Backstage at the Broadway musical "Shuffle Along"
"Shuffle Along" is one of the most anticipated musicals of 2016. It's a revival, of sorts, of a groundbreaking 1921 musical comedy, one of the earliest hit shows starring, written and directed by African-Americans.
Legendary performer Josephine Baker started her career in the show, which also featured a young baritone by the name of Paul Robeson. But the production was pretty much forgotten to history, until now.
A new production, "Shuffle Along, or The Making of the Musical Sensation of 1921 and All That Followed After," re-imagines the show and its backstage drama, and stars some of the most heralded performers on Broadway today.
Great White Way
Audra McDonald arrives at the stage door for the Music Box Theatre in New York City.
Backstage
Billy Porter and Brooks Ashmanskas under the stairway at the stage entrance of the Music Box.
Porter won a Tony Award for his performance as Lola in the musical "Kinky Boots," and has also appeared in "Miss Saigon," "Five Guys Named Moe," "Grease" and "Smokey Joe's Café."
Ashmanskas' Broadway credits include "Something Rotten!," "Bullets Over Broadway," "Present Laughter," "The Ritz," "The Producers" and "Gypsy." He was a Tony nominee for "Martin Short: Fame Becomes Me."
Steps
The talented Broadway veterans behind the re-imagined 1921 musical "Shuffle Along," which opens on April 28 in New York City, are all Tony Award-winners: Director-writer George C. Wolfe, choreographer Savion Glover (pictured), and actors Audra McDonald, Billy Porter, and Brian Stokes Mitchell have 15 Tonys among them.
On Stage
The cast lines up for rehearsal.
George C. Wolfe
Writer-director-producer George C. Wolfe (center) has won six Tony Awards, for "Angels in America," "Bring in 'Da Noise, Bring in 'Da Funk," "Elaine Stritch At Liberty," and "Take Me Out," and also directed "Jelly's Last Jam," "On the Town" and "The Normal Heart."
Me And My Shadow
Rehearsals of the Broadway musical "Shuffle Along."
Savion Glover
Choreographer Savion Glover demonstrates moves.
Glover - a tap-dancing legend - won a Tony Award for 1996's "Bring in 'Da Noise, Bring in 'Da Funk." He's also appeared in "The Tap Dance Kid," "Black and Blue," and "Jelly's Last Jam."
Chorus Line
The score of "Shuffle Along," by the vaudeville team of Eubie Blake and Noble Sissle, includes such popular songs as "I'm Just Wild About Harry."
Demonstration
Wolfe and Glover have a long history, first working together 24 years ago, when Wolfe directed a teenaged Glover in his musical, "Jelly's Last Jam."
Glover is now an older, wiser man. "In our early years of working together, I was there, I was present, but the need to want to learn more wasn't there," Glover told CBS News. "Versus this time, [when] I'm learning as we're working."
Audra McDonald
Billy Porter and Audra McDonald.
The Juilliard-trained McDonald is a record-breaking six-time Tony Award-winner (for "Carousel," "Master Class," "Ragtime," "A Raisin in the Sun," "Porgy and Bess," and "Lady Day at Emerson's Bar & Grill").
Rehearsals
Three dancers on stage.
Broadway Baby
Born in San Antonio, Karissa Royster began dancing at age three, then she figure-skated. She's just earned a degree in political science from New York University.
Though she's making her Broadway debut, Royster is the show's dance captain. Using her photographic memory ("I know in school, studying for exams, I would remember how a professor wrote something on the board"), she is responsible for learning every dancer's part.
"To be at this level already, it doesn't get any better than Broadway for a Broadway talent," said Brian Stokes Mitchell. "You know, if they're here at this age, that bodes well, I think, for [their] futures."
Dancer
Rehearsals of the Broadway musical "Shuffle Along."
Dancer
Wolfe encourages his actors to contribute to their roles and the show in total: "Everybody in the cast, they have secrets. We all have secrets having lived on the planet. We know things about love, and loss, and our parents, and our children, and our dogs, and what really matters, and what doesn't matter. And if you can create the correct environment, everybody brings all of that."
A One And A Two ...
Rehearsals of the Broadway musical "Shuffle Along."
Shadow
Rehearsals of the Broadway musical "Shuffle Along."
Rehearsal
Karissa Royster (far left).
Step By Step
Rehearsals of the Broadway musical "Shuffle Along."
Props
Rehearsals of the Broadway musical "Shuffle Along."
Put Through Their Paces
She's up and dancing.
Shadow Dancing
Rehearsals of the Broadway musical "Shuffle Along."
Rehearsal
Rehearsals of the Broadway musical "Shuffle Along."
George C. Wolfe
George C. Wolfe spent more than a year transforming "Shuffle Along"'s script from 1921 into something new - sharpening the original plot about a less-than-honest mayoral election in a place called Jimtown, USA, and also telling the behind-the-scenes story of the real-life actors and writers whose lives changed because of the musical's success.
"Musicals are hateful. Musicals are horrible, horrible things to work on, because they're just hard," Wolfe told CBS News' Maurice DuBois.
Script
Billy Porter seated with a copy of the "Shuffle Along" script.
Tambourine
Rehearsals of the Broadway musical "Shuffle Along."
Savion Glover
Choreographer Savion Glover confers with a dancer.
Footwork
Richard Riaz Yoder has appeared on Broadway in "On The Twentieth Century" and "Irving Berlin's White Christmas," and was in the national tour of "42nd Street."
The Roar Of The Crowd
The Music Box Theatre opened in 1921, and has been the home for such productions as "Of Thee I Sing," "Dinner at Eight," "I Remember Mama," "Summer and Smoke," "Sleuth," "Agnes of God," " Les Liaisons Dangereuses," "King Charles III," and revivals of "Amadeus," "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof" and "Pippin."
Dancers
Five, six, seven, eight ...!
Stage
"Shuffle Along" opens on April 28, 2016.
Don't miss:
"Broadway babies" join the cast of "Shuffle Along"
Savion Glover and George C. Wolfe revive "Shuffle Along"
George C. Wolfe on a "footnote" of 1921
Behind the scenes at "Shuffle Along"
Stars on bringing "Shuffle Along" to life
For more info:
"Shuffle Along" at the Music Box Theatre, New York City | Tickets
Photographer Devin Alberda on Instagram
By CBSNews.com senior producer David Morgan