Hemsley Winfield’s Acting and Directing Career

By Dr. Nelson D. Neal

Excerpts from Chapter One, Hemsley Winfield: Pioneer of Modern Dance, A Biography ©2020

Because this is an excerpt not all notations are listed.

When Hemsley Winfield was 17, he became the Director of the Mariarden Playhouse13 which was an offshoot of the National Ethiopian Art Theatre School. The Playhouse was supported by Kenneth MacGowan, Eugene O’Neill, and Robert Edmond Jones, who had been business partners in the theater industry and were also famous for their individual accomplishments. One of MacGowan’s productions was Little Women, starring Katherine Hepburn.14 Eugene O’Neill won the Nobel Prize in Literature and the Pulitzer Prize for drama four times.15 Robert Jones was credited with stage design that was new in American theater for such plays as Morning Becomes Electra and The Philadelphia Story.16 Throughout Hemsley Winfield’s career, he was in the company of great writers, directors, actors, and dancers which served him extremely well during his theater career, as an actor and director, and during his dance career as a director, performer, and choreographer for his own modern dance company.

As the Director of the Mariarden Playhouse Winfield said they would perform experimental plays for subscribers with occasional performances for the general public. The students from the Ethiopian Art Theatre School performed in the one-act plays and members of the Provincetown Players and the Acme Players performed in the longer plays. While Winfield was an actor with the Provincetown Playhouse and the Ethiopian Art Theatre School, he was also the director of the Mariarden Players, not to be confused with the Mariarden Playhouse in New Hampshire.

It seems remarkable that a 17-year-old would be the director of a theater company and acting in plays such as Eugene O’Neill’s All God’s Chillun Got Wings, as well as plays by other playwrights.17 Two of the most well-known actors who were performing with the Provincetown Players at the time, with whom Winfield interacted, were Paul Robeson and Charles Gilpin.18  What a great learning experience it must have been to work alongside these skilled performers, of theater and film, who became some of the most well-known performers in the United States. I doubt that in his wildest dreams Winfield could have envisioned acting in the same company as Robeson and Gilpin. Even when Winfield was at the height of his career, I am sure he would never have thought of being compared to Paul Robeson, which is what Richard Sylvester, President of the Dancers’ Club of America, wrote about Winfield, “a pioneer of Negro dancing, he obtained an eminence comparable with Paul Robeson in the music field.”  

During the mid-1920s, Winfield performed with the Ethiopian Art Theatre when they performed Being Forty, Cooped Up, and Bills, at the Lafayette Theater. Bills, a farce in one act, was written by John M. Francis in 1909, with this performance in 1924. Winfield played Mr. Jack Davis, the lead role in Bills with Marion Moore as Mrs. Davis and John S. Brown as Mr. Jones. It was said that Winfield “added quite a bit to the comedy.”19 Images of the dialog of the play can be found online.20 

Winfield also sang at a recital that featured Florence Mills, Jessie Andrews Zackery and Lydie Mason. Zackery was a soprano, Lydie Mason was a pianist and Florence Mills gained notoriety after her Broadway performance in Shuffle Along in 1921. She was also well known for her performance in Lew Leslie’s Blackbirds in 1926. Unfortunately, she died a year later at the age of 31.22 Again, Winfield was in the company of greatness, and he was only 17 years old.

In June of 1925 Winfield formed the Theatre Group which was recognized as one of the “Little Theatre” groups throughout the country, as listed in The Billboard newspaper. It listed Winfield as the director, his home address, and that Edmund J. Kennedy was the secretary.23 The first performance by the New Negro Art Theatre Group was August 4, 1925, at the Woman’s Institute of Yonkers. Four plays were performed: Neighbors by Zona Gale, The Candle by Edmund J. Kennedy, The Florist by Winifred Hawkridge, and Beyond by Eugene O’Neill. About these presentations it was written that they held the audience in suspense of interest.24 The writer, Elita Miller Lenz, wrote that Winfield’s group “had made a splendid start after two months of training they produced their first bill of one-act plays,” and that “the group has the great advantage of starting under the direction of a professional actor, O. Hemsley Winfield.”25 It should be remembered that Winfield was now just 18 years old and had just graduated from high school. To be recognized as an actor at such a young age was quite impressive.

In November 1925 Winfield’s New Negro Art Theatre Group was to open a school of theater for children, which included classrooms and a performance venue. The school was to be in a church that had been abandoned for two years, in Dunwoodie, a neighborhood in Yonkers not far from Winfield’s home. A few residents in the Dunwoodie neighborhood sent unsigned racial protest letters to the Yonkers Statesman newspaper to keep Winfield and his theatre company out of their neighborhood. One of the letters stated that, “the colored people weren’t wanted in Dunwoodie. They’ll be lynched if they try to stay here.’”26 There were also people who protested with sticks and stones outside the old church. Since Winfield’s group had already rented the space and sent out tickets and programs to more than 100 subscribers, it was quite a blow to the organization to cancel everything. Winfield said, “it is all a misunderstanding of our efforts.”27 In a formal statement he wrote: “Just one week from the opening of Westchester County’s finest and most unique art centre in the form of a classical theatre, we were forced to leave the community from fear of mob violence.”28 This was an unfortunate reminder of the racial prejudice of the time in our country.

Although young Hemsley Winfield was getting positive comments about his acting and directing the critics were not always complementary. In David Belasco’s production of Lulu Belle at the Belasco Theater in February 1926, Winfield played Joe. The play, written by Edward Sheldon and Charles MacArthur received a poor review by Brooks Atkinson who wrote, “the scene design was too detailed, and that Belasco had left nothing out except plot and story.”30 Fortunately, Winfield had many opportunities to perform in plays that received good reviews, and there were many positive comments about his acting in many of the plays.

One play in which he acted and danced before he created his modern dance company was Salome. From April 12, 1926, through July 22, 1929, he either directed, acted, or danced in this Eugene O’Neill play. The performance at the Philipsburgh Hall on April 9, 1928, just 10 days prior to his 21st birthday, was especially memorable when “Minus the services of his leading lady, Miss Diane Carlston, due to illness, Mr. Winfield himself was forced to step in and portray the title role of Salome. The audience did not detect the change until the second act, however, so excellent was his performance.”31 In February, prior to the Philipsburgh Hall performance, Winfield’s company had presented Salome three times over WCGU radio, becoming “the first Negro group to ever broadcast a play over a New York station.”32 The play was so well received that they were requested to return. They also performed sketches and spirituals numerous times on radio station WGBS where he was referred to as the well-known Negro impresario of Yonkers.33

In April 1928 Winfield performed in e. e. cummings play him. He played four roles, an Ethiopian, the Porter, a Male Black Figure, and the King of Borneo. He was in 3 scenes in Act 2, and in the final scene of Act 3. The role as the black male figure afforded him the opportunity to choreograph and dance a cake walk with Goldye Steiner,34 in the fifth and final scene of Act 2. It was not the norm to play four different roles in a play and it certainly took much of Winfield’s time to attend all the rehearsals and the performances while he was, at the same time, directing his own theater company.

Brooks Atkinson wrote that “the play subsided into a series of satiric turns of which a syncopated rendition of ‘Frankie and Johnny’ was the climax in hilarity.”35 It was written that Steiner “sang the Frankie and Johnnie legend with excellent effect.”36 Steiner, a singer, and actress, who later performed at the Metropolitan Opera was described as, “a colored Jewish woman cantor.”37 John Sloan, an American artist, created an etching of Winfield and Steiner from that scene. It is one of only a couple of artistic depictions of Hemsley Winfield. Choreographing the cake walk for the play was just one more opportunity for Winfield to develop his love for dancing, which eventually led to him creating the New Negro Art Theatre Dance Group in 1931.

The Triangle Theater and the 135th Street Library

Hemsley Winfield’s life and career development as an actor and theatrical director was very closely intertwined with two venues, the Triangle Theater, and the New York Public Library branch at 135th Street in Harlem. The effect that these two performance and rehearsal spaces had on Winfield and his company was quite different, simply due to the location of each one. The Triangle Theater was in the heart of the Broadway scene around Seventh Avenue, while the library was a local space for the Harlem “little theater” groups to basically test the waters, to discover whether or not one’s theatrical company would make it in a sea of little theater groups during the Harlem Renaissance. The intellectual and artistic explosion centered in Harlem and Manhattan during the 1920s, also known as the ‘New Negro Movement,’ was named after Alain Locke’s anthology, The New Negro, in 1925.38 Winfield was able to rub elbows, as it were, with the likes of Ridgley Torrence, Zora Neale Hurston, Oscar Wilde, e. e. cummings, Duke Ellington, Florence Mills, Hall Johnson, and W. E. B. Du Bois. His careers in theater and dance were certainly influenced by these men and women, and he chose to use the title of Alain Locke’s book when naming his theater company, The New Negro Art Theatre, which he kept when he created his modern dance company.

