Digital Learning Project: Understanding Shuffle Along and Its Times

Digital materials related to Shuffle Along—including original production photographs; programs and advertisements; newspaper reviews; audio recordings made by the show’s stars when it was produced; documentary films of the show’s creators; and subsequent oral history accounts—will greatly enhance the recounting of the story of the show’s significance, the difficulty its creators faced in getting it produced and staged, and its unexpected success.  The target audience will be able to examine and interact with a much wider range of primary sources than could be gathered in one place and go far beyond what can be represented in print.

Beyond the media itself, the website could offer various ways for students to interact with the material through tools like timelines and audio and video documentaries.  I’d also like to survey other possible tools that could give students the ability to explore different aspects of the show, including music, dance, costume/scenery, and blackface comedy.  Trees of influence—showing how aspects of Shuffle Along were incorporated into the Broadway musicals that followed—would also be a possible way to represent the information in new ways, allowing students to enter the name of a contemporary musical and see how it was influenced by the success of Shuffle Along.

My project pitch would obviously be highly influenced by the availability of open-source or inexpensive tools like these, and my ability to prioritize which would be the most compelling for my audience.  I wouldn’t want to add a lot of “bells and whistles” just for the sake of highlighting technological wizardry, but rather I would want to be sure that each selected tool serves the core goal of the site to enhance users’ understanding and appreciation of the great achievement that Shuffle Along represented.