The Virginia Minstrels perform the first minstrel…
1843 CE
The Virginia Minstrels, or Virginia Serenaders, as a group of American entertainers who have helped invent the entertainment form known as the minstrel show.
Led by Dan Emmett, the original lineup consists of Emmett, Billy Whitlock, Dick Pelham, and Frank Brower.
After a successful try-out in the billiard parlor of the Branch Hotel on New York City's Bowery, the group is said to have premiered to a paying audience nearby at the Chatham Theatre, probably on January 31, 1843.
They follow with a brief run at the Bowery Amphitheater in early February before an expanded schedule of venues.
The main difference between the Virginia Minstrels and earlier minstrel shows is the type of performance that the audience experiences.
While they aren't the first blackface performers to band together and present a show, they are the first to present a concert.
The way that they present and market themselves resembles that of the Hutchinson Family Singers, a group that is making more than ten times minstrel troupes are for each performance.
The change of perception from being a variety show to being a concert affords the Virginia Minstrels with patrons of a slightly upper class.
Their work is deemed as refined and a breath of fresh air in the New York scene.
Subjects
Regions
Northern North America
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