VIDEOS: A Scene By Scene, Song By Song Synopsis of the Original 1921 SHUFFLE ALONG

While Broadway has previously offered backstage, fictional show within a show musicals like KISS ME, KATE and CURTAINS, there has never been a musical with the ambition of Shuffle Along Or The Making of the Musical Sensation of 1921 and All That Followed, director/bookwriter George C. Wolfe's exploration of the history of the landmark musical comedy SHUFFLE ALONG.

The musical that introduced Broadway audiences to the songwriting team of composer Eubie Blake and lyricist Noble Sissle was never expected to draw audiences all the way up to the 63rd Street Music Hall, but SHUFFLE ALONG ran for well over a year in an era when five or six months would be considered a success. While some of the stereotyped humor and song lyrics must be taken as an antiquated style of their time, SHUFFLE ALONG was especially noted for showing African-American characters expressing sincere, romantic love; a rarity in its time.

F.E. Miller and Aubrey Lyles adapted the book from their popular vaudeville sketch "The Mayor of Jimtown," where they played a pair of crooked politicians. Sissle also took on a role as the town's political boss and Blake conducted the orchestra.

There were no original cast albums in 1921, so this scene by scene synopsis of the original SHUFFLE ALONG is augmented by various recordings of songs from the score, many of the performed by Blake and Sissle themselves.

First, of course, comes the overture, as orchestrated by Will H. Vodery. This 2012 recording is by The Paragon Ragtime Orchestra.

ACT 1, SCENE 1

It's Election Day in Jimtown, which is located in Dixieland. On a street in front of the Jimtown Hotel, the chorus sings the opener, appropriately titled "Election Day."

Election Day, Election Day,

That's the day when everybody's happy,

That's the day when everybody's glad.

Election Day, Election Day,

That's the day when you forget

All the aches and pains you have had.

Supporters of mayoral candidates Steve Jenkins (F.E. Miller), Sam Peck (Aubrey Lyles) and Harry Walton sing praises of their men, followed by hotel owner Jim Williams voicing his support for Harry. After the rally, Jim tells his daughter Jessie that he'd support Harry even if she wasn't going to marry him after the election.

Jessie's chum Ruth teases her pal about her upcoming wedding, but explains why marriage isn't for her with the song "I'm Simply Full Of Jazz."

Noble Sissle himself is the vocalist for this recording.

Harry now enters, and is approached by a fellow named Onions, who works in a grocery store jointly owned by Jenkins and Peck. He tells Harry that his vote can be bought for $5.00, but when the honest Harry refuses, Williams reminds him that he will only allow his daughter to wed him if he wins the election. Left alone, Harry and Jessie sing "Love Will Find A Way," considered a groundbreaking song because serious love ballads sung by black characters were unheard of up until then. Again, Sissle is heard in this recording, with Blake on piano.

Next we meet Tom Sharper, the political boss of Jimtown; a role originated by Noble Sissle. His party has nominated Jenkins and he tries to convince the wife of Peck to drop out of the race. But Mrs. Peck has her heart set on being first lady. Uncle Ned comes by (exactly whose uncle he is isn't clear) and Sharper offers him $10 for his vote, but he refuses, having been brought up with honesty in those "good old bandana days."

Here are Blake and Sissle and "Bandana Days."

Jenkins and Peck enter in the middle of a heated argument. Peck refuses Jenkins' offer to make him vice-major if he drops out of the race. Still, Jenkins, a Republican, feels assured of victory since he's already voted for himself four times. Peck, running as an independent, hasn't voted for himself even once because he can't bring himself to vote against the party of Lincoln.

After a comedy scene where Peck heckles Jenkins' attempt to make a speech, there's a specialty minstrel song performed by Uncle Tom and Old Black Joe. (While surviving copies of the script place their entrance here, theatre programs place it in act two. Musicals were more flexible back then.) Their song, "Uncle Tom and Old Black Joe," spoofs post-Civil War politics.

We have elected every president since '63.

The last one that we elected was old Booker T.

If you want to know who makes Jimtown go,

It's Uncle Tom and Old Black Joe.

Sharper surprises Jenkins with the news that Peck has spent twice as much on his campaign as he has. Since the two candidates are partners in the same business, the party boss has sent for a detective from New York named Keeneye to prove that Peck is a thief, but Jenkins is afraid he'll uncover his own thievery.