         Winfield named his first theater group, the Sekondi Players, that performed several times at the Triangle Theater and used it on two different occasions as the home base for the company, first in 1927 and later in 1928, after a residency at the 135th Street Library Branch of the New York Public Library. The theater got its name from the triangular property on which it was located between Seventh Avenue and 11th street. The name of Winfield’s theater group came from the city of Sekondi in Ghana, Africa. This may have been his way of relating to or showing a connection to his and his company members African heritage, which also showed up in some of his choreography. 

         One of the first plays Winfield and the Sekondi Players performed at the Triangle Theater occurred April 12, 1927, and was titled ON, a one-act play written by Winfield. It did not get a lot of publicity and up to now no descriptions of it have been discovered. The other one-act plays he directed at the Triangle Theater included: “‘Daffodil,’ a Thomas Burke ‘Limehouse’ story, dramatized by Y. Herbert; ‘The Silver Frost’ and ‘The Victim,’ by David Divin; ‘The Dance of Death,’ pantomimed by Jean Wohl, and ‘The Bridge,’ a war playlet by Stuart Hamill.”39 

         Kathleen Kirkwood, manager of the Triangle Theater and former director of the Ethiopian Art Theater School, where Winfield studied, decided to present the Sekondi Players, directed by Winfield, every Tuesday evening, beginning in May 1927.40 He continued to direct plays at the Triangle Theater by other playwrights including He Said and She Said, by Alice Gerstenberg, White Dresses, by Paul Green, and Blue Blood, by Georgia Douglas Johnson.41 

         Within the play Bare Facts of 1927 there was a skit entitled Foots, directed by Winfield which was called clever, as well as a group of Negro spirituals, he also directed with assistance by Albert Patrick. The reviewer wrote that the group of negro spirituals did not register well due to a “lack of negro singers and the feeling they convey in songs of this type. There is not sufficient expression in the singing of the white chorus.”42 By September 1927 Winfield moved the company into the 135th Street Branch of the New York Public Library. Once there, he was to teach a practical course in theater to aspiring students to organize a performing drama company. The first meeting was scheduled for September 1 at the library.43

When Winfield permanently moved his theater company to their new home in the basement of the 135th Street branch of The New York Public Library it was noted that, “This group, with a colored membership, plans to stay in the library basement until it has established a real branch of the Yonkers workshop. A season of repertory is planned, with the first bill now in rehearsal. The Harlem branch of the Sekondi Players will be known as the New Negro Art Theatre.”44

The 135th Street branch of The New York Public Library is now the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, a research division focused on African American, African Diaspora, and African experiences.45 It houses the Joe Nash Black Dance Collection which includes some memorabilia about Hemsley Winfield. Before Winfield could move the New Negro Art Theatre Group into the library space it took a few months of letters between Winfield, W. E. B. Du Bois and the branch librarian to work out all the details. Images of the letters can be found in Hemsley Winfield: Pioneer of Modern Dance, A Biography.

In two letters, in January and February 1927, between Winfield, W. E. B. Du Bois, and the head librarian, Winfield had written an apologetically sounding letter to Mr. Du Bois requesting if he would grant specific rehearsal and performance dates, in the library performance area, in the hope that they would not conflict with the Krigwa Players schedule that Mr. Du Bois was directing.46 The letter is on stationery with Winfield’s home address and the group name The Little Theatre Group, Sekondi Players which he started between 1925-1926. Apparently, this was a transition time between marketing the theater group as The New Negro Art Theatre Group and the Sekondi Players who were the smaller group of actors who performed the plays. By 1927 the New Negro Art Theatre Group had been performing plays for nearly two years under Winfield’s direction. Mr. Du Bois responded to Winfield’s letter by writing to the head librarian. “My dear Miss Rose: Unless I hear from you to the contrary, I would like the Sekondi Players, who are going to give some plays at the Little Theatre on the 21st, 23rd and 28th, to have a rehearsal in the Theatre Sunday afternoon, February 20th. Very sincerely yours, WEBD/DW.”47 

“The Krigwa Players Little Negro Theater presented the Sekondi Players in the last of a series of three performances. The Sekondi Players is a little theatre group of 21 young talented men and women of Yonkers which has been active for two years and has produced a creditable number of one-act plays.” They performed The Catalator by Edward Johnson, In the Darkness by Edward Emerson, ON by Hemsley Winfield, and The Rider of Dreams by Ridgely Torrence.48 

Unfortunately, relations between Du Bois and Winfield were not always optimistic. In August 1927 there was an incorrect newspaper article about the use of the performance space at the 135th Street library, by the New Negro Art Theatre Group, that caused some friction between Du Bois and Winfield. An August 31st letter from Mr. John S. Brown, Jr., the Administrative Secretary for the American Council on African Education, asked Mr. Du Bois if he was aware that the New Negro Art Theatre Group was going to be permanently located at the 135th Street Library, which was where the Krigwa Players group was based. Brown and Du Bois must have been friends because Mr. Brown’s letter opened with “Dear Will,”49 when Brown sent the information from a local newspaper. I find it interesting that Brown, who knew and acted with Winfield in 1924, wrote this letter to Du Bois, apparently without speaking to Winfield first, to have the most accurate information about the newspaper article. On September 1, 1927, Mr. Du Bois posted a letter to the head librarian, Ernestine Rose, and asked if the notice in the Amsterdam News was correct, and had she consented to having Winfield’s group permanently located at the library.50 On September 6 a reply by Eliza Buckner Marquess, on behalf of Ernestine Rose, stated the item in the newspaper was incorrect and was not authorized by the library or Mr. Winfield.51  One week later Du Bois wrote the following: “Enclosed is a letter which I have received from Mr. Hemsley Winfield and my reply. I feel very strongly concerning the matter and if the Sekondi Players appear in the library basement I should feel that I would have to withdraw my co-operation. They are not at all up to our standard.”52 When Ms. Marquess responded to Mr. Du Bois, she stated that the library had asked Mr. Winfield to postpone all questions of actual production until the return of the head librarian, and that Winfield had courteously consented.53 In his final letter on September 26 Mr. Du Bois withdrew the “Krigwa” group from the Little Theatre movement in Harlem and told the head librarian “feel free to arrange for other groups to use the playhouse as you see fit.”54 On October 20, 1927, Hemsley Winfield formally opened the New Negro Art Theatre in the basement of the 135th Street branch of the New York Public Library, after W. E. B. Du Bois gave the librarian the go ahead to rent the space.55 

Under Winfield’s direction the Sekondi Players as part of the New Negro Art Theatre put on many plays in the library space including a pantomime of Congo. Winfield was listed as in charge of the settings and scenery.56 He was truly a jack of all trades in the theater business. In October, during an open dress rehearsal, it was noted: “By far the most interesting work of the evening was done in Vachel Lindsay’s ‘Congo’ which was chanted by Albert W. Patrick. Mr. Winfield himself did a gorgeous native dance.”57

In June 1928, at the age of 21, Hemsley Winfield, “well known Broadway Negro actor/director, will open his own theatre in New York City at the Triangle Theatre.”59 From this point forward his company would be known as the New Negro Art Theatre Group. He was back in a good location that was very well-known, and he was directing plays and teaching acting at his school. That summer he directed the New Negro Art Theatre in The Riders of Dreams, In the Darkness, and Congo.60 The plays seemed to be a hit and Winfield was described as; “hitching his wagon to a group of colored stars, crashes forward with a program to lure Broadway to the Triangle theater, Greenwich Village, where the recently formed Negro Art theatre will be domiciled – underground architecturally, but – if we may trust Mr. Winfield – in the upper airs artistically.”61 The company also performed an all-negro review, the Triangle Blues,62 that they presented over radio station WGBS.63 In Triangle Blues they “were putting on a revue, consisting of 20 numbers, all original, with plenty of spicy satire. Reviewers have liked particularly the negro songs, the work of young negro composers.”64 This was one more production with dancing that may have helped Winfield to become immersed in the new style of dance that was happening in New York City, led by Martha Graham in 1927.

Plays written by Hemsley Winfield and his mother Jeroline Winfield

ON

During his theater career Hemsley Winfield wrote at least one play, a one-act play titled ON. It was performed as part of a four-play show at the 135th Street Library in February 1927. The first piece on the program was The Catalator by Edward Johnson with 3 actors, the second was In the Darkness by Edward Emmerson with 4 actors including Winfield as Arther, the third was part of The Theatre Tragic: A Horror Play, series No. 2, written by Winfield entitled ON.65 The fourth play was Riders of Dreams by Ridgely Torrence. There is one typed program of the three plays.66 An image of the program can be found in Hemsley Winfield: Pioneer of Modern Dance, A Biography. His play was also performed at the Triangle Theater with five other one-act plays, Dafodil, adapted by Y. Herbert, Narcissus, by David Diven, Shoot Me, by Gordon Hawthorne, and The Feast of the Vampires and The Bridge, by Stuart Hamill.67 The company also presented Rider of Dreams and ON, at the Metropolitan A.M.E. Zion Church that was located in the Nepperhan neighborhood in Yonkers.68 His group of players was quite versatile as they also sang some Negro Spirituals at the church performance.69

Wade in de Water

Jeroline Hemsley Winfield wrote at least three plays, The Princess and the Black Cat, De Promis’ Lan,’ and Wade in de Water. Her son Hemsley acted in, sang, danced, and directed Wade in de Water at two New York radio stations and in six or more theaters, including the famous Alhambra Theater. It was a “drama of negro life in six scenes,” which has a copyright from March 19, 1929.71 “‘Wade in de Water’ derives its title from a spiritual which holds out hope for divine intervention.”72 The setting of the three acts was “in Georgia in 1885, and portrays the injustice meted out to the Negro by the whites at the time. It was capably presented as a whole, although there were one or two weak spots in the cast. The outstanding work was that of Inez Clough as ‘Malinda Johnson,’ while Hemsley Winfield was especially good as ‘Elijah,’ husband to ‘Malinda.’”73 After one performance at the Cherry Lane Theater the show was cancelled due to the illness of Hemsley Winfield.74 Interestingly, Wade in de Water is one of the sections of Alvin Ailey’s signature work, Revelations, which was premiered in New York in 1960. I often wonder how Winfield’s dancers would have moved to that song sung by voices that were quite different from the choirs of today. I am relatively sure that had they danced to that song in the Camp Meeting scene in 1932 it would have looked vastly different from the 1960 version of Ailey’s Revelations.

