When Broadway Was Black: Fireside Chat with Author Caseen Gaines

Renaissance Rhythms: From Harlem to New Haven

In partnership with local Cultural Activists and Curators Sha McAllister, Zanaiya Léon, and Juanita Sunday, New Haven celebrates the vibrancy and social impact of the Harlem and New Haven Renaissances. Learn more about these cultural movements, their historical impact, and the Black artists that led the way through a series of free events around New Haven, all culminating with the New Haven Symphony Orchestra’s Harlem Renaissance: Orchestral Voices concert on Saturday, April 13 at Southern CT State University. Click Here to View All Events in this Series. 

WHEN BROADWAY WAS BLACK:
Fireside Chat with Author Caseen Gaines

Join us in a Community Conversation with Author Caseen Gaines at Possible Futures Bookstore. NHSO’s Principal Pops Conductor, Chelsea Tipton II, will facilitate a discussion on Gaines’ books, When Broadway Was Black: The Triumphant Story of the All-Black Musical That Changed The World, and Footnotes: The Black Artists Who Rewrote the Rules of the Great White Way, which provide an in-depth look at Noble Sissle and Eubie Blake’s pioneering 1921 hit Shuffle Along, an all-Black Broadway cast and crew that revolutionized the cultural scene of the 1920s.

Chelsea Tipton will thread the narrative of these books to the lives of featured composers and their works on NHSO’s Harlem Renaissance: Orchestral Voices concert: Sissle was a frequent houseguest in Margaret Bonds’ Chicago family home where cultural luminaries of the time gathered; William Grant-Still began sketching Afro-American Symphony after concluding a tour with Shuffle Along as a pit orchestra performer; and James P. Johnson teamed up with the lead comedians in Shuffle Along to produce a sequel show which contains the piece Yamekraw.

This event is free Admission.

Support for this event is provided by CT Humanities.