Black Performing Arts Ephemera assortment

Item Details

various, stapled wrappers

VG-Fine

An assortment of sheet music, playbills, & promotional materials from theatrical & musical productions featuring all- or predominantly Black casts. 

1) Fly Blackbird by Clarence Bernard & James Hatch in The Playgoer, from the Metro Theatre, Los Angeles, CA.  32 pp. Near Fine. Bernard Jackson (1927-1996) was an African-American playwright and the founder of the Inner City Cultural Center in Los Angeles, one of the first arts institutions in the country to promote multiculturalism.  In 1959, Jackson co-wrote (with James Hatch), the book and music for Fly Blackbird, a musical dealing with civil rights. The production featuring a multiethnic cast (including a young, pre-Star Trek George Takai) & was very popular with audiences, if not with critics. 

  2) The Ebonite, by Luther Whitsitt, Directed by Tony Baynes. Playbill from the Chapel Theatre in Torrance, CA. Nd, but research dates it to 1967. 8 pages, stapled mimeographed wrappers. Near Fine.  This was the first attempt at play writing by this African-American teacher from San Pedro, CA, praised in this program for "being a Negro [who can] bring the middle-class Negro's way of life into the story..."

3) The Member of the Wedding starring Ethel Waters in The Playgoer from the Biltmore Theatre, Los Angeles, CA.  Nd, c. 1951. 55 pages, stapled wrappers. Fine: colorful & clean. After appearing in the play on Broadway (the first Black woman to break the color barrier there), Waters went on to star in the 1952 film version of this Carson McCullers novel. She went on to break other barriers for African American women on both the stage & movie & television screens.

4) The Amen Corner: A Drama in Three Acts, by James Baldwin, in The Playgoer from Robertson Playhouse, Los Angeles, CA. Nd, c. 1956. 31 pp, stapled wrappers. Fine. This play was novelist Baldwin's first work for the stage, building on the success of his novel Go Tell It on the Mountain. Published in 1954, it later would become the first play with an all-Black cast to open in London's West End. 

5) A Raisin in the Sun, by Lorraine Hansberry, in Playbill from the Royale Theatre on Broadway (NY), May 2004. 59 pp in stapled wrappers. Fine. First published in 1959, based on a poem by the famed poet of the Harlem Renaissance, Langston Hughes, this play was the first by an African American woman to be produced on Broadway. The current production is notable for starring Sean Combs, Audra McDonald, Phylicia Rashad, & Sanaa Lathan. 

6) Pearl Primus and Her Company promotional brochure.  (9" x 11.75") 14 pp. Black-&-white stapled wrappers. Near Fine. Introduction to this innovative black dance troupe founded by Trinidadian Pearl Primus, (1919-1994). While at Hunter College studying to become a doctor, Primus found herself “overcome by the desire for dancing” changed her major to Anthropology, then Biology. After graduating & working odd jobs, she obtained a scholarship to the New Dance Group in 1941, a left-wing school & performance group on New York's Lower East Side, where she was the group's first black student. She went on to study with Martha Graham & made her Broadway debut in 1944 at the Bealson Theatre, performing a dance choreographed to a poem by Langston Hughes. Primus has been honored within the dance community & on a larger scale by multiple US presidents for bringing African dance to American audiences, helping dispel myths & contribute to indigenous cross-cultural expression. She is recognized as a "griot,'' or "the voice of cultures in which dance is embedded."

7) Porgy and Bess souvenir program. George Gershwin’s final work, based on the play “Porgy” by Dubose & Dorothy Heyward. This program is from the revival of the Broadway production by Cheryl Crawford, which had initially run for 168 performances but was a financial failure. The revival maintained most of its original cast, including Etta Moten, Avon Long, & William Franklin (Porgy), with music by the Eva Jessye Choir, directed by Robert Ross. Cover art by caricaturist Al Hirschfeld. Condition is only Fair: holes & chipping (insect damage) to most edges of cover & top of second page. Stapled binding is secure, pages white & unmarked.

8) “You Do” musical score. For vocal orchestrations, small & full orchestra, violin, & piano. (Edware B. Marks Music Co, New York, NY). 6 pp. Unbound sheet music. with colorful cover art stereotypically depicting African-American characters in a watermelon patch. The song was written in 1930 & was featured in the 1946 musical Time Place and Girl (produced by Joseph E. Howard, music & lyrics by Howard with Frank Bannister)  which premiered at the Garrick Theatre in Chicago, IL. Condition is Good, with light rubbing to extremities, lighter soil.  

9) Spirituals: Time-Honored Songs of the Negro People, compiled and arranged for treble voices (S.S.A) by William Stickles (New York, NY: Chas H. Hansen Music Corp., 1948).

One (the Brown book) of 4 volumes (others were Blue, Green, & Red) issued, the others being for male & mixed voices, with & without piano accompaniment. It contains 50 songs, alphabetically indexed by title in front, in 64 pages, with decorative brown/white/black wrappers, stapled binding. Stickles (1882-1971) was a well-respected pianist, teacher, composer, & arranger from Queens, NY. Condition is Good+: wrappers have completely separated from the text block, & there is a 1” vertical tear to center & chip to head of front cover, along with creasing, number in small pen, & old stamps from Horace Mann Junior High School in San Diego, CA, to both covers. Else, the interior is Near Fine: completely clean, bright, pages white & unmarked.

10) A Book of Negro Songs:  contains 19 spirituals + 21 other songs (40 total), alphabetically indexed by title in front. In in 40 pages, with purple wrappers lettered in white, stapled binding. Condition is VG+, with very slight edgewear, pages creamy white & unmarked save for former owner’s name in pen to top of title page.  Tobitt (1898-1984) was at this time the musical consultant to the Girl Scouts of the USA, & writes in her Foreword here how her purpose is the document the “wide contribution of Negro Music to American culture.” She offers a brief history of the spiritual & describes how the other songs,--including work & play songs, ballads, lullabies, shanties, carols, graces, & the blues—“reflect the whole gamut of human moods & activities.” The use of dialect in transcribing the songs has been deliberately avoided, & every attempt made to trace copyrights to their legitimate owners.