[2] Performers in the original Octoroons included , Madame Mamie Flowers, Fred Piper, Jesse Shipp, Billy Johnson, Mamie Emerson, Bell Davis, Bob Kelly, Tom Brown, Frank Mallory, Edward Mallory, Tom McIntosh, Hattie McIntosh, Shorty May, Ed Ferber, and George Hammond.

A critic wrote of Tom and Hattie McIntosh that "Both have an intelligent idea of low comedy, and their act is full of new and original humor.

Isham created a larger singing show named Oriental America, which opened at Palmer's Theatre on Broadway, Manhattan, in 1896.

[10] A reviewer in the Morning Times of Washington, D.C., wrote on 9 November 1896, "Scarcely has an audience left the theatre more thoroughly pleased and delighted over a performance than the one which filed out of the Academy of Music last week.

The attractions was Isham's Oriental America, presented by a company of sweet singers and talented performers, the cream of the colored race.

"[1] The reviewer singled out the performances of the soprano Mattie Wilkes, the comedian Billy Eldridge, the tenor Sydney Woodward, vocalists Jesse Shipp and Edward Winn.

The Blackville Derby is a sketch about horse racing that does not depict upwardly mobile African Americans, but more lazy and cunning characters.

[13] A critic who saw the Oriental America company perform in Liverpool, England, wrote of it: The ludicrous mirth-making Negro sketch called The Blackville Derby epitomising in very large degree the true type of Negro fun, character, frolic and pastimes, was given at the Court Theatre on Monday with considerable success.

No more striking evidence of the progress of the colored race can be found in America than that which is to be met with in the Oriental American performance under the direction of John W. Isham who has displayed the very wisest discretion in the selection of his coloured company.

There is no sequence in any slight story attaching to the sketch, the chief object of which is to show in a vivid way the picturesque features of the more pleasant side of the old slave life.

Hence there are introduced quaint and characteristic melodies, sand and buck dancing, graphic illustrations of what is known as the "cake walk" (one of the merriest and liveliest festivals of the American coloured native); and a grand operatic performance in which great musical talent is displayed by the principals.