A01=Thomas Bauman
acting
actors school
African American actors school
African American business
African American business history
African American businessmen
African American history
African American musical comedy
African American orchestra
African American stock company
African American theater
African American theater going
African American theatrical history
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American musical comedy
American theater history
Author_Thomas Bauman
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black business
black enterprise
black history
black musical comedy
black orchestra
black stock company
black theater
black theater going
black theatrical history
Category1=Non-Fiction
Category=AN
Category=ATD
Category=GTB
Category=GTM
Chicago African Americans
Chicago business
Chicago businessmen
Chicago enterprise
Chicago entrepreneurs
Chicago history
Chicago Temple of Music
Chicago theater
Chicago theater going
Chicago theater history
Chicago's South Side
COP=United States
Delivery_Delivery within 10-20 working days
early 1900s
early 20th century
early twentieth century
early twentieth century theater history
eq_art-fashion-photography
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eq_isMigrated=2
eq_nobargain
eq_non-fiction
institutional history
intra-racial audience
intra-racial business
Language_English
multi-ra
multi-racial social spaces
orchestra
PA=Available
Pekin Theater
Price_€50 to €100
PS=Active
Robert T. Motts
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Temple of Music
the Stroll
twentieth century theater history
Product details
- ISBN 9780252038365
- Weight: 567g
- Dimensions: 152 x 229mm
- Publication Date: 25 Apr 2014
- Publisher: University of Illinois Press
- Publication City/Country: US
- Product Form: Hardback
- Language: English
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In 1904, political operator and gambling boss Robert T. Motts opened the Pekin Theater in Chicago. Dubbed the "Temple of Music," the Pekin became one of the country's most prestigious African American cultural institutions, renowned for its all-black stock company and school for actors, an orchestra able to play ragtime and opera with equal brilliance, and a repertoire of original musical comedies.
A missing chapter in African American theatrical history, Bauman's saga presents how Motts used his entrepreneurial acumen to create a successful black-owned enterprise. Concentrating on institutional history, Bauman explores the Pekin's philosophy of hiring only African American staff, its embrace of multi-racial upper class audiences, and its ready assumption of roles as diverse as community center, social club, and fundraising instrument.
The Pekin's prestige and profitability faltered after Motts' death in 1911 as his heirs lacked his savvy, and African American elites turned away from pure entertainment in favor of spiritual uplift. But, as Bauman shows, the theater had already opened the door to a new dynamic of both intra- and inter-racial theater-going and showed the ways a success, like the Pekin, had a positive economic and social impact on the surrounding community.
A missing chapter in African American theatrical history, Bauman's saga presents how Motts used his entrepreneurial acumen to create a successful black-owned enterprise. Concentrating on institutional history, Bauman explores the Pekin's philosophy of hiring only African American staff, its embrace of multi-racial upper class audiences, and its ready assumption of roles as diverse as community center, social club, and fundraising instrument.
The Pekin's prestige and profitability faltered after Motts' death in 1911 as his heirs lacked his savvy, and African American elites turned away from pure entertainment in favor of spiritual uplift. But, as Bauman shows, the theater had already opened the door to a new dynamic of both intra- and inter-racial theater-going and showed the ways a success, like the Pekin, had a positive economic and social impact on the surrounding community.
Thomas Bauman is a professor of musicology at Northwestern University. He is the author of North German Opera in the Age of Goethe.
