Profile for William Keating

Next year is the centennial of this groundbreaking musical with book and lyrics by Oscar Hammerstein and music by Jerome Kern. Show Boat was the first musical to deal with downbeat topics: miscegenation, alcoholism, gambling addiction. It was the first musical to have the songs and dances integrated into the plot. And it was first to have the principal characters and the chorus racially integrated. The song “Ol’ Man River,” written for Paul Robeson whose performance is