# Plantation Days

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{{Short description|1920s musical revue}}
{{distinguish|Plantation Revue}}
'''''Plantation Days''''' (1922) was a touring [musical revue](/source/Revue) with [Sam Wooding](/source/Sam_Wooding)<ref>{{cite book | last=Deffaa | first=Chip | title=Voices of the Jazz Age: Profiles of Eight Vintage Jazzmen | publisher=University of Illinois Press | publication-place=Urbana | date=1992 | isbn=0-252-06258-2 | oclc=25499699 | author-link=Chip Deffaa}} page 11</ref> and [James P. Johnson](/source/James_P._Johnson)<ref name=petersen/> as [musical director](/source/musical_director)s at different stages of the tour. Produced by Morris "Maury" Greenwald,<ref name=riamco>[https://www.riamco.org/render?eadid=US-RPB-ms2015.018&view=biography "Blondie Robinson collection of African-American Minstrel and Vaudeville photographs (MS.2015.018), Biographical/Historical note." Brown University Library.] ''Riamco.org''. Retrieved 16 December 2022.</ref> the touring show was conceived to capitalize on ''[Plantation Revue](/source/Plantation_Revue)'' (1922-23), the successful show staged by [Lew Leslie](/source/Lew_Leslie).<ref name=petersen/>

Beginning its inaugural run either in Chicago<ref name=riamco/> with Johnson as a principal performer, accompanied by Marjorie Sipp and The Plantation Four, among many others or in New York,<ref name=petersen/> it was staged by
[Leonard Harper](/source/Leonard_Harper_(producer)) (who also performed in the revue with his wife, Osceola Blanks),<ref name=petersen/> and featured acts by [Eddie Green](/source/Eddie_Green_(actor)), The Crackerjacks,<ref>{{cite book | last1=Cullen | first1=Frank | last2=Hackman | first2=Florence | last3=McNeilly | first3=Donald | title=Vaudeville, Old & New: An Encyclopedia of Variety Performers in America | publication-place=New York | date=2007 | isbn=978-0-415-93853-2 | oclc=62430748}} Volume 1, pp. 277-8</ref> and The Three Eddies, among others.

At the end of its first US tour, the show was scheduled for a week February 1923 at New York's [Lafayette Theatre](/source/Lafayette_Theatre_(Harlem)).<ref name=petersen/> However, a court order forced the show to drop three of its most popular numbers, by [Noble Sissle](/source/Noble_Sissle) and [Eubie Blake](/source/Eubie_Blake), which had been pirated from their successful ''[Shuffle Along](/source/Shuffle_Along)'' (1921).<ref name=petersen/> The show, minus the three numbers, eventually opened at the Lafayette just over a month later,<ref name=petersen/> with [Sam Wooding](/source/Sam_Wooding)'s  orchestra.<ref name=petersen/>

Following its run at the Lafayette, the show moved to London, where it was initially integrated, as a 12-minute segment, into [Gershwin](/source/George_Gershwin)'s ''The Rainbow'', which opened at the [Empire Theatre](/source/Hackney_Empire) in April 1923,<ref name=petersen/> brought over by the British promoter [Albert de Courville](/source/Albert_de_Courville).<ref>Barker, Clive; Simon Trussler (1994). [https://books.google.com/books?id=UtoZmij14FYC&q=plantation ''New Theatre Quarterly'' 37: Volume 10, Part 1, p. 37. Cambridge University Press, 26 may 1994.] ''Google Books''. Retrieved 17 December 2022.</ref>

Although [Ethel Waters](/source/Ethel_Waters) had originally been approached by Greenwald for the London run,<ref name=petersen/> she actually joined the company in Chicago in August 1923, as an "extra added attraction" to "save the fast-flopping revue".<ref name=petersen/>

Revived in 1925,<ref name=petersen>{{cite book | last=Peterson | first=Bernard L. | title=A Century of Musicals in Black and White: An Encyclopedia of Musical Stage Works By, About, or Involving African Americans | publisher=Greenwood Press | publication-place=Westport, Conn. | date=1993 | isbn=0-313-06454-7 | oclc=65336150}}</ref> it was during its run at the [Royal Theatre](/source/Royal_Theatre_(Baltimore)), Baltimore, in 1927, with [Blanche Calloway](/source/Blanche_Calloway) as one of the main acts, that [Cab Calloway](/source/Cab_Calloway), with his sister's help, joined the revue "as a replacement for the first tenor in a vocal quartet",<ref name=petersen/> and decided to devote himself to show business.<ref>{{cite book | last1=Hildebrand | first1=David | last2=Schaaf | first2=Elizabeth M. | last3=Biehl | first3=William | title=Musical Maryland: A History of Song and Performance from the Colonial Period to the Age of Radio | publication-place=Baltimore | date=2017 | isbn=978-1-4214-2240-4 | oclc=1002109162 | author-link = David K. Hildebrand}} p. 138</ref> 

==References==
{{Reflist}}

Category:Revues
Category:1922 musicals

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Adapted from the Wikipedia article [Plantation Days](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plantation_Days) by Wikipedia contributors ([contributor history](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plantation_Days?action=history)). Available under [Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/). Changes may have been made.