Actor+17

= = = = = = = = = = 1. Theater in the Harlem Renaissance was a completely new idea because African-Americans started to become pretty popular. With the help of theater the idea of getting along and living with black people was presented to all of white america. Where would people go to see theater.


 * Negro Experimental Theatre founded, February; Negro art Theatre founded, June; National Colored Players founded, September.
 * Wallace Thurman's play //Harlem//, written with William Jourdan Rapp, opens at the Apollo Theater on Broadway and becomes hugely successful.
 * Black Thursday, October 29, Stock Exchange crash.
 * Publications of Cullen, //The Black Christ and Other Poems//;Claude McKay, //Banjo//; Nella Larsen, //Passing//; Wallace Thurman, //The Blacker the Berry//; and Walter White, //Rope and Faggot: The Biography of Judge Lyn//

If you attended a theater in Harlem back then you would usually see actors like Paul Robesone, Ethel Waters, Florence Mills, Bill "Bojangles"Robinson, Adelaide Hall, and many other black actors. 2. Describe the life and influence of the following actors of the Harlem Renaissance: = = ===**Paul Robeson:** Paul Robeson was the epitome of the 20th-century Renaissance man. His talents made him a revered man of his time, yet his radical political beliefs all but erased him from popular history. Born in 1898, At seventeen, he was given a scholarship to Rutgers University, where he received an unprecedented twelve major letters in four years and was his class valedictorian. After graduating he went on to Columbia University Law School, and, in the early 1920s, took a job with a New York law firm. Racial strife at the firm ended Robeson’s career as a lawyer early, but he was soon to find an appreciative home for his talents. Returning to his love of public speaking, Robeson began to find work as an actor. === Actor Paul Robeson electrified audiences with his memorable stage performances. ===**Ethel Waters:** Known as "Sweet Mama Stringbean" for her slender figure, Ethel Waters could sing the blues beyond compare. Her soft, refined voice, theatrical style, and signature shimmy captivated black and white audiences alike. ===

Waters grew up in the chaotic misery of a Philadelphia slum. "No one raised me," she recalled. "I just ran wild." Waters gladly put it all behind her to tour on the vaudeville circuit. She ended up in New York City, performing on the stages of both the Lincoln and Lafayette Theatres

= = =__**Works Cited:**__= [] [] [] [] [] [|http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://www.nfo.net/usa/CottonClub-1936]