WALTERFILM INSIGHTS AND NEWS

6 PLAYS & PERFORMERS IN THE HISTORY OF LGBTQ THEATER

June is Pride Month celebrating our LGBTQ community and its history. In its honor, WalterFilm.com presents six posters of performers and plays that reflect LGBTQ’s diversity and creativity. From Dame Judith Anderson, doyenne of the classical American stage, fulfilling her long-held desire to, at the age of seventy-three, play the title role in Hamlet, to Charles Ludlam’s first playwriting venture, Big Hotel, that became the unofficial manifesto of his Ridiculous…

SIX GREAT AFRICAN AMERICAN MUSICALS

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African American Musical Theater Background: Before the turn of the 20thth Century the idea of Black Musical Theater was a second-hand treatment of black life created by European-American performers, performing stereotyped “coon songs” in blackface.  This began to change as African American composers and lyrists such as Will Marion Cook and Bob Cole brought black-written musical comedy to Broadway in 1898. Cook’s Clorindy, or The Origin of the…

SHIRLEY TEMPLE & JUDY GARLAND – DOLLS FOR THE AGES

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Hollywood Movie Memorabilia encompasses a fascinating range of material that appeals to an extraordinary number of collectors from almost every country. In last December’s blog, “1939 – HOLLYWOOD’S GOLDEN YEAR OF MOVIES & DOLLS,” Woolsey Ackerman (Walter Films’ Film Researcher & Curator) shared an article he wrote for the 2019 United Federation of Doll Clubs “Convention Souvenir Journal.” It focused on the dolls that related to the classic movies and stars of 1939 that were available …

10 LGBTQ PERFORMERS IN THE 1970’S

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by David Ehrenstein The Stonewall riots were a series of spontaneous, violent demonstrations by members of the gay (LGBT) community against a police raid that began in the early morning hours of June 28, 1969, at the Stonewall Inn in the Greenwich Village neighborhood of New York City. They are widely considered to constitute the most important event leading to the gay liberation movement and the modern fight for LGBT rights in the United States. Wikipedia What followed in the 1970’s was a ri…

8 GREAT BLACK JAZZ MUSICIANS

by Bill Reed In the first half of the 20th century these eight, great black jazz musicians, who helped to create one of America’s unique contributions to the musical canon, come alive in the wonderful posters, photographs and promotional pieces that are part of WalterFilms’ collection of African Americana. Jazz, a music genre that originated in the African American community, is known for its soulfulness and complex musical variations. Click on an image to view offering. MILES DAVIS Backgroun…