Musical Theatre Mondays

Audra McDonald is so beautiful, so charming and witty and kind (from what I can tell via YouTube videos like this one and this one ), and I think one of the greatest actors to ever live. And I'm not even hyperbolizing - the awards speak for themselves. She has won SIX Tony Awards - that's more performance wins than any other actor AND the only person to have won an award for all four acting categories. If you ever want to see a lot of little green boxes, visit her Wikipedia page where it lists all of the awards she's won. I feel like nothing I can write would do justice to what your ears will tell you when you listen to her, so I posted a bunch of goodies for you below. Make sure to listen to "Your Daddy's Son" from Ragtime - it's the first time I ever heard her voice and I still love it as much today as I did then.

via Getty This week's post focuses on someone whose influence wasn't just in the theatre world, but has inspired those working in film and pop/jazz music as well. Lena Horne was an activist and an artist with a 70+ years long career. She was in movies. She was an activist. She was one of the first black performers in The Empire Room in the Waldorf-Astoria. She retired in 1980 and then went on to be in her own one-woman Broadway show that won her a Tony award - Live On Broadway Lena Horne: The Lady And Her Music . After reading story upon story of this fierce, 5'5" lady, it seems to me that she was unstoppable, but she had to be because of the world around her. She had to fight harder than those half as talented just to be seen and cast. Lena's career started in the chorus at The Cotton Club - a Harlem nightclub popular with celebrities during prohibition. After she had gained notoriety in the chorus, she participated in shows at Cafe Society in New York

Bert Williams It's Black History Month, and I don't know much, but I want to learn more about how The Civil Rights Movement not only helped shape our nation culturally and politically, but especially how it shaped the arts. I thought it would be best to start at the "beginning" of modern musical theatre with someone who I've found really interesting through my research. Egbert Austin Williams was born in 1874 in The Bahamas and came to be one of the most influential black American entertainers of all time. As you look at the timeline of musical theatre's evolution, you come upon minstrel shows which grew in popularity in the 1800s. Minstrel shows, in short and shameful summary, were white entertainers in blackface caricaturing black people in song, dance and skits. But by the later half of the century, black entertainers were starting their own minstrel troupes and performing for white audiences. In 1893, Bert joined Martin and Selig's Mastodon Minst