Somewhere along the way, between getting shoes shined for tips and auditioning performers for Amateur Night on his own, Mitchell became the Apollo’s institutional memory. He summons its history through personal anecdotes; the mention of certain artists will send him into a full-on performance. Mitchell doesn’t just tell you you’re standing where Nat King Cole once stood, but croons “Unforgettable” to you in perfect Cole pantomime. His passion for history isn’t limited to the confines of the theater, either. Referring to the Apollo staff’s recent outing to ring the bell at the New York Stock Exchange, he offers details of Wall Street’s origins, then of the African Burial Ground mere steps from the Exchange — the largest colonial-era cemetery for immigrants of African descent. Later, he is just as quick to point out that the Apollo has never been an all-black theater: “In my experience [at the Apollo], I found out the truth is that every race, every culture, every ethnic group, has expressed their culture here — white people, black people, Latinos, Asians, Indian. However, the African-American experience has probably been the most dominant.” And because of the theater’s segregated origins, it’s important to Mitchell that its multicultural history be known.
The neoclassical landmark was originally erected as the whites-only Hertig and Seamon’s New Burlesque Theater in 1914, only to be shut down in the Thirties when infamously conservative New York City mayor Fiorello La Guardia refused to renew most burlesque theaters’ licenses. “He thought it was becoming too vulgar, too risqué, that it was promoting immoral behavior,” Mitchell says.
The venue re-emerged as the Apollo on January 26, 1934; actor Ralph Cooper, known for his James Cagney–like roles in black cinema, was tapped to fill the stage with talent and immediately established the theater’s mission of supporting performers of color. The first show he produced was an all-black revue called Jazz a la Carte featuring the Benny Carter Orchestra, ballet dancers, opera singers, and other sophisticates. The white audience, which had been expecting a minstrel show (despite the Harlem Renaissance having already reached its peak, but that’s another story), was astonished. “They saw black people reading music, playing the violin, dancing ballet, and singing opera. And they were like, ‘We didn’t know they could do this stuff!’ ” Mitchell says. “We [had not been] allowed to be shown [in Hertig and Seamon’s]. It came as a surprise — and they wanted to see more.”
The interest from outside the neighborhood led Cooper, in October of 1934, to move his popular WMCA program, the Harlem Amateur Hour Radio Show, from radio to the Apollo stage — in the process creating the country’s first ever live talent competition. The first female contestant to win what came to be known as Amateur Night was a teenage Ella Fitzgerald, who was slated to compete as a dancer just a month after the competition’s inception. But Fitzgerald never delivered her routine. “On the night of the show, during the rehearsal, she saw these other two girls dancing,” Mitchell recalls. “She thought they were so much better than her.” But Cooper wouldn’t allow the deflated Fitzgerald to walk away. He asked her what she could bring to the stage instead. “She said, ‘Oh, some of my family friends say I can sing a little bit.’ And she went out there — she started singing a song and was so nervous that [she] forgot the words. She started scatting,” Mitchell says. It was a star-making moment for one of the greatest jazz singers of all time — and served early on to establish the Amateur Night stage as a place that launches legends.
The list of people who braved the Apollo’s raucous, ruthlessly critical Amateur Night audiences charts a history of breakthrough black performers in entertainment: Billie Holiday, the Isley Brothers, Luther Vandross, Dionne Warwick, D’Angelo, Lauryn Hill, Dave Chappelle, Jamie Foxx, and Tracy Morgan are all alumni. Even the Jackson 5 took a crack at Amateur Night when Michael was only nine years old. Many return to perform later in their careers, paying the place back for the crucial momentum it provided them: Last June, Hill performed at the New York premiere of the Netflix documentary What Happened, Miss Simone?, joined by r&b singer and fellow Amateur Night veteran Jazmine Sullivan, who performed Simone’s “Baltimore.”