![]() In 1967, Betty Comden, Adolph Green, and Jules Styne poured their liberal hipness and guilt into “Hallelujah, Baby!,” which tells the story of Georgina (played, in the original production, by Leslie Uggams, who won a Tony for her performance). Diahann Carroll gave it her all as Barbara Woodruff, a model whose race was not a plot point, in Richard Rodgers’s 1962 piece, “No Strings.” But that show was unusual, and remains so. Still, some politically committed theatre artists have fought to bring different kinds of stories to the musical form, and to liberate black female stars from the bondage of playing “black,” rather than embodying a complete character. ![]() American musicals are, for the most part, about boys, or boyish pursuits and aspirations-the fantasy of freedom and resolve-and those dreams have little to do with the reality of most black women’s lives. Although the civil-rights movement did a lot to change how black life was dramatized on the American stage in the fifties and sixties, white composers and lyricists often still rely on familiar tropes when it comes to representing black women in musicals. ![]()
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