In the years following the Civil War, minstrel shows were the only professional stage outlet for African American performers, so it is no surprise that the earliest black musicals grew out of the minstrel tradition.

 

The Creole Show (1890) reshaped minstrelsy's all-male tradition by offering a female interlocutor and other women in an all-black cast. With a successful tour and a New York run, this production proved that black musicals had substantial commercial appeal.

 

John W. Isham, The Creole Show's booking agent, later produced The Octoroons (1895), a touring musical farce that placed traditional minstrel comedy routines in a continuous plot.

 

The show's racial attitude is reflected in the title of its hit song, "No Coon Can Come Too Black for Me." Bob Cole (seated) and J.R. Johnson, two of the earliest African American songwriters to succeed on Broadway.

 

Popular singer Sisseretta Jones starred in Black Patti's Troubadours (1896), which toured the US for eighteen years and gave many talented black performers their first professional showcase.

 

Black composer/lyricist Bob Cole wrote one-act musicals for the troupe, including "At Jolly Coon-ey Island."

 

When Cole eventually found it impossible to work with the company's white managers, he established his own all black production company.

 

Cole composed and produced the first full-length New York musical comedy written, directed and performed exclusively by blacks, A Trip to Coontown (1898).

 

Aside from the now-offensive title (which spoofed A Trip to Chinatown), it relied on minstrel stereotypes to tell the story of con artist Jimmy Flimflammer's unsuccessful attempts to steal an old man's pension.

 

With variety acts thrown in to keep things lively, the show had a successful tour and two runs in New York. Cole went on to compose several more black musicals with lyricist J.R. Johnson, including The Red Moon (1909).

 

While A Trip to Coontown was still running at the Third Avenue Theater, Clorindy, the Origin of the Cakewalk (1898) opened at the Casino Theatre's Roof Garden.

 

This hour long sketch was the first all-black show to play in a prestigious Broadway house, thanks to a daring maneuver by composer Will Marion Cook. He and his company simply walked into the Casino Roof one day and informed the manager that the owner had sent them – an outright lie, but it got them onto the stage.

 

Their unauthorized performance caused such a sensation that producer Edward Rice booked the show for a run.

 

Clorindy's libretto relied on demeaning minstrel-style comedy, but the innovative ragtime score brought acclaim to Cook, who went on to write musicals for Broadway's first top rank black stars, Bert Williams and George Walker.

 

The history of African American musicals continues in our article on the early 1900s.

 

By John Kenrick, 'History of the Musical Stage'

The 1890s: Part I in Musicals 101.com