The cover of the theater program was a little off-putting, but the photo tucked inside was adorable. The cover showed a caricature of a male dancer with red lips and black face mimicking the look…
Category: Broadway plays
Selling the vast record collection of a lifetime
Posted in Auction, Broadway plays, and Music
When I finally walked into the basement of Maynard Bertolet’s stone house, I should have felt claustrophobic, but I didn’t. Before me were thousands of vinyl pop and classical albums he had collected over more…
Readers ask about WWII artifacts, Wyeth book & Searles art
Posted in Art, Books, Broadway plays, history, and Movies
Friday at Auction Finds is readers’ questions day. I try to guide readers to resources to help them determine the value of their items. I’m not able to appraise their treasures, but I can do…
Metropolitan Opera ‘Porgy and Bess’ music box
Posted in Broadway plays, collectibles, Music, Performers, and Trinket box
The delicate little enameled music box was in a cardboard box full of nothing. Its lid had come unattached and lay bottom-up right next to it. The writing inside the lid was a tiny script…
When I saw “The Trip to Bountiful” back in 1985 with Geraldine Page, I found the movie plodding. Page’s portrayal of Carrie Watts was both sweet and sad, but I thought the play itself was…
Cotton Club show & black female tap dancers
Posted in Black history, Broadway plays, dance, and Performers
The woman was moving as masterfully as the men, leaning forward and tapping backwards in steps that had long defined a tradition of dance for African American men. As I sat there watching her in the “Cotton Club…
Bert Williams in black face on sheet music
Posted in Black history, Broadway plays, Ephemera/Paper/Documents, Music, and Performers
I could tell there was another clear frame behind the one with a sheet-music cover of a black woman in orange kerchief lovingly holding a white child in night clothes. I wasn’t sure who was…
A new look at ‘Porgy and Bess’
Posted in Broadway plays, Music, and Performers
The play “Porgy and Bess” has never been one to will me to see it. I’ve never been curious about this folk opera written, produced and performed during a time when black people were not seen as real but…
Memphis, Sinatra & the music
Posted in Broadway plays, and Music
I was dropped right smack in the middle of the 1950s last week and bathed in soul music. It wasn’t the R&B music of Booker T. & the M.G.’s or Sam and Dave or my man…