as well as his own character songs. His jubilee troupe never performed jubilee songs in the original sense of arranged traditional spirituals. Instead, he mixed commercial spirituals, cultivated songs, instrumental selections, and comedy, forging a new kind of concert that was part variety, part band concert, and part art music. Besides his own ensemble, "Mr. Sam Lucas and quartet," he was involved with numerous other jubilee ensembles such as the Norfolk Jubilee Singers, the Harper's Ferry Jubilee Singers, the Original Nashville Singers, the Southern Jubilee Singers, and the Hyers Sisters, among others. Dramatic roles Meanwhile, Lucas attempted to branch out into non-minstrel material. In 1875, for instance, he performed alongside Emma and Anna Hyers in Out of Bondage, a musical drama about a freed slave who is made over to fit into upper-class, white society. He followed this by another stint in black minstrelsy, and in 1876, he was playing with Sprague's Georgia Minstrels, alongside both James A. Bland and Billy Kersands. In 1878, Charles and Gustave Frohman needed an advertising gimmick to help rescue a poorly performing comedy troupe. Their answer was to stage a serious production of Uncle Tom's Cabin with a black man in the lead role. Lucas's reputation as an actor was well known, as was his wealth; Gustave wired Charles, "Get me an Eva and send her down with Sam Lucas. Be sure to tell Sam to bring his diamonds." Lucas became the first USA born African American to play Uncle Tom in a serious production in the USA, sometime after July 1878 (John W. Frick, Uncle Tom's Cabin on the American Stage and Screen, 121.) He was preceded by the Melbourne, Australia, production on June 8, 1878 ( Melbourne Argus, June 8, 1878) featuring USA born Hosea Easton. West Indian born Hackett Coulthurst had performed it earlier still, in Australia at Ballarat's Theatre Royal (Ballarat Star, June 12, 1867). Lucas's show fared poorly in Richmond, Virginia, and not even a change of venue to Lucas's home state of Ohio could save the production. The problems seem to have been many. One critic remarked that "little" Eva was so large that she nearly flattened St. Clair when she sat in his lap. Lucas had to hawk his stash of diamonds to pay the troupe's transport back to Cincinnati. Lucas rejoined the Hyers Sisters for The Underground Railroad, only to go back to blackface acts after