African American Musical Theater - National Recognition

National Recognition

Bert Williams and George Walker, called the "Two Real Coons", found fame in 1896 with a musical farce called The Gold Bug. The duo's performance of the cakewalk captured the audience's attention, and they soon became so closely associated with this dance that many people think of them as its originators. Williams met Walker in San Francisco in 1893, while they played Dahomeyans in an exhibit of the California Midwinter International Exposition of 1894. They played different venues while putting together their act.

Williams and Walker were dropped from "Isham's Octoroons", one of the first African American companies to break from the minstrel style performance. They then put together a number of small productions including A Lucky Coon, Sons of Ham, and The Policy Players, but their ultimate goal was to produce and star in their own Broadway musical. So they thought back to the times in San Francisco and produced In Dahomey (1903) alongside Paul Lawrence Dunbar, Jesse A. Shipp, and Will Marion Cook. Abyssinia (1906) and Bandanna Land (1908) also stood high in the Williams and Walker claim to fame. Their dreams of stardom come to life and they took musicals in a new direction, back to Africa. George Walker died during the run of Bandanna Land and his wife Ada Overton Walker substituted for him during the final week of the run.