One of the main scenes in Jeroline’s play was Camp Meeting, which the New Negro Art Theatre Group performed a few times as a standalone scene. Winfield and his group performed the play at least sixteen times between September 1929 and June 1933, at radio stations WOR and WEVD, the Cherry Lane Theater, twice at his Harlem studio, twice at the Abyssinia Baptist Church, six times at the Urban League Building Studio, once at the Abyssinia Church in Pittsburgh, once at the Yonkers Trade School, and once at the Theatre in the Clouds in the Chanin building. Obviously, this play was extremely popular with audiences to be performed so many times.

De Promis’ Lan’

Jeroline Winfield’s play De Promis’ Lan’ was performed at Carnegie Hall May 27, 1930, and was sponsored by the National Negro Pageant Association of Chicago.75 Winfield choreographed Life and Death, a modern interpretive dance, for the play. He typed the descriptions for the stage direction and the movements of the dancers in Life and Death,76 which was later performed numerous times in concerts by his dance company. The play was only performed one night at Carnegie Hall and did not receive good reviews. One reviewer concluded: “The entire proceedings were mechanically awkward and imitative. They in no way interpreted the true spirit of the Negro and in general were amateurish and stupid.”77 A different reviewer wrote that the group of 13 cast members; “have definitely achieved an inimitable place in the Broadway and Harlem playhouses as actors and singers.”78 Winfield was also the director, and he designed the costumes for the play. It really is difficult to imagine what life must have been like for Winfield as he performed so many jobs during his theater career. It’s hard enough to be directing a company and producing plays but to do it while also either acting in that play or another play at the same time, or being in charge of costumes or set design or being the stage manager is just hard to envision. It is no wonder that his health was affected by all of his work. 

The play had a very large cast with “150 actors, singers, dancers, and musicians,”79 and was publicized as a big deal in that “Hemsley Winfield of Yonkers, known as a leading Negro actor, will make his initial appearance for this year at Carnegie Hall.”80 The score was written by Russell Wooding, who had arranged music for Hot Chocolates and other plays. Proceeds from the play were to be given to the Hope Day Nursery and the Junior Artist Scholarship fund.81 This benefit performance was just one of many that Winfield and his company gave to support his local community throughout his career. The article also told that Winfield was to “sail for Europe, where he will remain for five years directing productions for the first Negro theatre in Berlin which opened recently.”82 However, he did not go to Europe because he started training his new modern dance company in 1930 and he and they performed until his death in January 1934.

The Princess and the Black Cat

Jeroline Hemsley Winfield’s play was sometimes called The Princess and the Black Cat and other times simply The Princess and the Cat. This play was to be the inaugural opening for the New Negro Art Theatre children’s plays series. Children could sign up for membership prior to the performance.83 Other plays to be included during the season were to be Cinderella, Snow White, Re’d Riding Hood, and Alladin and all plays were to be performed at the Grace Congregational Church on West 139th street.84 Plays were scheduled for each Saturday afternoon at the Harlem church.85 Winfield used plays that children could appreciate, ones that brought these classic fairy tales to life. What a great way to build the next generation’s audience and to bring in new, young actors and actresses.

Other Plays in which Winfield Performed or Directed

Earth

Earth was written by Em Jo Basshe with music by Hall Johnson and was performed at the New Playwrights Theatre at the 52nd Street Theatre. Winfield portrayed the role of Barnabas and was the director along with Russell Wright. The play ran for 24 performances in 1927.86 The basic plot was that a group of Negroes “shift their allegiance from the Christian God to the voodoo exorcist and back again amid long festoons of rhetoric.”87 

Harbor Allen, critic for the Daily Worker, wrote one of the better reviews about Earth. “The greatness of ‘Earth’ lies in the fact that its Negroes are real, primitive Negroes. When ‘Earth’ is finished, it has told its story and exhausted its theme. It has said its say on man and the world. That’s enough.”90 Another reviewer did mention Winfield as the character Barnabas, along with Marie Young, as Mary, and that they carried through with credit. Winfield was also named as the stage manager for the performance.91 It’s very likely that because there was singing, dancing, and voodoo chanting that Hemsley Winfield probably choreographed the movements for the natives and the witch doctor in Earth, just as he had choreographed the dancing in the plays Salome, and him.

The Death Dance

The Death Dance was a playlet written by negro author Thelma Duncan,93 who had won a prize for her African play while she was a student at Howard University.94 The play was adapted and staged by Hemsley Winfield and performed at the YMCA Little Theatre May 16 and 17,95 with two other plays by Negro authors.96 This performance was part of a group of three playlets, The House of Sham by Williard Richardson and Plumes by Georgia Douglas Johnson. The performances were held at the 135th Street YMCA and Winfield did not dance in the piece. 

Salome

In 1926 when he was directing the Sekondi Players, which he had incorporated into his new company the New Negro Art Theatre, he directed Salome, written by Oscar Wilde, at Philipsburgh Hall in Yonkers.97 Philipsburgh Hall still stands today as a National Historical Site and the grand ballroom is the focus of the building.98 By the time he was 20 years old Winfield was quite well known within the little theater community throughout Yonkers, Harlem, and other surrounding communities.

The production of Salome in February 1927, when Winfield directed his Little Negro Theatre group, was performed over radio station WCGU.99 Winfield had developed the play into two acts and had arranged the climaxes of the play for the radio audience. This was the first known performance of Oscar Wilde’s play over the radio.100 For this performance one newspaper wrote: “The performance will be given by the New Negro Art Theatre under the direction of O. Hemsley Winfield who is only 20 years old, probably the youngest theatre director in the country.”101 By March 1928 his theater company was performing Salome in the Alhambra Theater. He had succeeded at playing in a major New York theater “where all regular professional facilities will be at hand for the performance. Judging by the success of the group in the past in more limited surroundings, they should fill the Alhambra to capacity.”102 This must have been a very big deal for Winfield and the company, performing in a very well-known, large theater, with all of the lighting and support systems necessary for professional theater companies. He was now working in the “big time.”

The performance at the Alhambra was described as having many society people there and that it was “more like a social affair than a theatrical performance. There were hostesses and most of the people wore evening dress. The men at the door were in tuxedos.”103 The list of people in the press box who were present was quite notable. It included, Edward M. Kelley the editor-in-Chief of the New York Amsterdam News,104 Bessye J. Bearden, journalist, and civic activist,105 and Geraldyn Dismond, who at the time was a journalist for the Pittsburgh Courier writing her column “Through the Lorgnette of Geraldyn Dismond,” which included reviews on theater in New York.106 It certainly didn’t hurt Winfield’s notoriety having patrons like these watching his company. It seemed that Hemsley Winfield was always supported by people who could and did help promote his career. The Alhambra performance occurred at midnight, and was listed as a benefit, “To encourage and stimulate interest in drama the prices for the professional house ranged from 35 cents to 99 cents.”107 The marketing and promotion strategies seemed to work well as Hemsley Winfield, and the New Negro Art Theatre group continued to gain sponsors and to flourish throughout New York City.

In April 1928, his group again performed Salome in Philipsburgh Hall, sponsored by the Westchester County Chauffeurs’ League, to more than 500 people. It was this performance that got him more notoriety than any of the other acting or directing jobs he had up to that time.

