It’s 1890, and young Bert Williams is working a medicine show, selling a snake oil cure-all.

Bert’s father fears how the world will treat his Black son, but Bert says he’ll use humor to soften people’s hearts.

In 1895, Charlie, a white performer in Florenz Ziegfeld’s latest vaudeville, rehearses a song.

Bert meets George Walker and they partner up. In an early performance, while every white comedian in blackface is getting cheered, Bert and George are booed offstage. With George unwilling to return to the stage, Bert puts on blackface, grabs his banjo, and improvises a song while playing the “coon,” the white-invented caricature of Blackness.

The bit is a hit, and soon, the comic duo, now billing themselves as “Two Real Coons,” is off to New York. Their uptempo rag as they travel from San Francisco to New York stops abruptly when they find themselves staring up at a large vaudeville house in New York. Their lifelong dream now directly in front of them, they’re faced with fear that turns to determination.

Rehearsing alone one night, Charlie reflects on his journey to Ziegfeld, a surrogate father after his own family disowned him when he went into show business.

Bert, George, and their future wives, Aida and Lottie, perform a Cakewalk that sets off an international dance craze.

When George is attacked outside a theatre, Bert suggests he take solace in books. He shares his copy of John Ogilby’s Africa, claiming the book proves that every Pullman porter is descended from a king.

Soon, they’re on a highly successful international tour, which ends abruptly when George has a stroke onstage. 

Charlie is rehearsing a song for the 1910 Follies.

When it’s announced that Bert has been hired to become the first Black headliner in the Follies, Charlie and other white cast members threaten to quit if Bert isn’t fired. Ziegfeld calls their bluff, but once they’re alone, he says to Bert, “You better be worth it, boy.” Charlie leaves the theatre, stunned at this turn of events, while Bert, shaken, ultimately recommits to using humor to advance the cause of racial uplift.

The 1911 Follies opens with the Follies Singer extolling Ziegfeld’s iconic chorus girls.

George passes away and Bert gives his eulogy. 

In the 1917 Follies, Bert performs a patriotic number about all the Black soldiers who were quick to enlist.

By 1919, Bert has become increasingly disillusioned by racism in America and sick of playing to stereotype. While fighting off a bad cold on tour, a Black reporter, Ida B. Wells-Barnett, approaches Bert to offer him rags for his ragman costume. She reveals that all the rags were torn from the bodies of Black men whose lynchings she’s been chronicling.

Bert is left feeling much sicker, both physically and spiritually. While putting on blackface makeup for his performance, he questions his choices and culpability.

Bert barely makes it through the performance that night, but forces himself onstage for an encore of his signature song. Bert staggers and sweats, removing much of the blackface as he blots his face with a handkerchief. The audience thinks this is part of the bit and, even as Bert collapses to his knees, they laugh hysterically.

Bert is hospitalized and dies with Lottie by his side. As an offstage chorus sings, projected images of the next hundred years of Black struggles and triumph fill the stage around Bert.

Album Produced by Aaron Alon Productions, LLC.
©2022 Aaron Alon Productions, LLC.

DANTÉ ANDERSON

PRESTON ANDREWS

BRAD GOERTZ

SEKOU NANCE

TAMARA SILER

Music, Lyrics, & Book
AARON ALON

Music Direction
AARON ALON
LEAH DYER

Vocal Coach
LEAH DYER

Choral Conductor
RYAN BROWN

Recording Engineers
AARON ALON
ANDY BRADLEY

Vocal Arrangements
AARON ALON

Historical Consultants
LOUIS CHUDE-SOKEI
FRANK CULLEN

CAST

(in order of appearance)

Young Bert: Sekou Nance
Charlie Fields: Noah Tierney
Bert Williams: Danté Anderson
George Walker: Preston Andrews
Follies Singer: Brad Goertz
Ida B. Wells-Barnett: Tamara Siler
Lottie Thompson: Monica Davis

ENSEMBLE

Danté Anderson, Preston Andrews, Brian Chambers, Monica Davis, Ashley Duplechien, Leah Dyer, Brad Goertz, Amanda Parker, Tamara Siler, Nick Szoeke, Emma Thoeni, John Watkins