On May 23, 1921, at the Cort Theatre on 63rd Street in New York City, a musical premiered that would change Broadway forever. African Americans produced, created, and performed Shuffle Along,with a book by Flournoy Miller and Aubrey Lyles, music by Eubie Blake, and lyrics by Noble Sissle. It was the first African-American musical to truly succeed commercially on Broadway. Langston Hughes, who saw the production, said that Shuffle Along marked the beginning of the Harlem Renaissance.

Whereas blacks who came to Broadway shows were expected to sit only in the balcony, for Shuffle Along one reviewer reported that "Negroes could be seen as far down as the fifth row of the orchestra." After Shuffle Along, Broadway audiences became integrated. Shuffle Along also established jazz dance on Broadway. After its premiere, choreographers for white shows hired the chorus girls from Shuffle Along to teach their chorus lines the "new" dances. Although Shuffle Along's " Love Will Find a Way" was not the first unburlesqued love song to ever appear in a black show, it was the first to be so well received that audiences demanded encores. The show's influences went far beyond the theater itself. The show's most famous song, "I'm Just Wild about Harry," was even used as a Presidential campaign song for Harry Truman. Some of the period's most influential black musicians, dancer Josephine Baker, vocalist Paul Robeson, composer Hall Johnson, and composer William Grant Still, all got their start in this amazing show.

 The critical edition of Shuffle Along will contain the complete original performance materials: the script and all the music, including a full score and orchestra parts. Dance steps and routines will be described. The accompanying scholarly essay will place this Shuffle Along in its social, racial, and historical context. The Critical Apparatus will provide an account of all sources and editorial decisions used to produce the original score, along with a description of the changes that were made from the time the show opened until it closed in 1924.