In this performance Winfield danced the role of Salome when the leading lady, Miss Diane Carlston became ill. Winfield danced so well that the audience did not detect the change until the second act.108 Hemsley Winfield was so versatile that he could act in a variety of roles, sing, dance, direct, stage manage, and design costumes and sets. It was no wonder that he was being supported by so many noted professionals and community leaders. The New Negro Art Theatre Group continued to perform Salome throughout the year and through 1929 when Winfield directed it at the Provincetown Playhouse and the Cherry Lane Theater, where he again danced the role of Salome.109, 110 In the Cherry Lane Theater performance Robert Garland, of the New York Telegram, wrote: “‘What Mr. Winfield can do is a stageful.’”111 He revived the play once more by dancing Salome in November with “a series of special performances at midnight at the Irish Theatre, formerly the Greenwich Village Theatre.”112

Him

Him was written by e. e. cummings and was performed at the Provincetown Playhouse in 1928 which lasted for 27 performances.113 Winfield portrayed four roles in the play, the Ethiopian, the Porter, a Male Black Figure, and the King of Borneo. The play was not well received, even the pre play publicity was negative with one notable exception about the dance scene in which Hemsley Winfield and Goldye Steiner performed a cake walk dance, that he had choreographed. The dramatization of the legend of Frankie and Johnnie was one of the 21 scenes in the play and included the song sung by a chorus of 45.114 

A negative review by Gilbert Gabriel stated that he gave the play every opportunity to be a play, but “he couldn’t help thinking that ‘Him’ was really a nasty, cranky little urchin of a play which its parent, the author, ought long ago have washed and spanked and put to bed.”115 Brooks Atkinson of the New York Times felt that the play was “Imparting sensations rather than exposition to the playgoer, they are content with third-rate humor and banal expression.” About Winfield’s part as the male black figure “the play subsided into a series of satiric turns of which a syncopated rendition of ‘Frankie and Johnny’ was the climax in hilarity.”116 Another review also gave a positive comment about the cake walk performed by Winfield and Steiner. “Two of the scenes were ‘a semi-circular piece of depth.’ Five of them were called ROOM and five were called ‘picture.’ In the first semi-circular piece of depth a pair of colored folk and a group of masked actors sang a song about Frankie and Johnny that was worth listening to and detracted somewhat from the mad-house atmosphere. The rest was badly splintered silence.”117 One more article stated; “The noisy work by E. E. Cummings known as ‘him’ (no capital letters allowed – Mr. Cummings doesn’t believe in such things) is starting up again tonight at the Provincetown Playhouse.”118 The play had been closed due to lack of funds until someone donated enough money to allow it to run indefinitely. Later that year in an announcement that the New Negro Art Theatre was changing its permanent location it stated that Winfield had “scored a complete triumph in ‘Him,’” during the Frankie and Johnnie scene of the e. e. cummings play.119  

The artist John Sloan created an etching that illustrated Hemsley Winfield, as the male black figure, dancing with Goldye Steiner in the Frankie and Johnny scene.120 I find it surprising that there are so few images of Hemsley Winfield from this point in time of his acting and directing career, especially since he was so accomplished and well known at such a young age. Images of the etching and program can be found in Hemsley Winfield: Pioneer of Modern Dance, A Biography. 

Congo

Along with being the director of his theater group Winfield often did other jobs as he did for the first performance of Congo in 1927, when he was also in charge of the sets and the scenery. In 1928 Congo was part of the performance at the Alhambra being double billed with Salome,123 and later at the Triangle Theater along with In The Darkness by Ridgley Torrence.124 In July the New Negro Art Theatre Group was to perform sketches and spirituals over radio station WGBS. “An added feature of the broadcast will be a rendition of Vachel Lindsay’s ‘Congo’ an African chant with tom-tom accompaniment.”125 The theater company had numerous singers and accompanists.

Congo was also performed during the Carnegie Hall performance of De Promis’ Lan’ in 1930. During that performance it was called Along the River Congo and was performed in pantomime, dialogue, and dance. At that time in Winfield’s directing career, it appeared that he was creating more dances for the plays, as he did in Congo. This performance in June 1930, was the final one of Congo, but it was not the last time that Winfield would create or perform a dance based on his African heritage or the life of Negro’s in America.

The Rider of Dreams

         The Rider of Dreams, by Ridgley Torrence, was one of the longest running plays that Winfield directed. The first performance was, March 5, 1927, when he was the director of the Sekondi Players. The last known performance was May 19, 1929, over radio station WOR, for which Winfield had adapted it. He not only directed the play but also performed the lead role for the radio performance.126 Torrence’s play was a comedy about “a playboy of the Southern world who dreams great dreams, but gets into all manner of trouble when he tries to obey them in an alien and fiercely practical world.”127 The last theater performance of Riders of Dreams was in the Lincoln Theater where they were “very warmly received and a decided hit.”128  Ardelle Dabney played the lead role and was said to have portrayed a mother’s’ love through her realism with her daughter, Malvenia. Winfield “has chosen good characters to bring their messages of Negro home life and native actions to Harlem, the home of thousands who can well understand and appreciate its mission.”129 

Winfield’s group was described as “talented men and women of Yonkers and has been active for two years and has produced a creditable number of one-act plays.”130 Later in 1927 Winfield and the company were to perform Rider of Dreams and other works every Monday evening at the 135th Street Library branch.131 They continued to perform Rider of Dreams in 1928 at the Triangle Theater.132 Winfield and Patrick were described as “expressive as nephew and grandpap. Both are young men with a future.”133 Winfield had gotten quite well known throughout the theater community by the late 1920s, which carried over into his dance career.

Harlem

The opening night at the Apollo Theater was February 20, 1929, and the play ran for 93 performances. The director was Chester Erskin, and Winfield played the part of Jimmie.134 Prior to that opening the play was performed at the Boulevard Theater in Jackson Heights for one week. Winfield along with 23 other actors who were playing the principal roles were referred to as “well known negro players.”135 The play of Negro life “puts a racy and occasionally rancid bit of Harlem’s black belt on the stage, revealing the dark New Yorker. It is the best representation the stage has seen of the Negro as Harlem grows him, or least as the slummer finds him in that part of Manhattan.”136 

When the play opened at the Apollo Theater it aroused anger in the community because it showed “how some Negroes managed to pay their high rent by staging what is known as a ‘rent party,’ where admission is charged at the door. And where those who come in get drunk, and walk out to the kitchen, buy some whisky, drink it – and then return to join in the humpty, bump dance to the tunes of a wicked piano player.”137 This hit a little too close to home and reality to be appreciated and was called mostly disgraceful by some theater goers. “The authors, one white and one colored, came right back with the statement that the scene is not near as bad as they actually saw in many Harlem rent parties they visited while writing the play.”138 Another critic gave it high marks referring to it as “an entertaining melodrama of one phase of negro life in New York City,” and that the authors “have treated some of the foibles of New York Negroes in a sympathetic manner, instead of burlesquing them as they might have done.”139 

After the 93 performances at the Apollo Theater the play moved to the Times Square Theater to open April 29, 1929,140 and ran for another 15 weeks.141 All this kept Winfield extremely busy and engaged as an actor while he was still directing, rehearsing, or performing in other plays. He was also studying dance and choreographing for his mother’s plays which prepared him for creating his dance company in 1931.

Urban League Building Studio

The New Negro Art Theatre had acquired a studio in the New York Urban League Building at 202 West 136th street where they would begin a series of plays. The first play was Maniac by Larri Loerear. Hemsley Winfield was listed along with Inez Clough, Enid Brathwaite, Beatrice Wells, Vere Johns, Jean Donnald and DeCoverley as the members of the cast.142 The first public performance on February 2, 1930 “was a diversified program of drama, comedy, music, poetry and dance.”143 

Also, in the Urban League Building during a three-week period from March 4 through March 23, on Saturdays and Sundays, Winfield and his actors would perform Wade in de Water. It was noted that Winfield had travelled to Boston during the fall of 1929 “to arrange with the Boston Community Theatre for the presentation of his work, and ‘Wade in de Water’ will be the first full production of the New Negro Art Theatre with the original cast to enter Boston.”144 No program or information has been found about any performances in Boston by the New Negro Art Theatre Group.

It appeared that publicity for Winfield and the New Negro Art Theatre, as an acting company, pretty much came to an end with the production of De Promis’ Lan’ May 27, 1930. After which, Winfield began teaching his actors how to dance, and he began choreographing many more dances for the company. He would create the New Negro Art Theatre Dance Group, the first African American modern dance company in America, and would have an extremely successful career as a dancer and choreographer until his death in 1934.

Sources

13. “Experimental Playhouse to be Erected in City,” Yonkers Statesman, October 3, 1924, p. 1.

14. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kenneth_Macgowan

15. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eugene_O%27Neill

16. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Edmond_Jones

17. “Experimental Playhouse to be Erected in City,” Yonkers Statesman, October 3, 1924, p. 1.

18. “Playbills for Mariarden Players Are Announced,” Yonkers Statesman, October 4, 1924, p. 2.

19 “Ethiopian Art School’s Students Give Dramatic Offerings to Harlemites,” New York Age, October 25, 1924, p. 6.

20. https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=hvd.hx5eji&view=1up&seq=11

22. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Florence_Mills

23. “Little Theaters, New York,” Billboard, February 27, 1926, p. 66.

24. Scout (1925, August 15). Around New York, Yonkers, NY, Pittsburgh Courier, p. 6.

25. Lenz, E. M. (1925, August 29). Little Theaters: Yonkers Proud of Amateur Group, Billboard, p. 38.

26. “Dunwoodie is Aroused by Near Race Riot,” Yonkers Statesman, November 10, 1925, pp. 1-2.