Sharper can't wait for the election to be over, so he can get down to the more pleasurable business of marrying his sweetheart, Emaline, as he explains with "In Honeysuckle Time." Here's Sissle singing the number he introduced in the show.

ACT 1, SCENE 2

In a quick scene in front of the curtain to cover up a set change, Mrs. Peck makes it clear to her husband that when he's elected mayor, she's the one who'll really be in charge. Also, since she suspects Jenkins has been stealing profits, she herself has sent for Keeneye from New York.

Jessie and Ruth finish the scene with "Gypsy Blues," where Jessie sings of having her palm read by a gypsy, but running off before hearing what she had to say.

This 1921 recording is by The Happy Six.

ACT 1, SCENE 3

The curtain opens with Onions asleep on the job in Jenkins and Peck's grocery store. A lengthy comedy scene plays off the general incompetence of the owners and their employee.

Jack Penrose, a/k/a Keeneye, enters and, dealing with each owner separately, takes fees from both of them for his detective services. Word arrives that Jenkins has won the election and Williams, a man of his word, reminds Harry that he won't allow him to marry Jessie. In the first act finale, the chorus reminds the dejected pair that "Love Will Find A Way."

ACT 2, SCENE 1

A traffic officer working his station signals pedestrians and vehicles with his semaphore. Uncle Ned harasses him with questions about his salary and his recent jail time, but the officer orders him to "shuffle along," which leads into a company sing of the title song.

Everyone in town is always singing this song:

Shuffle along, shuffle along.

Doctors, bakers, undertakers, do a step

That's full of pep and syncopation.

Sharper offers sympathy to Jessie for her father's forbidding her to marry Harry after losing, but Jessie says that want make any difference, and launches into the score's most enduring hit, "I'm Just Wild About Harry." This piano roll from 1973 has the song as played by Eubie Blake himself.

Jenkins enters, followed by citizens who insist he promised them government jobs in in exchange for their votes. The mayor-elect explains that he made those promises before he was elected, and can't be expected to keep them now. Peck wants him to keep his promise to make him Chief of Police, but Jenkins says that anyone who believes campaign promises does have the sense to be Chief of Police. Peck insists they box to settle the argument and the two engage in a comic fisticuffs ballet.

ACT 2, SCENE 2

Harry enters in front of the curtain and, for no better reason than to cover up a scene change, sings "Sing Me To Sleep, Dear Mammy (With a Hush-A-Bye-Pickaninny Tune)."

Won't you sing me to sleep, dear Mammy,

With a "Hush-a-Bye-O-Pickaninny" tune.

Just like you did in Alabamy?

Mammy, let me hear you croon,

"Go to sleep, ma honey. Sandman's coming soon.

He's watching you up yonder in the moon."

Harry exits and re-enters with a telephone. Jessie enters from the other side, also holding a phone and he sings to her, "Everything Reminds Me Of You." (This is another song that may have occurred later in the act.)

In the blues of the skies

I see the blue of your eyes.

In the trilling song of a bird

Your voice is heard.

It thrills me, stills me,

With love's anguish fills me.

In the white fleur-de-lys,

An emblem of your purity,

And when the bee sips the vine,

I feel your lips touch mine.

ACT 2, SCENE 3

The mayor's office. An office boy makes an acrobatic routine out of doing the dusting and five stenographers with typewriters perform a dance called "Syncopated Stenos."

Jim Williams enters, complaining to Jack Penrose how tax dollars are being wasted by the new mayor's extravagance. Penrose reveals himself to be a detective, and coincidentally, a good friend of Harry's, assuring Williams that he'll be able to uncover corruption that will discredit both Jenkins and Peck and have Harry taking office as the new mayor.

After some comedy business between the mayor and his chief of police demonstrating their incompetence, they're visited by the specialty act, The Four Harmony Kings, asking to arrange for a concert in town. They sing for the mayor to demonstrate their talent. The plot takes a time out for the quartet to perform a few popular songs from their repertoire. One of them, "Goodnight, Angeline," is by Sissle, Blake and James Reese Europe. This recording is by the Paragon Ragtime Orchestra.

Their final number is the traditional comic spiritual, "Ain't It A Shame?," performed in this period recording by the great Lead Belly.

Jenkins coaxes Peck to join in and sing the scandalous "If You've Never Been Vamped By a Brownskin (You've Never Been Vamped at All)." This recording is by Sissle and Blake.

"Uncle Tom and Old Black Joe" and "Everything Reminds Me of You" may have been performed here to close the scene.

