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Broadway in "The Gay 90s"
The program for A Trip to Chinatown (1891) announces that curtain time was 8:30 PM, and informs theatergoers that carriages may pick them up at 10:50. New York's subway system would not appear until 1904.

Although few if any of the Broadway musicals of the 1890s would merit a revival of today, it was an era of extraordinary theatrical bounty, It was not unusual for fifty or more musical productions to open in a single season. While there was an assortment of revivals and European imports, the overwhelming majority of these shows were homegrown originals. Farcical musical comedies were standard Broadway fare in this decade. Following the Harrigan and Hart model, loose plots involving "ordinary people" offered enough gags and dialogue to get from song to song, and it was not unusual for several composers to contribute to a score.

Producer-playwright Charles Hoyt mastered this form, which reached its peak with A Trip To Chinatown (1891 - 657), the story of a widow who accidentally maneuvers several young suburban couples into a big city restaurant – where a rich man loses his wallet before true love wins out in the end. (Did anyone say Hello Dolly?) The show was cobbled together in an almost haphazard fashion, with a multitude of composers contributing songs. The score eventually included the perennial favorites "Reuben, Reuben," "The Bowery," and "After the Ball." A Trip to Chinatown toured for years, and its record Broadway run would not be surpassed until the early 1920s. Its fame was lasting. When Show Boat needed a song to symbolize the 1890s, Hammerstein and Kern interpolated the evergreen "After the Ball."

The Belle of New York (1897) did poorly on Broadway with its tale of a Salvation Army girl who prevents her millionaire boyfriend from being disinherited. But a London production in 1898 proved a surprise sensation, running more a year and receiving nine West End revivals over the next four decades. This was the first American musical to find unqualified success in Britain, a trend that would expand as the 20th Century progressed. It also made a star out of Edna May, an attractive dark-haired soprano who played the title role on both sides of the Atlantic. The songs, popular in their day, have not had any lasting popularity. When people think of the entertainments of the "Gay 90s," this is the sort of show they picture – lighthearted musical comedy with a touch of innocent romance, all designed to showcase lovely young women in lavish but moderately immodest outfits.

The 1890s also brought the first Broadway revue, The Passing Show (1894). This almost vaudeville-like formula of varying songs, sketches and specialty acts quickly became common, particularly in summer time when Broadway audiences sought light entertainment in open-air rooftop theatres. However, revues would accomplish little of historical importance until Florenz Ziegfeld introduced his Follies in 1907. There is far more on this in the pages ahead.

Early Black Musicals
In the years following the Civil War, minstrel shows were the only professional stage outlet for African American performers. So it is no surprise that the earliest black musicals grew out of the minstrel tradition. The Creole Show (1890) reshaped minstrelsy's all-male tradition by offering a female interlocutor and other women in an all black cast. With a successful tour and a New York run, this production proved that black musicals had commercial appeal.

Popular singer Sisseretta Jones starred in Black Patti’s Troubadours (1896), which toured the US for eighteen years and gave many talented black performers their first professional showcase. Black composer/lyricist Bob Cole wrote one-act musicals for the troupe, including "At Jolly Coon-ey Island." When Cole found it impossible to work with the company's white managers, he established his own all black production company.

Cole composed and produced the first full-length New York musical comedy written, directed and performed exclusively by blacks, A Trip to Coontown (1898). Aside from the unfortunate title (which spoofed A Trip to Chinatown), it relied on minstrel stereotypes to tell the story of con artist Jimmy Flimflammer’s unsuccessful attempts to steal an old man’s pension. With variety acts thrown in to keep things lively, the show had a successful tour and two runs in New York. Cole went on to compose several more black musicals with lyricist J.R. Johnson, including The Red Moon (1909).

While A Trip to Coontown was still running at the Third Avenue Theater, Clorindy, the Origin of the Cakewalk (1898) opened at the Casino Theatre's Roof Garden. This hour long sketch was the first all-black show to play in a prestigious Broadway house, thanks to a daring maneuver by composer Will Marion Cook. He and his company walked into the Casino Roof one day and informed the manager that the owner had sent them – an outright lie, but it got them onto the stage. Their performance caused such a sensation that producer Edward Rice booked the show for a run. Clorindy's libretto relied on demeaning minstrel-style comedy, but the innovative ragtime score brought fame to Cook, who went on to write musicals for Broadway’s first top rank black stars, Bert Williams and George Walker. The history of African American musicals continues in our article on the early 1900s.