27. Ibid.

28. Ibid.

30. Atkinson, J. B. (1926, February 10). The Play, Wages of Sin in Four Acts, New York Times, p.20.

31. “Negro Art Group Present Wilde Play,” Yonkers Statesman, April 10, 1928, p. 5.

32. “Negro Art Theatre Cast to Broadcast,” Yonkers Statesman, July 14, 1928, p. 9.

33. “Yonkers Actor Again at WGBS,” Yonkers Statesman, July 21, 1928, p. 9.

34. Program – “Provincetown Playhouse Presents ‘him’,” April 18, 1928. From the Collection of Michael Webster, Grand Valley State, Allendale, Michigan.

35. Atkinson, J. B. (1928, April 19). The Play, New York Times, The Play, p. 23.

36. “HIM is Tried and Found Guilty,” Daily News, April 19, 1928, p. 37.  https://www.newspapers.com/newspage/412436429/.

37. “Benefit Vaudeville Show,” Philadelphia Inquirer, May 14, 1933, p. 7.

38. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harlem_Renaissance

39. “Drama,” The Daily Worker, April 8, 1927, p.4.

40. Lenz, E. M. (1927, April 30). Little Theaters: Triangle Club in Horror Program, Billboard, p. 39.

41. “Theatrical Notes,” New York Times, May 9, 1927, p. 26.

42. Lenz, E. M. (1927, September 3). The New Plays on Broadway – ‘Bare Facts’ at Triangle is a Sexy Conglomeration, Billboard, p. 4.

43. “Negro Art Theatre Locates in Harlem,” New York Age, September 3, 1927, p. 6.

44. Lenz, E. M. (1927, September 17). Little Theaters, Billboard, p. 39.

45. Schomburg Library, https://www.nypl.org/about/locations/schomburg  

46. O. Hemsley Winfield, letter to W. E. B. Du Bois, January 27, 1927. 48.                                                                          https://credo.library.umass.edu/view/full/mums312-b039-i356

47. W. E. B. Du Bois, letter to Ernestine Rose, February 8, 1927. https://credo.library.umass.edu/view/full/mums312-b040-i198

48. Dismond, G. (1927, March 5). New York Society, Pittsburgh Courier, sec. 1, p. 6.

49. John S. Brown, Jr. letter to W. E. B. Du Bois, August 31, 1927. https://credo.library.umass.edu/view/full/mums312-b037-i273

50. W. E. B. Du Bois letter to Ernestine Rose, September 1, 1927. https://credo.library.umass.edu/view/full/mums312-b040-i204

51. Eliza Buckner Marquess letter to W. E. B. Du Bois, September 6, 1927. https://credo.library.umass.edu/view/full/mums312-b040-i205

52. W. E. B. Du Bois, letter to Ernestine Rose, September 12, 1927. https://credo.library.umass.edu/view/full/mums312-b040-i206

53. Eliza Marquess, letter to W. E. B. Du Bois, September 19, 1927. https://credo.library.umass.edu/view/full/mums312-b040-i207

54. W. E. B. Du Bois letter to Ernestine Rose, September 26, 1927.http s://credo.library.umass.edu/view/full/mums312-b040-i208

55. “Negro Art Theatre Opens,” October 29, 1927, Afro-American Weekly, p. 7.

56. “Sekondi Players to Open Season at 135th street Library on September 22,” New York Age, September 17, 1927, p. 6.

57. “Negro Art Theatre Opens,” October 29, 1927, Afro-American Weekly, p. 7.

59. “Local Negro to Open Theatre in New York,” Yonkers Statesman, June 6, 1928, p. 9.

60. “Winfield Art Group Opens Season Friday,” Yonkers Statesman, June 20, 1928, p. 7.

61. “Chicago Too,” Afro-American Weekly, July 28, 1928, p. 8.

62. “An all-negro revue. “Theatrical Notes,” New York Times, August 11, 1928, p. 13.

63. “Winfield Troupe on Air,” Yonkers Statesman, August 25, 1928, p. 11.

64. Lenz, E. L. (1928, September 1). Little Theaters: Negro Art Theater Invades Lower New York, Billboard, p. 38.

65. New Negro Art Theater (New York, N.Y.). Krigwa players playbill W. E. B. Du Bois Papers (MS 312). https://credo.library.umass.edu/view/full/mums312-b158-i003

66. New Negro Art Theater (New York, N.Y.). Krigwa players playbill, W. E. B. Du Bois Papers (MS 312). Special Collections and University Archives, University of Massachusetts Amherst Libraries, https://credo.library.umass.edu/view/full/mums312-b158-i003.    

67. Lenz, E. M. (1927, April 30). Little Theaters: Triangle Club in Horror Program, Billboard, p. 39.

68. “To Present Plays,” Yonkers Statesman, June 8, 1927, p. 3.

69. “Interesting Items Gleaned by the Age Correspondents, Yonkers, NY,” New York Age, June 11, 1927, p. 8.

71. Copyright information about Wade in de Water by Jeroline Hemsley Winfield. http://books.google.com/books?id=As5DAAAAIAAJ&pg=PA126&lpg=PA126&dq=plays+written+by+Jeroline+Hemsley&source=bl&ots=KIu6bowNvm&sig=fa7PQUJV_kRuD20sC_SqB0RicGs&hl=en&ei=UrhaTrKyNMLh0QGthfWUCQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=4&sqi=2&ved=0CDsQ6AEwAw#v=onepage&q&f=false

72. “Negro Play Lacks Order,” New York Times, September 14, 1929, p. 24.

73. “New Negro Art Theatre Presents New Play,” New York Age, March 15, 1930, p. 7.

74.“Theatrical Notes,” New York Times, September 19, 1929, p. 46.

75. “De Promis’ Lan’ Coming,” New York Evening Post, May 10, 1930, p. 11.

76. “Life and Death for Male Group.” Joe Nash Black Dance Collection, Schomburg Library, New York City. 

77. Crouch, C. (1930, June 7). Negro Art Group Pageant Plays to Small Audience, Billboard, p. 6.

78. “Negro Art Theater Active,” Brooklyn Daily Eagle, May 18, 1930, p. 3E. 

79. “De Promis’ Lan” New York Sun, May 19, 1930, p. 19.

80. “Hemsley Winfield to Appear May 27,” Yonkers Statesman, May 13, 1930.

81. “Benefit for Hope Day Nursery to be Staged at Carnegie Hall, May 27,” New York Age, May 17, 1930, p. 2.

82. Op. cit.

83. “Negro Art Theatre to Give Children’s Plays,” New York Age, November 12, 1927, p.6.

84. “Negro Art Theatre to Repeat Children’s Play,” New York Age, November 19, 1927, p. 6.

85. Ibid.

86. Playbill of Earth. http://www.playbillvault.com/Show/Detail/13625/Earth

87. Atkinson, J. B. (1927, March 10). The Play, “Sinin’ Sister” New York Times, p. 23.

90. Allen H. (1927, March 15). “A Black Folk Drama: Earth Weighs God in the Balance and Finds Him Wanting.” The Daily Worker, p. 4.

91. Lewis, T. (1927, April 2). They Call This Negro Drama, Pittsburgh Courier, second section, p. 1.

93. “135th St. Y.M.C.A. Players End Season,” New York Age, June 24, 1933, p. 6.

94. “Negro Drama Festival Set,” Daily Argus, [Mt. Vernon, NY], Jan. 29, 1936, p. 4.

95. “Y.M.C.A Players Have Auspicious Premier,” New York Age, May 27, 1933, p. 6.

96. “135th St. Y.M.C.A. Players End Season,” New York Age, June 24, 1933, p.6.

97. “Negro Art Theatre to Present ‘Salome,’” Yonkers Statesman, April 6, 1926, p. 19.

98. Philipsburgh Building, Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philipsburgh_Building. 

99. “Interesting Items Gleaned by the Age Correspondents, Yonkers N.Y.” New York Age, February 20, 1927.

100. “New Negro Theatre to Broadcast ‘Salome’,” New York Age, February 11, 1928, p. 3.

101. “Features on the Air Next Week,” The Daily Argus, [Pelham, NY]. February 17, 1928, p. 14.

102. “Negro Art Theatre to Give Midnight Performance of ‘Salome,’” New York Age, February 18, 1928, p. 6.

103. “New York Society,” Pittsburgh Courier, March 17, 1928, first section, p. 6.

104. Edward M. Kelley, https://credo.library.umass.edu/view/full/mums312-b044-i126 

105. Bessye J. Bearden, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bessye_J._Bearden 

106. Geraldyn Dismond, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gerri_Major 

107. Lenz, E. L. (1928, March 17). Little Theaters: Negro Art Theater Presents ‘Salome’, Billboard, p. 39.

108. “Negro Art Group Present Wilde Play,” Yonkers Statesman, April 10, 1928, p. 5.

109. “To Present Wilde’s ‘Salome,’” New York Times, July 4, 1929, p. 8.

110. “‘Salome’ Still Clicks,” Afro-American Weekly, August 10, 1929, p. 7.

111. “Display Ad 115 – No title,” New York Times, August 20, 1929, p. 31.

112. “Salome’ Revived Again,” New York Evening Post, November 15, 1929, p. 11.

