June 13, 2004

Celebrating 70 Years of Song and Dance at the Apollo

he Apollo Theater is not nearly as big as its name. The world-famous landmark, on 125th Street in Harlem, seats 1,500 people, tops. Its old-fashioned opera-house design dates back to 1914, when it first opened its doors as a burlesque theater. It was not until 1934 that the Apollo assumed its current identity, quickly becoming the most important stage for African-American entertainers, a title it has held ever since.

"The Apollo is to popular music what Carnegie Hall is to classical music," said the producer and director Don Mischer. "When you performed there, you'd pretty much made it."

Mr. Mischer and Suzanne de Passe produced the Emmy-winning 1985 broadcast "Motown Returns to the Apollo," which celebrated the theater's reopening after nearly a decade of turbulence. Their latest venture, the NBC special "Apollo at 70: A Hot Night in Harlem," will have its premiere at

8 p.m. on Saturday. In it, a good number of younger artists will salute those who came before them. But when Ashanti sings "I'll Take You There" and "Rock Steady" and Brian McKnight sings "Let's Get It On" and "Unforgettable," they are not just honoring the original artists. Those songs, as well as others performed on the special, are standards of the famous Apollo Amateur Night.

Almost since it opened, the theater has held Wednesday-night talent contests in which would-be singers, dancers and comedians try to impress its legendarily volatile audience. In the 1930's, "Harlem Amateur Hour" was broadcast on radio live from the Apollo. Today, the syndicated television series "Showtime at the Apollo" (shown in the New York area on Channel 4 at 1 a.m. on Sundays) centers on the weekly competition, with a performance by a professional or two on the side.

"The Apollo's amateur night has made more stars than 'Star Search' or 'American Idol,' and the voting is immediate," said Ms. de Passe, who produces the series. "There's none of that text messaging - it's like the Roman Colosseum."

In other talent shows, a mediocre performance might be received with polite applause and quiet rustling. Not at the Apollo. Fail to win over the crowd instantly, and it will be loudly booing and waving you off the stage; overstay your welcome, and you'll be ceremoniously given the boot. In the mid-20th-century glory years of the theater, the talentless were chased off the stage by a popgun-firing stagehand known first as Porto Rico and, later, Junkie Jones. On the TV series, they are shooed away by a shrill siren as Omar Edwards tap-dances them off the stage.

A great amateur performance, on the other hand, will get the audience howling its approval within a few notes, and every so often a Sarah Vaughan, Joe Tex or D'Angelo will parlay that amateur victory into a career.

It would be difficult to do justice to all the important musicians, dancers and comedians who have crossed the Apollo's stage over the last seven decades after touching the "tree of hope," the section of a historically lucky tree trunk that sits on a pedestal at stage right. In the special, taped during two nights at the theater, the old-school R&B singers recall those nights of glory, playing straight to the people in the audience, often getting them to stand up and scream. The biggest cheers are for Patti LaBelle's scenery-chewing medley of "You'll Never Walk Alone" and "Over the Rainbow." (Jesse L. Martin's introduction of Ms. LaBelle was taped a night earlier, Mr. Mischer said, and "the first time he mentioned her name, the crowd jumped to their feet - she wasn't even there that night!" )

What makes the Apollo crowd so powerful? In part, the compactness of the theater itself. "It's very intimate," said Jonelle Procope, president and C.E.O. of the Apollo Theater Foundation. "You feel like you're up close and personal with the artists." You might even be one someday.

The Apollo is the place where stars are made, and the amateur-night tradition means that the people in the audience are one "Rock Steady" rendition away from being onstage for real. They're open to any kind of performance as long as it's immediate; the amateurs are not just singers but dancers, comedians, child acts, even the occasional poet.

In pursuit of that variety, the "Apollo at 70" special includes a couple of unusual pairings. Savion Glover performs a tap-dance duet with a videotape of Gregory Hines, who died last August. Bob Dylan's rendering of "A Change Is Gonna Come," written and recorded by Sam Cooke in 1963, is memorably introduced by Ossie Davis, who also introduced Mr. Dylan's performance at the 1963 Washington rally where the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. gave his "I Have a Dream" speech. But the roof-raising crowd pleasers seem to best capture the Apollo tradition. Gerald Levert roars "Try a Little Tenderness," strutting around the stage and falling to his knees; Yolanda Adams tears into "How I Got Over" with grandstanding relish.

"Apollo at 70" is nominally about the theater's star acts, but Mo'Nique, the host of "Showtime at the Apollo," does introduce a quick montage of amateur-night performers practically being eaten alive, and the specter of those hopeful, desperate Wednesday nights looms over the whole special - somewhere between center stage and the back row.

"The audiences at the Apollo were very, very demanding and they still are," Mr. Mischer said. "It was so exciting for us to be working in front of this crowd, which is so demonstrative and supportive."

"There's a lot of affection between that audience and even the people they boo off the stage," he said. "And if they liked you," he added, "it was triumphant."