Download or read book The First Black Actors on the Great White Way written by Susan Curtis and published by . This book was released on 1998 with total page 312 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Why was a nation, so fascinated with firsts, able to forget these black actors and this production so quickly? It is this question that Susan Curtis addresses in The First Black Actors on the Great White Way. Set against the backdrop of transforming theater conventions in the early 1900s and the war in 1917, this important study relates the stories of the actors, stage artists, critics, and many others - black and white - involved in this groundbreaking production. Curtis explores in great depth both the progress in race relations that led to this production and the multifaceted reasons for its quick demise.