(THEATRE) ANDERSON GARLAND From Newsboy and Bellhop to Playw

Sale 2271 - Lot 519

Price Realized: $ 390

?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price

Estimate: $ 600 - $ 800

(THEATRE.) ANDERSON, GARLAND. From Newsboy and Bellhop to Playwright. Frontispiece portrait of the author. 23 pages. Small 8vo, original printed brown wrappers, stapled. [San Francisco:, 1925]

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first edition, scarce. Garland Anderson, (1886-1939) a pioneer playwright and moralistic philosopher of constructive thinking, was the first African-American known to have a serious full-length drama produced on Broadway. Active in the theatre for over 10 years during the 1920s and 1930s, he achieved national prominence as "the San Francisco Bellhop Playwright." Anderson wrote his first play, Appearances (1924), in only three weeks, with no training in playwriting style or technique. Failing to find a producer, he personally raised $15,000 towards the production. Despite numerous obstacles, his play opened on Broadway in 1925 with the help and support of the actor, Al Jolson and the President of the United States, Calvin Coolidge. The play, "Appearances" was a courtroom drama about a bellboy on trial who was falsely accused of raping a white woman. Owing to the central character's strong moral convictions, he was eventually exonerated.