Black Broadway: African Americans on the Great White Way

These days we don’t think too much about seeing African-Americans on Broadway. With big stars like Audra McDonald, Philicia Rashad, Ben Vereen, Jennifer Holliday, and so many more, people today accept Broadway as a very diverse place. It wasn’t always that way. Before the 1970s, it was the exception, not the rule, to see African-Americans on stage in leading roles. It took well more than a hundred years of chipping away at the barriers blocking the stage door to reach this level of acceptance. It is a fascinating history, and this book does a beautiful job of telling the story.

Stewart F. Lane, a multiple Tony winning producer, certainly has the bone fides to write such a book, and he does not disappoint. This lovely coffee table book is richly illustrated with photos, both black-and-white and colored, reproductions of playbills, programs, paintings, and posters, and other illustrations. The design of the book is elegant and lavish. The writing is polished, and shows the expansive and thorough research Lane completed for this amazing work. Anyone with an interest in live theatre, history, and the African-American experience will treasure this.