This transcript was automatically generated and might contain errors.

[0:00] Martín Acuña: Hi, everyone. I am Martín Acuña, and you are listening to Backstage Talk.

[0:16] Martín Acuña: Hello, everyone. Welcome back to another episode of Backstage Talk. Today's guest is Caseen Gaines.

[0:22] Martín Acuña: He is an author, director, educator, and popular culture historian. His work has been praised from media outlets around the world. And I am super excited to have him here because he just published a book called When Broadway Was Black. And I'm really excited to have him over and tell us about the stuff that he's writing on in this book. So, Caseen, thank you so much for being a guest. Welcome to Backstage Talk.

[0:49] Caseen Gaines: Thank you so much for having me. I'm excited to be here. So, what did I miss from your bio? I know that that was like really big and generic, but I'm really interested to know how you ended up writing about pop culture and history and, yeah, and being all the things that you are.

[1:07] Caseen Gaines: Well, you know, I grew up watching entirely too much TV, I suppose. And so, you know, I was always sort of fascinated with behind-the-scenes stories of popular culture things. I remember really specifically the first time I learned about how they made the shot that goes from black and white to technicolor in The Wizard of Oz, and hearing how that was described. And I was just fascinated by it. And I was like, well, people should sort of share these stories because I think when you know the behind-the-scenes things, it makes you just appreciate the artwork even more. So, I've written a number of books, mostly about film and television. I've written a book about the Back to the Future trilogy, and The Dark Crystal, and E.T. the Extraterrestrial, among other things.

But I'm a theater lover. You know, I love Broadway. I'm blessed to be in New Jersey, not that far from New York, not that far from Manhattan at all. And so, I go in to see shows all the time. And, you know, when I learned of the story of Shuffle Along in particular, I just felt like while, yes, there was, you know, the George C. Wolfe 2016 production, there were certain... Shuffle Along had been written about in The New York Times. There were certain, like, spaces where you could see Shuffle Along sort of getting its due. But there are different things that you can do in a, you know, two and a half hour long creative work versus a nonfiction book that's 500 pages. So, I just thought it was a great opportunity for me to do what I'd done with so many other popular culture moments, but really focus on not only this groundbreaking all-Black musical from 1921, but also the amazing artists that contributed to this musical. And so many of them have sort of been forgotten by the masses over time.

[3:19] Martín Acuña: I love it. But before we go into the whole when Broadway was Black and the details of Shuffle Along, what would be a random fun fact about you?

[3:30] Caseen Gaines: Oh boy, a random fun fact about me. A random fun fact. You know, I don't know why this is coming to mind right now. But of late, I really feel like I miss roller skating. I know that's like so crazy and weird. I wasn't like, you know, like a professional roller skater. You know, nothing unusual to like what kids in the 80s and 90s did. But, you know, the roller rink has sort of gone away, I think. So, of late, I've sort of been going when in my nostalgic moments, I go, wouldn't it be great to just like put on some skates? I wonder if I can still skate. I think I can. So that's maybe a fun fact. I'm feeling nostalgic for my days of being able to get on a pair of skates.

[4:15] Martín Acuña: Love that. Love that. So now, time to talk about your book when Broadway was Black. Which was your aha moment? Because you've just said that you've written a couple of books about pop culture coming from film and television, about the Back to the Future trilogy, about E.T., which are iconic movies from pop culture, right? But what was your aha moment in which you said, I need to bring back, shuffle along, a production from basically a hundred years ago and talk about Blackness on Broadway?

[4:57] Caseen Gaines: I think it was actually a couple things. I think the first was looking at the phenomenal season that was the 2016 Broadway season, which not only gave us Dorsey Will Shuffle Along, but gave us Eclipse, gave us Allegiance, gave us On Your Feet, gave us the Color Purple revival. And this little show called Hamilton, of course, was in that 2016 season as well. And there being so much discussion about how Broadway was diversifying and was becoming Blacker and Browner. And knowing that there was a period of time where Black artists were really driving the conversation on Broadway almost a hundred years ago, it seemed interesting to me that so much was being celebrated as new in 2016, but it had happened before and we had just forgotten about it.

But the other thing I think, too, was learning that while Shuffle Along has sort of become this hidden figure of Broadway history, it was truly a phenomenon. It was the Hamilton of its day. And so if something as popular and widespread and internationally renowned as Shuffle Along can be forgotten a hundred years later, then what does that say for A Strange Loop? What does that say for even Hamilton? Even Hamilton. All of these shows exist for a period of time unless we breathe life into them. And so I felt like as an author and journalist and educator, this was something that I could do so that when someone hears about Shuffle Along being mentioned somewhere, they then have a document where they can go and find out more information about this rich history.

