BLACK MAGIC

Negroes in show business, at one time or another, have been just about everything anybody else has been, from performers to impresarios"" and here poet-playwright Hughes and co-author Meltzer tick off their accomplishments. They add up to an impressive contribution to the American theater, comprise a shadow history of theater in America from the slavery era through the Sixties. Great performers-- tragedians, comics, singers, dancers are too numerous to note; there have been playwrights, composers, companies, theaters, as well. Little editorializing here, scarcely a pause to comment (other than to orient) on the influence of and on the total theater scene and society, but a collected performance as a record.