Enter Sheppard “Shep” Allen. Born in Chicago in 1890, the eventual impresario of the Howard Theater in Washington, D.C. from 1931 to 1970 began his working life as a professional ballplayer on his hometown’s Negro League team. He supplemented this meager income as an usher at Chicago’s Mott Theater, attracting the attention of Joe Glazer, the leading light in that city’s black entertainment industry. Shep became his booking agent for the Royal Café Garden there, signing Bessie Smith to her first contract in 1916 and introducing audiences to King Oliver and Louis Armstrong, among many other black show business notables. In 1923, Shep’s marriage to the light-skinned African American owner of the upscale Embassy Hotel Beauty Shop just off Rittenhouse Square brought him to Philadelphia, where Glazer put him in touch with Sam Stiefel, whose newly-minted Pearl Theater was much in need of Allen’s magic show business touch.

When Stiefel added Washington, D.C.’s Howard Theater to his empire in 1930, Shep was quickly put in charge. (The venue was constructed in 1912 and is now on the national historic landmark register as the first legitimate stage show theater built originally for black audiences.) The Howard quickly took its place on the entertainment circuit followed by the nation’s brightest stars. His obituary in the June 14, 1982 edition of The Washington Post indicates that “[h]is assignment was to bring the best in music and entertainment to the Howard. That is what he did. . . . Those who played . . . [there] included Lionel Hampton, Count Basie, the Mills Brothers, Duke Ellington, Billie Holliday, Lena Horne and Dinah Washington. Pearl Bailey sang there regularly. Comic headliners included Moms Mabley, Redd Foxx and Pigmeat Markham. . . . He also found time to encourage young talent . . . [discovering] Billy Eckstine” (B6).

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