, comedians, trained animals, magicians, ventriloquists, strongmen, female and male impersonators, acrobats, clowns, illustrated songs, jugglers, one-act plays or scenes from plays, athletes, lecturing celebrities, minstrels, a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Brooklyn Times-Union
The ''Brooklyn Times-Union'' was an American newspaper published from 1848 to 1937. Launched in 1848 as the ''Williamsburgh Daily Times'', the publication became the ''Brooklyn Daily Times'' when the cities of Brooklyn and Williamsburg were unified in 1855. The newspaper supported the then-progressive Republican Party, and the Abolition movement. Walt Whitman was one of their reporters, and was later the managing editor after he left the ''Brooklyn Daily Eagle''. The paper was published both daily and on Sunday, and had a peak circulation that included all of Kings County, and large segments of Nassau and Suffolk Counties. As the ''Brooklyn Daily Times'', the paper was published in various editions, including the Long Island, Wall Street, and Noon editions. The ''Daily Times'' was renamed the ''Brooklyn Times-Union'' after it bought out the ''Brooklyn Standard Union'' in 1932, and was itself bought out by the ''Brooklyn Eagle'' in 1937. Brooklyn's Times Plaza at the intersecti ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Macbeth
''Macbeth'' (, full title ''The Tragedie of Macbeth'') is a tragedy by William Shakespeare. It is thought to have been first performed in 1606. It dramatises the damaging physical and psychological effects of political ambition on those who seek power. Of all the plays that Shakespeare wrote during the reign of James I, ''Macbeth'' most clearly reflects his relationship with King James, patron of Shakespeare's acting company. It was first published in the Folio of 1623, possibly from a prompt book, and is Shakespeare's shortest tragedy. A brave Scottish general named Macbeth receives a prophecy from a trio of witches that one day he will become King of Scotland. Consumed by ambition and spurred to action by his wife, Macbeth murders King Duncan and takes the Scottish throne for himself. He is then wracked with guilt and paranoia. Forced to commit more and more murders to protect himself from enmity and suspicion, he soon becomes a tyrannical ruler. The bloodbath ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Lyric Theatre (New York City, 1903)
The Lyric Theatre was a Broadway theatre built in 1903 in the Theater District of Manhattan in New York City. It had two formal entrances: at 213 West 42nd Street and 214-26 West 43rd Street."Lyric Theatre Features". ''The New York Times.'' September 13, 1903 In 1934, it was converted into a which it remained until closing in 1992. In 1996, its interior was demolished and the space was combined with that of the former to create the Ford Center, now the new [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Run, Little Chillun
''Run, Little Chillun'' or ''Run Little Chillun'' is a folk opera written by Hall Johnson. According to James Vernon Hatch and Leo Hamalian, it is one of the most successful musical dramas of the Harlem Renaissance. It was the first Broadway show directed by an African-American. Development ''Run, Little Chillun'' or ''Run Little Chillun'' (the original score did not include the comma) is a folk opera play, or musical drama, written by Hall Johnson. The script was first published in 1996. Plot The play contrasts pagan and Christian religious traditions among Blacks in the American South. Productions The show premiered in 1933 on Broadway and ran for four months and 126 performances. It was revived in 1935–1937 by the Federal Theater Project and ran for two years in Los Angeles. It was directed by Clarence Edouard Muse. It was produced in 1939 in San Francisco at the Golden Gate International Exposition. In 1943 it was revived on Broadway at the Hudson Theatre. It was ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Shuffle Along
''Shuffle Along'' is a musical composed by Eubie Blake, with lyrics by Noble Sissle, and a book written by the comedy duo Flournoy Miller and Aubrey Lyles. One of the most notable all-Black hit Broadway shows, it was a landmark in African-American musical theater, credited with inspiring the Harlem Renaissance of the 1920s and '30s. The show premiered at the 63rd Street Music Hall in 1921, running for 504 performances, a remarkably successful span for that decade. It launched the careers of Josephine Baker, Adelaide Hall, Florence Mills, Fredi Washington and Paul Robeson, and was so popular it caused "curtain time traffic jams" on West 63rd Street.Kenrick, John"History of The Musical Stage, 1920s Part III: Black Musicals" musicals101.com. Retrieved August 22, 2009. A 2016 adaptation ''Shuffle Along, or, the Making of the Musical Sensation of 1921 and All That Followed'' focused on the challenges of mounting the original production, as well as its lasting effects on Broadway a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Belasco Theater
