Chair used in The Scottsboro Boys: Museum Object and Cultural History

The object in the museum catalogue

Actors used this silver chair during the original run of the Broadway musical The Scottsboro Boys. Beowulf Boritt designed this chair and it was built by Tom Carroll Scenery Inc. The actors constantly reconfigured these chairs to create the story's spaces like a jail cell, boxcar, and a courtroom.

Playwright David Thompson wrote the book for The Scottsboro Boys, and John Kander and Fred Ebb composed the music and lyrics. The musical is based on the true story of nine African American teenagers falsely accused in Alabama of raping two white women on a train in 1931. Their subsequent rushed trials, poor legal representation, and discriminatory all-white juries each contributed to this infamous miscarriage of justice. Scottsboro Boys’ creators believed that the story of this landmark cases’ complete disregard of due process needed to be told, and used the free-for-all atmosphere of a minstrel show to create a musical social critique of the racially-charged media coverage of the trials. With the exception of the white interlocutor who hosts the minstrel show, the entire cast is African American men playing multiple roles.

This haunting musical debuted on Broadway in 2010 and ran for just two months. In 2011, it also received twelve Tony Award nominations, including Best Musical, Best Original Score, and Best Choreography. Despite its losses at the Tony Awards and short Broadway run, the musical had a fruitful run in London and US regional theatres, and won the Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Lyrics and the Outer Critics Circle Award for Outstanding New Off-Broadway Musical. Theatres across America continue to perform The Scottsboro Boys because of its compelling reinterpretation of a pivotal case that kindled the fires of the American Civil Rights movement.

Materials, dates and provenance

• date made: November 15, 2009
• maker: Boritt, Beowulf
• Object Name: Chair
• Physical Description: metal (structure: back/legs material)
• Physical Description: wood (seat material)
• Measurements: overall: 35 in x 18 in x 18 in; 88.9 cm x 45.72 cm x 45.72 cm
• place made: United States: New Jersey
• Subject: Entertainment
• Subject: Theater
• Subject: Musical Theater
• Subject: African American
• ID Number: 2019.0087.01
• accession number: 2019.0087
• catalog number: 2019.0087.01
• Data Source: National Museum of American History

Sources and reuse

Catalogue descriptions and facts adapted from National Museum of American History through the Smithsonian's official Open Access dataset. This record explicitly marks its metadata CC0 1.0; formatting and selection have been changed.