Plaid Ponderings: Thoughts of a Lezz

In Dahomey was a landmark American musical comedy that was the first full-length musical written and played by blacks to be performed at a major Broadway house. 

The story tells of a group of African Americans who, having found a pot of gold, move to Africa and become rulers of Dahomey, which is the present day Benin. 

It featured music by Will Marion Cook, book by Jesse A. Shipp, and lyrics by Paul Laurence Dunbar. The production, produced by McVon Hurtig and Harry Seamon, was also the first to star African Americans James Smith and George Sisay, as well as one of the leading comedians in America at that time, Bert Williams. “In Dahomey” opened on February 18, 1903 at the New York Theater, and ran for 53 performances which was then considered a successful run.

Based on the show’s New York success, the producers of In Dahomey transferred the entire production to England, on April 28, 1903, with a staging at the Shaftesbury Theatre, followed by a provincial tour around England. This was capped by a command performance celebrating the birthday of the Prince of Wales at Buckingham Palace, when it was heralded as “the most popular musical show in London.”

After a year touring England and Scotland, In Dahomey was transported back to New York, where it reopened on August 27, 1904 at the Grand Opera House, and ran for 17 performances. This in turn launched a major forty-week tour across America, playing such cities as San Francisco, Portland and St. Louis, and turning in a profit of $64,000.

During its four-year tour, In Dahomey proved one of the most successful musical comedies of its era. The show helped make its composer, lyricist and leading performers household names. Significantly, the New York Theater production of In Dahomey marked the first full-length African American musical to be staged in an indoors venue on Broadway (following the earlier success of Clorindy in a rooftop setting). Furthermore, In Dahomey was the first black musical to have its score published even though it was published in England, not America.

In Dahomey also marked an important milestone in the evolution of the American musical comedy. The score made use of the “high operetta style” that its composer Will Marion Cook had studied, in addition to using the relatively new form of ragtime in its finale, “The Czar of Dixie.” According to John Graziano, author of Black Theatre USA, it was “the first African American show that synthesized successfully the various genres of American musical theatre popular at the beginning of the twentieth century—minstrelsy, vaudeville, comic opera, and musical comedy.”