113. “Program, Provincetown Playhouse Presents ‘him’,” April 18, 1928, The original is in the Collection of Michael Webster, Grand Valley State, Allendale, Michigan.

114. “To Sing Famous Songs,” Brooklyn Daily Eagle, April 6, 1928, p. 19.

115. Gabriel, G. (1928, April 19). “Last’s Night First Night,” The New York Sun, p. 22.

116. Atkinson, J. B. (1928, April 19). New York Times, The Play, p. 23.

117. Pollock A. (1928, April 19). The Theaters, Brooklyn Daily Eagle, p. 14A.

118. Waldorf, W. (1928, May 15), Forecasts and Postscripts, New York Evening Post, p. 18.

119. “In New York: Negro Art Theatre Moves,” Afro-American Weekly, September 15, 1928, p. 5.

120. Sloan, J. Etching, 1928. An original etching is in the Collection of Michael Webster, Grand Valley State, Allendale, Michigan, websterm@gvsu.edu, April 30, 2014.

123. “Negro Art Theatre to Give Midnight Performance of ‘Salome,’” New York Age, February 18, 1928, p. 6.

124. “Winfield Art Group Opens Season Friday,” Yonkers Statesman, June 20, 1928, p. 7.

125. “Negro Art Theatre Cast to Broadcast,” Yonkers Statesman, July 14, 1928, p. 9.

126. “Harlem Theater on Air,” Brooklyn Daily Eagle, May 19, 1929, p. 6E.

127. “Three Negro Plays Played by Negros,” New York Times, April 6, 1917, p. 11.

128. Gardner, C. (1928, November 17). Negro Art Players, Pittsburgh Courier, section 2, p. 3.

129. Ibid.

130. Dismond, G. (1927, March 5). New York Society, Pittsburgh Courier, p. 6.

131. Repertory Plays by the New Negro Art Theatre,” New York Age, November 19, 1927, p. 6.

132. Winfield Art Group Opens Season Friday,” Yonkers Statesman, June 20, 1928, p. 7.

133. Gardner, C. (1928, November 17). Daily Theatre Offerings, Pittsburgh Courier, section 2, p. 3.

134. Program for Harlem, (1932, September 22). http://www.playbillvault.com/Show/Detail/1262/Harlem 

135. Kayton, A. J., (1929, February 5), In the Theatres on Broadway, Brooklyn Daily Star, p. 16.

136. Pollock, A., (1929, February 21), The Theater, Brooklyn Daily Eagle, p. 12A.

137. Gardner, C. (1929, March 9). Harlem Scorns ‘Harlem;’ Broadway Lauds It, Pittsburgh Courier, sec. 3, p. 1.

138. Ibid.

139. Clark, W. E., (1929, March 23). ‘Harlem’ is entertaining melodrama of One Phase of Negro Life in New York City, New York Age, p. 6.

140. “Harlem to move to Times Square Theater,” New York Age, April 27, 1929, p. 6.

141. Calvin, F. J. (1932, March 5). Woman Dentist Turns to Theatre as Hobby, Pittsburgh Courier, sec. 1, p.5.

142. “Negro Art Theatre to Open 1930 Program,” New York Age, February 1, 1930, p. 6.

143. “New Negro Art Theatre,” New York Age, February 8, 1930, p. 6.

144. “Playhouses and Playfolk Give ‘Wade in de Water,’” Afro-American Weekly, March 8, 1930, p. 8. 

Hemsley Winfield’s First Dance Performances

Nelson D. Neal, Ed.D. 

© 2023

I’ve been thinking about how long Hemsley Winfield had to train his actors in his theater company, the New Negro Art Theater Group, to prepare for their first performances and first concert. He had been performing some solo dances in a few plays from 1924 through 1930. Hemsley Winfield began to train his actors to be dancers when they performed, Life and Death, in his mother’s play De Promis’ Lan’ in 1927. I know for me I was trained to be a dancer, choreographer, and teacher for two years and then when I was hired as a university dance teacher and director, it took 6 years before I was ready to present a concert of only my works. Winfield seems to have accomplished the feat, with little dance training, in three years.

Because Winfield had been a full-time director of various theater companies from 1924 through 1930 and had created his own theater company, the New Negro Art Theater Group, between 1925-1926, he didn’t have time to develop a group of dancers. Maybe without knowing it he had been moving toward dancing and choreographing when he created and performed solo pieces in some plays in which he was an actor or director.

In 1927 he choreographed a native dance and performed in the play Congo. “By far the most interesting work of the evening was done in Vachel Lindsay’s ‘Congo’ which was chanted by Albert W. Patrick. Mr. Winfield himself did a gorgeous native dance.”1 He performed the Congo dance again in 1928 when his actors were performing three plays at the Triangle Theater and again in 1930 at Carnegie Hall. The Carnegie Hall production, which was directed by Winfield, had 33 dancers.

“The plays seemed to be a hit and Winfield was described as; ‘hitching his wagon to a group of colored stars, crashes forward with a program to lure Broadway to the Triangle theater, Greenwich Village, where the recently formed Negro Art theatre will be domiciled – underground architecturally, but – if we may trust Mr. Winfield – in the upper airs artistically.’ The company also performed an all-negro review, the Triangle Blues, that they presented over radio station WGBS. In Triangle Blues they ‘were putting on a revue, consisting of 20 numbers, all original, with plenty of spicy satire. Reviewers have liked particularly the negro songs, the work of young negro composers.’ This was one more production with dancing that may have helped Winfield to become immersed in the new style of dance that was happening in New York City, led by Martha Graham in 1927.”2

Winfield also acted and danced in the play Earth in1927. One reviewer did mention Winfield as the character Barnabas, along with Marie Young, as Mary, and that they carried through with credit. Winfield was also named as the stage manager for the performance.3 “It’s very likely that because there was singing, dancing, and voodoo chanting that Hemsley Winfield probably choreographed the movements for the natives and the witch doctor in Earth.”4

Between 1926 and 1929 Winfield either directed or acted or danced in Eugene O’Neill’s play Salome. In 1928, in Philipsburgh Hall, he performed the seven veils dance when the actress was ill and could not perform. His theater company performed Salome three times over radio station WCGU, becoming “the first Negro group to ever broadcast a play over a New York station.”5 It seems unlikely that Winfield performed the dance of the seven veils over the radio.  

Another dance performed by Winfield was when he choreographed and danced a cake walk with Goldye Steiner in e. e. cummings play him in 1928. Brooks Atkinson described the Frankie and Johnnie dance as “the climax in hilarity.” The scene was immortalized in John Sloan’s etching of Winfield and Steiner dancing.

Hemsley Winfield’s mother, Jeroline Hemsley Winfield, wrote three plays, one of which, Wade in de Water, received a copyright on March 19, 1929. One of the six scenes in the play was Camp Meeting which included a dance choreographed by Hemsley Winfield. His dancers performed the dance from the Camp Meeting scene in several dance concerts.

In May 1930 his theater group performed the dance Life and Death at Carnegie Hall as part of his mother’s play De Promis’ Lan’. It seems logical that between 1929 and 1930 Winfield began training his actors to become dancers since they had danced in Wade in de Water and in De Promis’ Lan’. Although he had been teaching his acting troupe to dance, he didn’t open his school of dance, for children and adults, until 1932.7  

The first public performance by Winfield’s newly named group, The New Negro Art Theater Group was in June 1925. One of the last performances by his theater group was in May 1930, which included “a diversified program of drama, comedy, music, poetry and dance.”8 It was at this time he began training his actors to be dancers and he created The Bronze Ballet Plastique, later named the New Negro Art Theater Dance Group. He renamed the dance group because his theater company, The New Negro Art Theater Group, was already a well-recognized name throughout New York City. This made it much easier for his dance company to be recognized and to break into the new dance performing art.

By the time of the dance company’s first performance, he had already choreographed at least 10 dances. These came from his works for his mother’s and other’s plays and pieces he created to be performed in Lew Leslie’s Negro Revue, Fast and Furious. The first performance as dancers was with other individuals and groups for the All-Star Benefit Performance for the Colored Citizens Unemployment Relief Committee of Yonkers New York. The performance was held at the Saunders Trade School on March 6, 1931. Other pieces in the show were Sea-Going Charlie, The Hello Paris Jubilee Singers, Mr. Clarence Williams and Miss Eva Taylor, Miss Drusela Drew and Norton, Mr. C. W. Handy, Miss Bettie Martina, and Edna Guy who performed Madrassi (Street) Nautch, choreographed by Ruth St. Denis. Miss Guy also performed in A Temple Offering choreographed by Hemsley Winfield.