[7:08] Martín Acuña: I love it because yes, people tend to forget a lot of the history behind a lot of things. And for me specifically, I do really think that we wouldn't have today's musical theater without tap dance. And tap dance is intrinsically linked to Black performers. We wouldn't have tap dance without Black performers. So in this train of thought, we wouldn't have today's Broadway without Black performers, without BIPOC performers, without performers from other communities, from my community, the Latin community, without Asian people that are now coming back to show their work. We had that with A Strange Loop. We had that, as you just said, in the 2016 Broadway season. We had that with K-pop, which unfortunately had a really short run, but it demonstrated that we can have another kind of shows on Broadway. And the fandoms they are creating will last long. And that is something that I'm really happy about what is going on on Broadway right now.

[8:22] Caseen Gaines: Well, you know, actually, Martin, there's one more thing I wanted to add, because you actually reminded me of another really important reason why this book was important to write. You know, I work with actors all the time. I work with student actors as well. And I think about what we tell young performers is the standard Broadway American songbook. What are classic Broadway shows? You know, there are so many BIPOC performers that grew up never doing their high school or college show where there were authentically BIPOC characters in those shows, or those shows being written by BIPOC or women playwrights or lyricists or composers. And so I just think, you know, if we held a show like Shuffle Along in the same esteem as we held shows like, I'm trying to think shows that are always like, even something like South Pacific, which is also problematic in so many ways, but like, high schools across the nation still do South Pacific.

It's still revered as a classic, despite how problematic it is in lots of ways. Yet Shuffle Along and other shows like it don't have that same luxury. And those kids grow up to be performers that feel like they are in sometimes disrupting or invading a space that wasn't created for them, as opposed to knowing that they are just reclaiming their space in a space where they once thrived and flourished in.

[10:08] Martín Acuña: Yeah, I absolutely agree with you. So I want to ask you, why write this book about the Black community in Broadway? And as you said, shine the light and push this community forward right now.

[10:26] Caseen Gaines: So it's a funny question, because when I started working on this book, it was probably 2018. And so the book that I thought I was writing was a very different book than the book I ended up writing. As it usually happens. You're right, because you're right, it doesn't usually happen that way. After, you know, the murder of George Floyd, and the racial uprisings in the summer of 2020. And I can't tell you, you know, how many times I personally was leaving my house and leaving my computer while I was writing. And I was going out and I was participating in protests and marches and things like that. And then I was coming back home and doing work and writing about racial uprisings in 1919, in 1920. You know, Shuffle Along's debut

[11:19] Caseen Gaines: It was one week before the Tulsa race massacre. And so, you know, I literally was stepping out of my home and realizing, you know, in some ways it was, it was, it felt bizarrely cyclical, you know, even Shuffle Along was produced in the aftermath of the Spanish flu pandemic, you know, and so it was a part of a Broadway season where houses were just starting to reopen after having been shut down. So it was, it was really bizarre in a lot of ways, writing this and seeing the parallels. But, you know, for me, I feel like it was important to celebrate Black artistry on Broadway, the great white way, because I think Broadway is so inaccessible to so many BIPOC people. And it's not just Black people.

But I think that, you know, I took my mother-in-law to go see On Your Feet, and it was her first Broadway show. And she loved it. She knew all the music, you know, of course. And I'm saying of course, what you don't know is that my wife is Ecuadorian. That's why I'm saying of course. So my mother-in-law, she loved it. You know, she was familiar with the story. You know, some people felt at home, right. And that's such a beautiful way of putting it. She felt at home. And I think so many people, so many BIPOC individuals don't necessarily feel at home on Broadway. You know, I saw Slave Play right before shutdown, and everyone sitting around me was white in the audience to Slave Play. I went to go see A Strange Loop twice.

And both times I went to go see it, most of the people sitting around me were white as well. So I think for me, as much as it was a mission to sort of elevate Shuffle Along, I think it was also kind of a call back to Broadway. And you know, when people are looking at the book cover, and the book cover, which I'm holding up now. So the book cover, which has, you know, Broadway and black as the two largest words on this cover. You know, I hope that someone's, when they're scrolling through online, or when someone's in a bookstore, you know, they see those two words, and just connect those two words, and say, those two words belong together.

[14:00] Martín Acuña: Yeah, absolutely. And they do belong together, honestly. Tell us about the story of this show, and why it was so impactful. And as you said, at the beginning, it was the 1920s equivalent to Hamilton.

[14:08] Caseen Gaines: Yeah, so Shuffle Along was a really interesting production, because it was the amalgamation of two separate creative duos. So you had Floyd Neumiller and Aubrey Lyles, they were two comedians, and they wrote the book. And then you had Noble Sissel and Eubie Blake, who were both musicians that had a longstanding partnership, and they wrote the music. And the show was really a fusion from both of their vaudeville acts. But also, what I find sort of interesting about the show is that it's actually really kind of progressive in a lot of ways. The plot is progressive. The presentation wasn't always, you know, progressive, but the plot was. So the plot of Shuffle Along is that it's a three-way mayoral race.

