For days, Harlem residents strolling anywhere between Lexington Avenue and Broadway from 125th to 140th Streets had seen the word “MACBETH” stenciled in glowing paint at every corner. New York’s African-American community had been discussing the new production by the Federal Theater Project’s Negro Unit with mingled pride and anxiety for months, and by opening night on April 14, 1936, anticipation had reached a fever pitch. At 6:30 pm, 10000 people stood as close as they could come to the Lafayette Theatre on Seventh Avenue near 131st Street, jamming the avenue for 10 blocks and halting northbound traffic for more than an hour. Spotlights swept the crowd as mounted policemen strove to keep the entrance to the theater open for the arriving ticket holders, an integrated group of “Harlemites in ermine, orchids and gardenias, Broadwayites in mufti,” as the New York World-Telegram noted the next day. Every one of the Lafayette’s 1223 seats was taken; scalpers were getting for a pair of 40-cent tickets. The lobby was so packed people couldn’t get to their seats; the curtain, announced for 8:45, didn’t rise until 9:30. When it finally did, on a jungle scene complete with witches and voodoo drums, the frenzied mood outside the theater was matched by that within. “Excitment…fairly rocked the Lafayette Theatre,” The New York Times commented the next morning. The spectators were enthusiastic and noisy; they vocally encouraged Macbeth’s soliloquies and clapped vigorously when …
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