Hemsley Winfield’s dance members, of The Bronze Ballet Plastique, performed eight pieces, including Jungle Wedding, Plastique, Negro, St. James Infirmary, Prohibition, A Temple Offering, and Life and Death.9 The company had 16 dancers and Winfield danced in three of the pieces. This was the only performance where the dance company was referred to as The Bronze Ballet Plastique. Winfield changed the group’s name to The New Negro Art Theater Dance Group for their first concert on April 29, 1931, at the Theater in the Clouds in the Chanin Building. Although no program has been found for this concert there is a program for the repeat performance on May 24th at the Mansfield Theater.10

The Mansfield concert was cancelled so Winfield could take his dancers through intensive training during the summer before they would perform later that year. Because the Mansfield program was to be a repeat performance of the First Negro Dance Recital the dances would have been the same. There were 16 dancers listed in the program and there were 13 dances. Of those, Winfield performed two solos, Spasm and Bronze Study. He also danced with the company in Camp Meeting, the dance scene from Wade in de Water, and in Life and Death. A photo of him in the lead role in Life and Death can be seen on the Winfield website.11  

“Finally, in 1938 Edna Guy wrote Negro Dance Pioneer, in which she talked about the three talented Negro dancers who were important in starting Negro dance. She was referring to Winfield, and herself, and Katharine Dunham. In summation about Winfield, she wrote,”12  

“Hemsley Winfield began by dancing in small clubs in Greenwich Village. Later he organized the New Negro Art Dancers and together he and Edna Guy presented the ‘First Negro Concert in America’ at the ‘theatre in the clouds’ (Chanin Building), on April 29, 1931, which proved, to quote John Martin of the New York Times, ‘the out standing novelty of the dance season.’ From this valuable beginning Winfield and his group were featured with the Hall Johnson singers at the old Roxy Theatre and later with ‘The Emperor Jones’ company with Lawrence Tibbett which won much favorable comment. Winfield died a few years ago with a wealth of dance knowledge yet unexpressed and an interesting career was suddenly cut short.”13 

When we speak and write about the pioneers of modern dance, Hemsley Winfield’s name should be included in the same sentence with Martha Graham, Doris Humphrey and Charles Weidman.

“He originated and helped open a new line of activity when he choreographed modern, interpretive, aesthetic dances from an African American perspective. He established, founded, and launched, his modern dance company the Bronze Ballet Plastique in 1931 and he prepared others to follow by teaching dance in the school that he established in 1932. 

Hemsley Winfield’s innovative ideas included being the first to lecture about dance over the radio and to choreograph modern dances to jazz music by W. C. Handy and by Duke Ellington. He was the first, and foremost, ‘Negro dancer’ of his time who also premiered as the first Negro with his dance company to be contracted by the Metropolitan Opera in 1933. 

His obituary in the New York Herald Tribune stated he: ‘was regarded in dancing circles as the initiator and chief exponent of Negro concert dancing in the United States.’  Just because his modern dance career only lasted three years should not have any bearing on him being noted and included as a pioneer of modern dance. Hemsley Winfield WAS one of the modern dance pioneers.”14

References

1.      “Negro Art Theatre Opens,” October 29, 1927, Afro-American Weekly, p. 7.

2.      Neal, N.D. (2020, August). Hemsley Winfield: Pioneer of Modern Dance – A Biography, Publisher: Author.

3.      Lewis, T. (1927, April 2). They Call This Negro Drama, Pittsburgh Courier, second section, p. 1.

4.      Op cit.

5.      “Negro Art Theatre Cast to Broadcast,” Yonkers Statesman, July 14, 1928, p. 9.

6.      Atkinson, J. B. (1928, April 19). The Play, New York Times, The Play, p. 23.

7.      “Hemsley Winfield Heads New School of Dancing,” The New York Age, October 15, 1932, p. 6.

8.      “New Negro Art Theatre,” New York Age, February 8, 1930, p. 6.

9.      Program, March 6, 1931, A copy of the All Star Benefit Performance for the Colored Citizens’ Unemployment and Relief Committee of Yonkers, N. Y.

10.   Program, Mansfield Theatre. Joe Nash Black Dance Collection, Schomburg Library, New York City.

11.   Hemsley Winfield website, https://sites.google.com/view/hemsleywinfield/home, created by Nelson D. Neal, Ed.D. January 7, 2016.

12.   Neal, N.D. (2020, August). Hemsley Winfield: Pioneer of Modern Dance – A Biography, Publisher: Author.

13.   Guy, E. (1938). Negro Dance Pioneer, Dance Herald, vol. 1 no. 5, np.

14.   Op. cit. 

Hemsley Winfield and Family: Buried in an Unmarked Grave

By Nelson D. Neal, Ed.D. 

© 2023

At the end of the depression, after Hemsley Winfield died, a letter from his mother stated they did not have enough money to pay for a photograph that Martinus Anderson had taken of him,1 which begs the question of how they could afford to have their son buried in the Oakland Cemetery. The plot in the cemetery where his remains are interred has only one headstone with the name Philip C. Bush, April 12th, 1855 – December 31st, 1894, Honest, Faithful, Loving. According to the cemetery records there are 12 people buried in this plot in section 3 lot 224, including Hemsley Winfield, his father and mother and his maternal grandmother and grandfather.

The list of known relatives of Hemsley Winfield and the years they were buried in this plot includes Winifred Winfield, 1905; Mary Hemsley, 1913; William Hemsley, 1915; Hemsley Winfield, 1934; Osborne Winfield, 1950; and Geraldine [sic] Jeroline Winfield, 1966.2 William and Mary Hemsley were his maternal grandparents, Jeroline and Osborne were his parents, and Winifred Winfield was his aunt. The first burial in the plot was for Philip C. Bush in 1895. He died at age 39 and had worked for the Rockefellers of New York.

According to two obituaries Philip Bush had been a domestic servant for John D. Rockefeller for 17 years. He was the Coachman who drove the carriage for Mr. Rockefeller. A year before Philip Bush’s death, at age 39, while driving the Rockefeller carriage he saved Mr. Edward Moore, a rich Florida orange grower whose horses were running away. Mr. Bush jumped from his carriage and caught and stopped Mr. Moore’s horses just before they reached a bluff, saving Mr. Moore, his wife, and their two children.3, 4

Mary E. Hemsley (nee Bush), like Philip Bush, also had a relationship with the Rockefeller family. I haven’t found the relationship between Philip Bush and Mary Bush Hemsley; however, she may have been Philip’s older sister since she was born 10 years before him, or she may have been his cousin. Philip Bush was never married.

Mary E. Hemsley came to Yonkers with her husband and family in 1879. They lived at 27 Wolffe Street, across the street from her daughter, Jeroline Hemsley Winfield and husband Osborne D. Winfield and her grandson, Hemsley. She was a member of the Abyssinian Baptist Church of New York City and later with the A. M. E. Zion Church of Yonkers. Coincidentally, Hemsley Winfield’s dance company had performed at both of those churches a number of times. “She leaves to mourn her loss not only relatives and dear friends, but influential and wealthy friends in Yonkers and New York; among them are Mr. and Mrs. William Rockefeller, who gave her the beautiful plot in Oakland Cemetery where her remains will be interred.”5

The Hemsley’s and the Winfield’s were notable black families living in Yonkers. Jeroline Hemsley Winfield, his mother, was an RN for over 50 years. She attended Hampton Institute and St. Paul’s Institute in Virginia. She became a registered nurse in 1902 after graduating from Lincoln Hospital in New York City and worked in home nursing. She also taught home nursing under the auspices of the American Red Cross.6 “She founded and conducted the Susan B. Anthony Association for 15 years, an institution for colored women and girls, affiliated with the Civic Betterment Societies of the city. The club also promoted “interest among the young Negro women of the city in the arts, trades and domestic sciences, and to assist the members to become self-supporting.”7

In 1919 she was appointed as one of the three colored instructors for the American Red Cross.”8 As Chairman of the chapter of the North Harlem Red Cross unit she also authored the Red Cross Notes for the New York Age newspaper.9

Jeroline Winfield was also a playwright. She wrote at least three plays, The Princess and the Black Cat, De Promis’ Lan,’ and Wade in de Water. Wade in de Water is the only play that has a copyright.

“Wade in de water a drama of negro life in 6 scenes by Jeroline Hemsley [i.e. J. H. Winfield] and Hemsley Winfield. 1 © Mar. 19, 1929: D unpub. 625; Jeroline Hemsley Winfield, 24 Wolffe St., Yonkers, N. Y. 2325”10

“The setting of the three acts was in Georgia in 1885, and portrays the injustice meted out to the Negro by the whites at the time.”11 Hemsley acted in, sang, danced, and directed this play at two New York radio stations and in six or more theaters. The play was extremely popular, and his theater and dance groups performed and danced in it at least 16 times between 1929 and 1933.

        Her play De Promis’ Lan’ was performed at Carnegie Hall, May 27, 1930, and was sponsored by the National Negro Pageant Association of Chicago.12 Hemsley choreographed Life and Death, a modern interpretive dance, for the play, which was a year before he created his modern dance company. Typed descriptions for the stage direction and the movements of the dancers in Life and Death, can be found in his Biography.