ACT 2, SCENE 4

Sharper discovers Peck on night patrol, guided by a lighted lamp, looking for the crooked Slippery Jim. Sharper notes that the chief has got the oldest lamp he's ever seen, next to Aladdin's. And that offhand remark cues his singing of "Oriental Blues."

I've got those Oriental blues,

I've got those Oriental blues.

I like to take a trip across the China Sea

To old Shanghai. Sip a cup of China tea

With poor Butterfly,

Then spend a day at old Bombay

Watching those Hindu maidens sway.

Penrose enters, followed by Mrs. Peck, who demands information about her husband being robbed by Jenkins. The detective explains that the jig is up.

"When I got here, I found Steve robbing Sam, Sam robbing Steve, and Onions robbing the both of them. And I in turn robbed all three of them."

He hands the stolen money to Mrs. Peck, telling her to make sure her husband and Jenkins are back in their grocery store tomorrow, ready to run a clean business. When she insists that they have to be at the mayor's office tomorrow, Penrose informs her that he has the necessary proof of corruption to make Harry the new mayor.

Ruth, who hasn't had a song since the end of Act 1, enters to make up for lost time and sings "I'm Craving for That Kind of Love," sung in this 1921 recording by the role's originator, Gertrude Saunders.

Her encore was "Daddy, Won't You Please Come Home?," sung in this 1929 recording by Annette Hanshaw.

ACT 2, SCENE 5

We're in the ballroom of the Jimtown Hotel, for what can be assumed to be Harry's inauguration celebration. There's no more scripted dialogue, but the audience can assume details of the happy ending.

What happened here at every performance is that Eubie Blake would step out of the orchestra pit, where he was conducting, to join Noble Sissle in performing a few selections of whatever they felt like. Typically they would open with "Gee, I'm Glad That I'm from Dixie" and close with "On Patrol in No Man's Land."

Blake would then go back to the pit and Sissle would step back into character for "Baltimore Buzz," followed by Jenkins and Peck bringing down the curtain with "African Dip."

Now previewng, Shuffle Along Or The Making of the Musical Sensation of 1921 and All That Followed, is a new production that presents both the 1921 musical itself, and additionally details the events that catalyzed the songwriting team of Noble Sissle and Eubie Blake, and librettists F.E. Miller and Aubrey Lyles, to create this groundbreaking work.

SHUFFLE ALONG has a new book and is directed by George C. Wolfe, choreographed by Savion Glover, and stars six-time Tony Award winner Audra McDonald, Tony Award winners Brian Stokes Mitchell and Billy Porter, and Tony Award nominees Brandon Victor Dixon and Joshua Henry, heading a cast of 34. Opening night is Thursday, April 28 at the Music Box Theatre (239 West 45 Street).

In May 1921, the new musical Shuffle Along became the unlikeliest of hits, significantly altering the face of the Broadway musical as well as that of New York City. By the time Shuffle Along stumbled into town after a back-breaking pre-Broadway tour, it was deeply in debt and set to open at a remote Broadway house on West 63rd Street. In a season full of spectacles, such as Sally - a Ziegfeld musical - and another edition of George White's Scandals, Shuffle Along's failure was almost a foregone conclusion. New York City was still in the throes of the Depression of 1920. And despite being celebrated vaudeville performers, Miller and Lyles and Sissle and Blake had never performed on Broadway, much less written a musical. But with an infectious jazz score and exuberant dancing, Shuffle Along ignited not just Broadway but all of New York City. George Gershwin, Fanny Brice, Al Jolson, Langston Hughes, and famed critic George Jean Nathan were among the many fans who repeatedly flocked to West 63rd Street to see a cast which - during its run of 504 performances - featured such incipient luminaries as Josephine Baker, Paul Robeson, Florence Mills, Fredi Washington, and Adelaide Hall. Because of Shuffle Along, Uptown and Downtown met and became one.

The 2016 SHUFFLE ALONG brings the original show back to glorious life, while simultaneously telling the remarkable backstage story of both its historic creation and how it changed the world it left behind.

SHUFFLE ALONG Or The Making of the Musical Sensation of 1921 and All That Followed has music supervision, arrangements, and orchestrations by Daryl Waters, scenic design by Santo Loquasto, costume design by Ann Roth, sound design by Scott Lehrer, and lighting design by Jules Fisher & Peggy Eisenhauer. Shelton Becton is the Musical Director.