such as NEWYORKCITY, Chicago, and WASHING-
TON, D.C. The Ethiopian Art Players included
PAUL ROBESON, and it is the organization that
scholars credit with establishing Robeson as a
formidable actor. Other prominent Harlem Renais-
sance-era figures associated with the group in-
cluded writer LEWISALEXANDER.
The company achieved much during an early
1920s run in New York City. It performed at the
LAFAYETTETHEATREin HARLEMunder the name
“The Negro Folk Company.” In Manhattan the
group appeared at the Frazee Theatre, a venue
named after theater producer Harry Frazee, also
the owner of the Boston Red Sox who authorized
the 1920 trade of player Babe Ruth to the New
York Yankees.
The company is perhaps best known for its
New York run that included a staging of WILLIS
RICHARDSON’s THECHIPWOMAN’SFORTUNE,the
first play by an African American to be performed
on Broadway. In 1923, the same year in which the
NATIONALURBANLEAGUEbegan to publish OP-
PORTUNITY,the group performed two plays at the
Frazee Theatre. The first of eight scheduled perfor-
mances of Oscar Wilde’s “Salome” opened on 7
May 1923 with a 13-member cast that included
Lewis Alexander, George Jackson, Evelyn Preer,
Marion Taylor, and WALTERWHITE. One week
later, on 15 May, six members of the troupe ap-
peared in The Chip Woman’s Fortune.There were 31
performances, and the cast on opening night in-
cluded Laura Bowman, Solomon Bruce, Sydney
Kirkpatrick, Evelyn Preer, Arthur Ray, and Marion
Taylor. The May 1923 New York City engagement
also included performances of The Comedy of Errors
by William Shakespeare.
Some years later, Lindsay Patterson, writing
for The New York Timesin an article chronicling
the history of African-American theater, noted
that the Ethiopian Art Players were, despite their
historic efforts, greeted “with almost the same deri-
sion” directed toward the 19th-century New York
City–based African Grove Company just over 100
years earlier.
Bibliography
Johnson, James Weldon. Black Manhattan.1930, reprint,
New York: Arno Press and The New York Times,
1968.
Patterson, Lindsay. “To Make the Negro a Living Human
Being.” The New York Times,18 February 1968, 92.Ethiopian Art Theatre
A theater troupe founded in 1922 by white pro-
ducer Raymond O’Neil and a number of African-
American actors. The troupe also performed as the
Colored Folk Theatre and as the Negro Folk The-
atre. It demonstrated the breadth of black dra-
matic talent through its productions of diverse
works that included medieval romances, Shake-
spearean plays, Oscar Wilde plays, and contempo-
rary drama. One of the most accomplished
members of the troupe included the film and stage
actress Evelyn Preer, who played the lead roles in
WILLISRICHARDSON’s THECHIPWOMAN’SFOR-
TUNEand in the production of Oscar Wilde’s Sa-
lome. Others included Lewis Alexander, Laura
Bowman, Marion Taylor, and Coy Applewhite. The
troupe disbanded in 1923.
In May 1923, the company arrived in NEW
YORKCITYto perform new works by the white
playwright Willis Richardson. Segregated seating
and the allocation of balcony seats only for black
theatergoers at the Frazee Theatre on BROADWAY
threatened to disrupt the performances. The in-
sistent resistance of black drama critics and pa-
trons forced the theater to rescind its biased
seating policy.
Critics recognized the talent of the company.
The New York Post drama critic W. E. Clark de-
clared that the performances were “among the
best that has been seen in New York City this sea-
son.” However, the first serious stage presentations
of black life were undermined by disrespectful au-
diences, some of whom talked loudly during the
play and others who had to be ejected from the
premises. In addition, according to the historian
David Krasner, the company frequently performed
plays other than those billed for the evening. The
unexpected changes were due in part to the man-
ager O’Neil, who wanted to profit from the “nov-
elty” of black actors performing classic and
mainstream plays.Bibliography
Krasner, David. A Beautiful Pageant: African American
Theatre, Drama, and Performance in the HarlemEthiopian Art Theatre 145