# @mdhistory on Instagram

- **Type:** Image
- **Original URL:** https://www.instagram.com/p/CPN9HjMr8Mi
- **Gondola URL:** https://gondola.cc/posts/19780742-mdhistory-instagram
- **Thumbnail:** https://img.gondola.cc/tr:w-,h-,fo-auto/thumbnails/d7690953d8.jpg
- **Posted:** 2021-05-23T14:00:37.000+00:00
- **Account Owner:** Maryland Center for History and Culture (MCHC) (@mdhistory) — https://gondola.cc/mdhistory

## Caption

Today’s the day! #OnThisDay we’re celebrating the 100th anniversary of the original Broadway production of “Shuffle Along.” The show, with music and lyrics by Eubie Blake and Noble Sissle, originally opened in Trenton, New Jersey, with the troop traveling on to Washington, DC, and Philadelphia, among other stops before making its Broadway debut in New York City on May 23, 1921. 

Though the first full-length, all Black musical, titled “A Trip to Coontown,” written by and starring African Americans, bowed on Broadway in 1898, “Shuffle Along” broke the mold in multiple ways via its hugely successful profits, innovative score, and through the desegregation efforts for seating within its theaters.

By the time the Broadway production closed in July 1922, “Shuffle Along” had run more than 500 performances and early  in its run grossed an average $13,000 per week (around $180,000 today). But the show’s strongest legacy was in the way it shifted representation on stage for Black Americans and raised the regard for Black performers, opening doors for a new generation of African Americans in entertainment.

Image: Miller, Lyles, Sissle, Blake and the “Shuffle Along” company in Boston, the first stop of the touring company after the show’s Broadway run, photograph by Egan Jacoby, 1922. Maryland Center for History and Culture, H. Furlong Baldwin Library, Eubie Blake Photograph Collection, PP301.10

#EubieBlake #BaltimoreHistory #MDHistory #JazzHistory #Jazz #Ragtime #Baltimore #MusicHistory #ShuffleAlong #OTD

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## Tags

mdhistory, jazz, ragtime, musichistory, onthisday, shufflealong, eubieblake, baltimore, otd, jazzhistory, baltimorehistory

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