        Hemsley Winfield’s grandfather, William T. S. Hemsley, was a delegate for the Afro-American Protective Club of Yonkers, to the State Convention of Republican Leagues that was held in Rochester, NY in 1892.13 His grandfather came to Yonkers as the nurse to Colonel B. W. Blanchard. When Jeroline received her RN degree she worked with her father for a short time. “In 1888 he opened a barber shop at 24 Irving place, which he continued until paralysis of the hands disabled him. Mr. Hemsley combined nursing with his barber business and had been employed as such in some of the wealthy families in the city.”14

        Osborne D. Winfield, Hemsley’s father, was a partner in the firm of Winfield and Franklin general Contractors, Inc., with office and garage on Sackett street, Brooklyn, and employing hundreds of men.15 He had also been employed by the old Riter Conley Steel Company of Pittsburgh, Pa.16

        Hemsley Winfield and his family members had many wealthy and influential friends who supported him and his dance company. Other supporters were Ruth St. Denis, Augusta Savage, Agnes Thorpe, Richard Sylvester, Eugene O’Neill, Lawrence Tibbett and many more. It’s time to have a grave marker for Hemsley Winfield.  

References

1. Neal, N.D. (2020, August). Hemsley Winfield: Pioneer of Modern Dance – A Biography, Publisher: Author.

2.  Oakland Cemetery, list of people buried in section 3 lot 224. 

3. “Obituary,” (January 2, 1895). The Sun, p.5

4.  “Life-Saver Bush is Dead,” (January 2, 1895). The World, p. 8.

5.  “Obituary,” Yonkers Statesman, September 26, 1913, p. 6.

6. “Large Class Gets Diplomas in Red cross Home Nursing Course at St. Martin’s Ch.” (April 1, 1933). The New York Age, p. 2.

7. “Susan B. Anthony Club,” (October 26, 1906). Yonkers Statesman, np.

8. “Window in Honor of Mrs. Winfield Placed in Red Cross Building,” (November 7, 1931). The New York Age, p. 9.

9. “Red Cross Notes,” (October 31, 1931). The New York Age, p. 2.

10. Library of Congress. Copyright Office, United States. Dept. of the Treasury 1929, Volume 2, No. 1.

11.  Neal, N.D. (2020, August). Hemsley Winfield: Pioneer of Modern Dance – A Biography, Publisher: Author.

12. “De Promis’ Lan’ Coming,” New York Evening Post, May 10, 1930, p. 11.

13. “To-Days News,” (June 24, 1892). The Yonkers Statesman, p. 1.

14.  “Obituary,” (September 17, 1915). The Yonkers Statesman, p. 6.

15.  “Yonkers, N. Y.” The New York Age, October 20, 1928, p. 8.

16. “Obituary News, Osborne D. Winfield,” The Herald Statesman, July 7, 1950, p. 2.

Hemsley Winfield and Lenore Cox

By Nelson D. Neal, Ed.D. 

© 2023

Two years after Hemsley Winfield died of pneumonia at the age of 26, Lenore Cox gave a presentation at the First National Dance Congress and Festival in New York Hemsley referring to Hemsley Winfield as outstanding. She noted that, at the time, the Harlem club owners were introducing entertainment that for the Negro was only synthetic-primitive and tap. She went on to state, 

“Meanwhile, groups of Negro dancers and students who had been watching the progress made by other groups in the dance, saw possibilities of doing creative work in the dance and decided to attempt to do something other than jazz dancing. Some, no doubt, turned in this direction because they thought it the smart thing to do, or because being a "classical" dancer would set them apart from the ‘hoi polloi’: others, because they felt the need for an outlet that could not be supplied by the popular conception of dancing. 

Outstanding among these was the group headed by the late Hemsley Winfield. To my mind, Winfield deserves a great deal of credit for his ability to organize and hold a group together, his leadership, his imagination, his personality. As a dancer, and I say it as one who admired him and sympathized with what he was trying to do, his technique was not all that it might have been, but he was evidently working constantly to correct that. His group, while attempting interesting themes, themes significant to the problems of the Negro, was handicapped by the lack of training and practice. This was due, I am sure, to no habit of theirs but because their regular jobs made it impossible for them to spend the amount of time necessary for what they were attempting in the dance. Probably the most important thing done by this group was the dancing in "Emperor Jones" - the operatic version starring Lawrence Tibbett.”1  

Winfield understood that his dancers needed further training, they had only been training for less than a year. After their first concert, March 6, 1931, they had a repeat performance scheduled for April at the Mansfield theater. This concert was cancelled so he, “will subject the group to a course of intensive training during the summer and will endeavor at the time of the next recital (early fall) to offer a performance of indisputable perfection."2 

After the first concert critic, John Martin, wrote: “The concert dance is apparently the only branch of the theatrical arts which has not heretofore been successfully approached by the Negro artist, through it is obviously one for which he is admirably fitted.” He also wrote that the sold out concert proved there was a lively interest in it and despite dancing on a small stage space the dancers “maintained an imperturbable poise and adapted themselves to conditions as they found them.”3 

Just over two and half years after John Martin saw Winfield’s dance group perform for the first time, Hemsley Winfield died at the age of 26 on January 15, 1934. His company changed its name to the Modern Negro Dance Group which lasted for less than a year without his leadership.4 

Since I was inspired by Ms. Cox’s article to share her thoughts about Winfield, I found information about Leonore Cox. She was a member of the Negro Unit of Ballet Theatre, 1940-1941, and a dancer in Flying Colors, Sept 1932. She was born in 1905, grew up in Richmond, Virginia and was also known as Azelean Cox. She trained at the School of Modern Dancing under Doris Humphrey and was a student at New York’s City College. As a member of the Negro Unit of Ballet Theatre, Cox was in the original 1940 cast of Agnes de Mille’s Black Ritual. She was considered a dance critic and writer and gave an additional presentation at the second National Dance Congress in 1939. Leonore Cox passed away in 1981.5 

References

1. Cox, L. (1936, May). On A Few Aspects of Negro Dancing, Proceedings of the First National Dance Congress and Festival, New York, pp. 53-55. Reprint from Dance Herald, 1937. 

2. Watkins, M. F. (1931, May 24). Dance Notes, New York Herald Tribune, n. p.  

3. Martin, J. (1931, May 24). The Dance: Greek Chorus. New York Times, p. H3. 

4. Neal, N.D. (2020, August). Hemsley Winfield: Pioneer of Modern Dance – A Biography, Publisher: Author. 

5. Leonore “Azelean” Cox, MoBBallet.org, https://mobballet.org/index.php/2021/03/03/leonore-azelean-cox/, retrieved February 9, 2023.  

Performances as The Congo Witch Doctor in 

The Emperor Jones at the Metropolitan Opera House 

January 7 - March 18, 1933 

"On January 7, 1933, the world premiere of The Emperor Jones opera was performed at the Metropolitan Opera House in New York City. The central cast was composed of four actors and although the Met would not hire an African American as the lead singer, it did cast Hemsley Winfield, listed as a bass, to dance the role of the Congo Witch Doctor. The lead role of the Emperor was given to baritone Lawrence Tibbett, a seasoned singer who had performed multiple roles in various operas at The Met. The other two cast members were tenor Marek Windheim as Henry Smithers and soprano Pearl Besuner as an old native woman. The rest of the men and women in Winfield’s dance company were the island natives. It was Lawrence Tibbett who recommended using Winfield’s dance company members for the natives and that the Met hire Winfield to dance the role of the witch doctor." 

"The first season of The Emperor Jones consisted of ten performances with Winfield dancing in all ten. Seven performances were at the Metropolitan Opera House in New York, one at the American Academy of Music in Philadelphia, one at the Brooklyn Academy of Music, and one at the Lyric Theater in Baltimore. Coincidentally, Winfield had performed in the Emperor Jones play in 1929 at the Provincetown Playhouse. In that production Charles Gilpin played the role of the Emperor Jones." 

"One of the first descriptions of Winfield prior to the opening of the opera stated;  “Hemsley Winfield, dark and smiling ‘medicine man’ of a Caribbean isle not a thousand miles from Broadway, due to be more talked about in the season’s most exotic matinee the first week in January, sat in a Metropolitan dressing room the other day. A quiet, slenderly athletic figure, he was getting his breath after leading thirty Negro men and women in savage dances and strange cries, amid a tropical scene of jungle and voodoo.” "Gilbert Swan, syndicated columnist wrote that “this opera brought Harlem to the Met for the first time” and he noted that Winfield “spent months in the Caribbean countries studying the witch doctor dances and became known as “the medicine man of the Caribbean.”

Mary Watkins, dance critic for the New York Herald Tribune wrote: "Mr. Winfield was, as a matter of fact, after Mr. Tibbett, the hero of the occasion. Such vocalization as he contributed, extemporary or not, was fittingly and effectively enunciated, and his sinister and frantic caperings as the Witch Doctor made even the most sluggish, opera-infected blood run cold. His company, members of the New Negro Art Theatre Group, approached its work in much the same vein, renewing with no apparent difficulty, the racial traces of savagery long sublimated in the elegant sophistication of Harlem."  

"Winfield’s final performance as the Witch Doctor occurred on March 18, 1933, the end of the Metropolitan Opera season. The second season of The Emperor Jones opened in January 1934, and Winfield was listed as dancing other roles with Leonardo Barros dancing as the Congo Witch Doctor."  

All excerpts from:  [Neal, N.D." (2020, August). Hemsley Winfield: Pioneer of Modern Dance – A Biography, Publisher: Author.]