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Lafayette Theatre
opening night of Shakespeare's "Macbeth"
The Lafayette
Theatre, also known as the "House Beautiful" was located at 132nd Street
and 7th Avenue. It was probably the first New York theater to desegregate
and as early as 1912, African-American theatergoers were allowed to sit
in orchestra seats instead of only the balcony. The Lafayette Players, the
resident stock company, played before almost exclusively African-American
audiences in plays from popular white theater repertory as well as the classics.
The theater seated 2,000 and presented such Broadway hits as i>Madame X,
and Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. The photo shows opening night of a production
of Shakespeare's Macbeth, which had been arranged and staged by Orson
Welles. This was a production of the Federal Theatre Project which was a
part of the Works Project Administration. The overture was by James P. Johnson
and such notable actors as Canada Lee and Rose McClendon were part of the
program. This production came to be known as the "Voodoo Macbeth" because
of the various African elements employed in it. Management changed several
times and the theater was turned into a vaudeville house; later it became
a movie theater and finally a church.