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Why was Willis Richardson’s The Chip Woman’s Fortune important in Broadway history?

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The Weary Blues cover — Harlem Renaissance Dust jacket designed by the Mexican illustrator and writer Miguel Covarrubias for Langston Hughes's *The Weary Blues* (1926), a book of experimental poetry.

Willis Richardson’s The Chip Woman’s Fortune holds a significant place in Broadway history because it was the first nonmusical drama written by a Black playwright to be performed on a Broadway stage.1

The play was produced by the Ethiopian Art Theater of Chicago, a company organized by white director Raymond O’Neil. When the troupe performed a season in New York City in 1923, the production marked a milestone for Black-authored drama, which at the time was striving to move beyond the damaging stereotypes perpetuated by blackface minstrelsy. Richardson, who was the most prolific playwright of the Harlem Renaissance, was heavily influenced by Alain Locke’s vision of the "folk play," which sought to reveal the soul of a people through authentic representation.1