"In this well-researched compilation of behind-the-scenes stories and background, pop culture historian Gaines (Inside Pee-Wee’s Playhouse) celebrates the 100th anniversary of the original staging of the all-Black musical comedy Shuffle Along... Gaines persuasively argues that these four men shouldn’t be relegated to the footnotes of history, as their work resulted in monumental gains for many Black performers. Theater buffs and students of Black history will be pleased by this cogent defense of Shuffle Along." — Library Journal
"Gaines offers an animated, well-researched history of the creation, production, and long afterlife of Shuffle Along… A spirited, educative contribution to both theater history and Black history." — Kirkus Reviews
"In Gaines’s hands, the artists come to life as groundbreakers—and later civil rights advocates (Sissle was president of the Negro Actors Guild in 1935)—who paved the way for artists to come. This vibrant history is well worth checking out." — Publishers Weekly
"Through a well-paced and compelling narrative style, Gaines pays homage to the show that augured a new era for artists of color on Broadway...evocative and illuminating, Footnotes is an excellent addition to the canon of musical theater history." — Booklist
"Exuberant and thoroughly captivating book...Gaines is in full command of the material he has fastidiously researched and assembled." — The New York Times
"[A] deeply researched and thoughtful framing of this pioneering musical, its time and its influence…Gaines places the show within the broader American political and racial culture, making the book not only resonant but relevant." — The Washington Post
"Gaines has produced an engaging and approachable book, in which he deftly navigates the complexity of social and cultural power in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries to argue for the immediacy and importance of Shuffle Along." — Studies in Musical Theatre
"Caseen Gaines’s well-researched and very readable study takes us on an eye-opening tour of a 1921 show by four Black men that became Broadway’s first all-Black hit musical." — TimeOut