Two of the candidates are business owners of the same business, it's a grocery store, and they are both crooked and duplicitous, and they don't trust each other. And because they don't trust each other, they both hire a private detective to make sure that the other person isn't stealing from the safe to fund their campaign. But in true comedic fashion, they hire the same private detective, but they don't realize it. And so all of this comedy sort of ensues. And the third candidate is a virtuous person named Harry Walton. And because he is virtuous and honest, and because he wants to get into politics for the right reasons, of course he loses. And that's where we actually get the song, I'm Just Wild About Harry.

It comes from Shuffle Along. And by the end, you know, everything is resolved. It's found out that, you know, one of the people was being crooked with the money and stole the election. Harry is restored, the proper winner. But what's interesting is, you know, this was the early 1920s. Women, primarily white women, but women had just gotten the right to vote. This is a show that's centered on an election in an all-black town. This is obviously before Selma. This is before Voting Rights Act, you know. There are suffragette characters in the show. There are flappers in the show. And it's just interesting to see the representation of women and a political satire in an all-black show set in the 1920s just seems like it doesn't even totally fit.

But that's what it is. And so Shuffle Along was really fascinating in that regard. And it was a significant watershed moment. It was one of the highest grossing shows of the year. It was a show that was so successful, so many Broadway actors wanted to see the show, that they actually suspended the Wednesday matinee and added a Wednesday at midnight matinee so that other performers, not matinee, but midnight show, so that other performers on Broadway could go see Shuffle Along because everyone wanted to see it that badly. This obviously predates things like, you know, original Broadway recordings and, you know, certainly video. You know, that certainly wasn't, you know, wasn't a possibility. So the only way to see it was to see it.

So lots of celebrities went through. It was a big show. They had three touring companies. They toured the entire United States and Canada, including the Deep South with an all-black show. Josephine Baker, a teenage Josephine Baker, was a part of the main company. And so it was a phenomenon. It was a true phenomenon. But what ended up happening a little bit was that certain aspects of Shuffle Along were sort of pillaged and in some ways co-opted by white producers for other shows. And Shuffle Along over time sort of became buried and forgotten.

[18:21] Martín Acuña: Yeah. Writing a book like this is totally a risk in and of itself. But what is a risk that you've taken that has totally paid off?

[18:25] Caseen Gaines: I think, what's a risk that I've taken that's totally paid off? I think, boy, as crazy as it sounds, I mean, I want to come up with a better answer than this. I'm going to give you like two. I'll make it quick. But I have to honestly say, I feel like this book is probably the biggest risk that I've taken lately. And I say that because, I had written many other books, well-received books, that were really not like this at all. And when I'm blessed to have an agent, an editor that I work with, and when I sort of said, this is what I wanted to work on, they were all very supportive and said, this is a different sort of project, but we're excited for you to kind of go in this direction. And at some point, I just really was having a hard time with it.

I felt like it was so in the way of what I wanted to do. I felt like it was so important. I wanted to do not just the show justice, but I wanted to do the creators justice. And I really felt that. And at some point, I thought about abandoning the project. I'd started writing it. I had a deadline that was coming up. I wasn't going to make the deadline, not by any stretch of the imagination. And I had to kind of talk with my editor and agent and say, look, I can't do this. I wish I could. I think this might be a project for someone else with more skill or something. And they said, look, we'll give you some more time, but you are the person for this project. And I'm so, so glad that they did. And so I think that was kind of a risk that maybe I didn't, maybe I thought was more of a risk than it really was. That's probably the biggest thing right now.

[20:18] Martín Acuña: I love that. I love that. So last question, what are your top five favorite musical theater shows?

[20:27] Caseen Gaines: Oh boy. That's such a, I mean, come on. I mean, can anyone answer that really? Okay. So I'm going to just say what comes to mind. I'm not going to overthink it. Gypsy, Little Shop of Horrors, Cabaret. I'm going to promise to not overthink it. I kind of want to say, I want to say The Color Purple. And I want to say, I'm trying to think of things that really, really, I kind of want to say Chicago. I kind of want to say, I mean, gosh, I felt so much pressure. I really did. I felt so much pressure with that. I mean, it's hard because like I said, I go to see shows all the time. So I feel like there are certain performances I really love and I really love, but I think just looking at like book score, like take the actors out of it, right? Like, just like what's, what did the creators come up with? That's probably my five.

[21:34] Martín Acuña: I love that. Kasim, thank you so much for joining us, for sharing us about your book. I know that it will be successful. If someone wants to grab a copy, where can they find it?

[21:46] Caseen Gaines: So When Broadway Was Black is available, everywhere books are sold. So you can find it on all the online places. You can find it at your local independent bookstore. You can find it at libraries. And you can find me on social media at Kasim Gaines, C-A-S-D-E-N-G-A-I-N-E-S. And I'm always posting about all sorts of stuff. So just follow me and you'll see me posting about the book for sure.

[22:10] Martín Acuña: Absolutely love it. Thank you so much for joining us in Backstage Talk.

[22:16] Caseen Gaines: Thank you.

[22:17] Martín Acuña: Thanks everyone for listening to this new episode of Backstage Talk. Remember to follow us on Facebook and Instagram at Backstage Talk Podcast.