{"id":17366,"date":"2023-02-03T19:23:29","date_gmt":"2023-02-03T19:23:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mobballet.org\/?p=17366"},"modified":"2025-04-21T07:16:20","modified_gmt":"2025-04-21T07:16:20","slug":"from-ballet-to-broadway-and-black-orbit-lew-leslies-blackbirds-of-1939","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mobballet.org\/index.php\/2023\/02\/03\/from-ballet-to-broadway-and-black-orbit-lew-leslies-blackbirds-of-1939\/","title":{"rendered":"From Ballet to Broadway and Black Orbit: Lew Leslie’s Blackbirds of 1939"},"content":{"rendered":"

From Broadway to Ballet and Black and Lew Leslie’s Blackbirds of 1939<\/em><\/h2>\n
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Visit the Orbit of Lew Leslie’s Blackbirds of 1939 in From Broadway to Ballet and Black<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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Playbill for Blackbirds of 1939<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Lew Leslie’s Blackbirds<\/em><\/span> of 1939<\/span><\/em> was the last musical review in his series of all-black <\/span>Blackbirds<\/span><\/i> productions. Leslie was commonly known as “Black Ziegfeld”, despite being white, because his shows featured Black performers and gave them a platform that they did not ordinarily have. Starting from its debut on February 11, 1939 to its closing on February 18, 1939, Blackbird\u2019s of 1939<\/i> ran for 9 performances at the Hudson Theater of New York City and it was designed and supervised by Mabel A. Buell<\/span>. Blackbirds of 1939 <\/em>featured the Von Grona Negro Swing Ballet which was comprised of prominent Black ballet dancers and led by Eugene Van Grona, the founder of the American Negro Ballet.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Blackbirds of 1939<\/em> is a musical that takes inspiration from vaudeville. The show has 2 acts which are each comprised of a series of musical and dance performances. Act 1 has 12 segments and introduces Von Grona’s Negro Swing Ballet, featuring Beryl Clark and Al Bledger, in Children of the Earth<\/em>. Act 2 has 9 segments, including the finale, and features the J. Rosamond Johnson Choir in addition to Von Grona’s Swing Ballet.<\/p>\n

Sources<\/strong>:<\/p>\n

Blackbirds of 1939, <\/em>Playbill<\/a>
\nBlackbirds of 1939, Jazz Standards<\/a><\/p>\n

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More about Blackbirds of 1939<\/em><\/h2>\n
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The Hudson Theater of New York City<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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Program for Blackbirds of 1939<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

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Broadway Theater: The Hudson Theater of New York City lies in the Theater District of Midtown Manhattan, New York City. It is one of the oldest surviving Broadway venues and was constructed between 1902-1903. The theater has 970 seats across three levels and it consists of a ground-level orchestra and two overhanging balconies. It was operated by<\/span> Henry B. Harris until he died on the sinking of the Titanic in 1912.\u00a0<\/span>The theater reopened as a Broadway venue in 2017 and is currently operated by the Ambassador Theater Group.<\/span><\/p>\n

Staging and Production: Lew Leslie
\nDancers: Marion Brown, Dorothy Jones, Evelyn Pilcher, Edith Ross, Hazel Spence, Lavinia Williams, Alfred (Al) Bledger, Edith Hurd, Muriel Cook, and Coleman Hill
\n<\/span>Music: Rube Bloom
\n<\/span>Lyrics: Johnny Mercer
\n<\/span>Orchestral Arrangements: Ferde Grode and Ken Macomber
\n<\/span>Setting: Mabel A. Buell
\n<\/span>Costumes: Frances Feist
\n<\/span>Choral Arrangements: J. Rosemond Johnson
\n<\/span>Choreography: Eugene Van Grona and Von Grona\u2019s Negro Swing Ballet<\/span><\/p>\n

Sources<\/strong>:<\/p>\n

The Hudson Theater, Wikipedia\u00a0<\/a>
\nThe Hudson Theater, New York Times\u00a0<\/a><\/p>\n

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More about Von Grona’s Negro Swing Ballet in Blackbirds of 1939<\/em><\/h2>\n

Eugene Von Grona trained in dance in Germany and arrived in New York City in 1928. He formed the American Negro Ballet in 1934 after seeing the zeal of the artists working in Harlem, noting the new type of dance energy he saw in them that was lacking in European dancers. He thought that the dancers he found for his company \u201cdidn\u2019t have the opportunity\u201d for technique classes and so he gave it to them at the American Negro Ballet. ANB was the first professional company to feature concert dance with Black members on a scale that garnered acceptance from the media as well as criticism.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

They used the term \u201cballet\u201d to describe all the dances they were doing, though not a classical ballet company. <\/span>The American Negro Ballet Company debuted at the Lafayette Theater in Harlem on November 21, 1937 but the company survived for barely a year before its demise in 1938. In 1939, Van Grona revived the American Negro Ballet Company and renamed it \u201cVon Grona\u2019s Swing Ballet\u201d when the company appeared in the Broadway show, <\/span>Blackbirds of 1939<\/span><\/i>.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

In 1939, the members of the company were Valerie Cavell, <\/span>Marion Brown<\/span>, <\/span>Beryl Clarke<\/span>, Viola Gibson, <\/span>Dorothy Jones<\/span>, Harriet Oliver, <\/span>Evelyn Pilcher<\/span>, <\/span>Edith Ross<\/span>, Pearl Spears, <\/span>Hazel Spence<\/span>, Ettie Stephens, Willard Taylor, Elizabeth Thompson, <\/span>Lavinia Williams<\/span>, Wahneta Talley, Teddy Allen, <\/span>Alfred (<\/span>Al) Bledger<\/span>, Jon Edward, Anthony Fleming, Frank Green, <\/span>Coleman Hill<\/span>, James Smith, and Harry Young. <\/span><\/p>\n

Sources<\/strong>: <\/span><\/p>\n

“Which was the first?” A historical essay on the first Black Dance Company in the USA<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

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\"\" Morinsola Tinubu<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

From Broadway to Ballet and Black and Lew Leslie’s Blackbirds of 1939 Lew Leslie’s Blackbirds of 1939 was the last musical review […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":134,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"universe-template.php","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[301,253],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-17366","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-from-ballet-to-broadway-and-black","category-universe"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mobballet.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17366","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mobballet.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mobballet.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mobballet.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/134"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mobballet.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17366"}],"version-history":[{"count":21,"href":"https:\/\/mobballet.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17366\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18792,"href":"https:\/\/mobballet.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17366\/revisions\/18792"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mobballet.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17366"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mobballet.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17366"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mobballet.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17366"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}