The Two Real Coons #1318
$ 10.00
Caption from poster:_
George Walker (right) and Egbert Austin Williams (below) were a
vaudeville comedy team and had one of the most renowned and
successful stage partnerships in American theatrical history. They
started in separate careers and decided to team up when they met
in San Francisco in the early 1890s. Their first success came when they billed themselves
"The Two Real Coons."
This was at a time when minstrel shows featuring white actors in
black face were popular. Williams and Walker pioneered a new
kind of "black" humor and eventually developed their own company.
With musicals shows such as "Clorindy, the Origin of the Cakewalk," "Sons of Ham," "Bandana Land," and "In Dahomey," they opened the door for other African-American actors, singers, dancers and musicians and redefined the boundaries of legitimate Negro theater. Additionally, their efforts were a big influence on the development of American musical comedy theater.
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.[3] 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 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.