The Belasco Theatre is a Broadway theater at 111 West 44th Street, between Seventh Avenue and Sixth Avenue, in the Theater District of Midtown Manhattan in New York City. Originally known as the Stuyvesant Theatre, it was built in 1907 and designed by architect George Keister for impresario David Belasco. The Belasco Theatre has 1,016 seats across three levels and has been operated by The Shubert Organization since 1948. Both the facade and interior of the theater are New York City landmarks. The main facade on 44th Street is made of red brick in Flemish bond, with terracotta decorative elements. The ground floor contains the entrance, while the upper stories are asymmetrical and topped by a pediment. Belasco and his company had their offices in the western wing of the theater. A ten-room duplex penthouse apartment occupies the top of the eastern wing and contained Belasco's collection of memorabilia. The interior features Tiffany lighting and ceiling panels, rich woodwork ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Lulu Belle (musical)
''Lulu Belle'' is a hit 1926 musical directed by David Belasco. Spencer Williams was involved in the production of an adaptation with an African American cast. The 1948 film '' Lulu Belle'' was also adapted from the original musical. The play was written by Edward Sheldon and Charles MacArthur. The four-act play is set in San Juan Hill (an African American section on Manhattan's west side), Harlem, and Paris. One of the settings is a fictional Harlem nightclub called Elite Grotto. The lead roles of Lulu Belle and George Randall were portrayed by Lenore Ulric and Henry Hull in blackface Blackface is a form of theatrical makeup used predominantly by non-Black people, Black people to portray a caricature of a Black person. In the United States, the practice became common during the 19th century and contributed to the spread of .... References External links * {{IBDB title, id=9996, title=Lulu Belle 1926 films 1920s musical films American musical films 1920s American f ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
New York Public Library
The New York Public Library (NYPL) is a public library system in New York City. With nearly 53 million items and 92 locations, the New York Public Library is the second largest public library in the United States (behind the Library of Congress) and the fourth largest in the world. It is a private, non-governmental, independently managed, nonprofit corporation operating with both private and public financing. The library has branches in the boroughs of the Bronx, Manhattan, and Staten Island and affiliations with academic and professional libraries in the New York metropolitan area. The city's other two boroughs, Brooklyn and Queens, are not served by the New York Public Library system, but rather by their respective borough library systems: the Brooklyn Public Library and the Queens Public Library. The branch libraries are open to the general public and consist of circulating libraries. The New York Public Library also has four research libraries, which are also open to the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Martin Beck Theater
The Al Hirschfeld Theatre, originally the Martin Beck Theatre, is a Broadway theater at 302 West 45th Street in the Theater District of Midtown Manhattan in New York City. Opened in 1924, it was designed by G. Albert Lansburgh in a Moorish and Byzantine style and was constructed for vaudevillian Martin Beck. It has 1,404 seats across two levels and is operated by Jujamcyn Theaters. Both the facade and the interior are New York City landmarks. The Al Hirschfeld's auditorium and stage house share a design for their facade. There is a double-height arcade with cast-stone columns at the base of the theater. The eastern section of the arcade contains the auditorium entrance, the center section includes a staircase with emergency exits, and the western section leads to the stage house. Red brick is used for the upper stories of the facade. Albert Herter, a muralist who frequently collaborated with Lansburgh, oversaw much of the interior design. A square ticket lobby is directly in ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Harlem Alhambra
The Harlem Alhambra was a theater in Harlem, New York, built in 1905, that began as a vaudeville venue. The building still stands at 2108-2118 Adam Clayton Powell Jr. Boulevard (7th Avenue) at the South-West corner of 126th Street. The architect was John Bailey McElfatrick (1829–1906) who, based in Manhattan, founded the architectural firm John B. McElfatrick & Son – builder of 100 theaters. Construction on the structure commenced late 1902 by its original owner, Harlem Auditorium Amusement Company. Design The original design included specifications for a rathskeller, which was to be a reproduction of the Brunheil Rathskeller in Leipzig, a music hall, a roof garden, and an apartment house. The building is six stories. Initial opening The original owners started it in 1903; but it was not completed owing to litigation. At some point during the litigation, the Orpheum Amusement Company, of which Percy G. Williams (1857–1923) was president, acquired the property. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
