Do you think we'll see a 100th anniversary SHOW BOAT on Broadway?

Maybe Blitz Bazawule can direct a new film adaptation.

Many people have strong feelings about the Prince version, so it would be interesting to see how another director could find a way in to the show. Prince worked closely with Susan Stroman on the show and they focused a lot on the two dance montages in act 2 to show passages of time I believe (I didn't see the production).

ErmengardeStopSniveling said: "George Wolfe is the most obvious choice, but he's an obvious choice for alotof shows!"

Someone PLEASE entice him back to the stage so he'll stop making terrible films. Ma Rainey's Black Bottom was so stagebound it was ridiculous. He has no sense of film staging.

Well you're in luck, he's directing a Bayard Rustin biopic for Netflix and the Obamas production company. Starring Colman Domingo in what could be a big career moment for him, alongside Audra McDonald, Adrienne Warren, Jeffrey Wright, Bill Irwin, Da'vine Joy Randolph, Glynn Turman, and Chris Rock.

(I didn't have a problem with his MA RAINEY directing; there are only so many ways to open up that play.)

I'm afraid that Broadway would just have to do without me if it didn't celebrate the centennial of the first show of its genre. So many firsts. Magical score. The great anthem that according to Ol' Blue Eyes' daughters brought tears to the eyes of Martin Luther King when I sang it at a Carnegie Hall benefit. Maybe he was just weeping at the sight of a white boy singing a song written for Paul Robeson.

I was very excited when the Hal Prince production chugged into town from Montreal. I had a crush on Rebecca Luker, so I asked her a question on the Internet (back then America On Line was the Internet for most). In John McGlinn's 3 CD set of all Show Boat music, why did Rebecca have a credit for saying two words in the last scene? "Good Evening, Capt. Andy." I also asked her what it was like to have been Tony nominated with no chance of winning. (Glenn Close, Sunset Boulevard). She was feisty and said not to count her out.

It's a big show. Hard to cast. Even in Montreal in 1994 the show caught some racial flak that the cast didn't understand. Much directorial discretion. Kern loved the dirge "Mis'ry's Comin Around" as did McGlinn, but Flo Ziegfeld was terrified of a song so grim as the centerpiece of the musical, and it was out after the first preview. Happy to see it restored to prominence.

The first act is pretty much set, but the 2nd act gives the director bags of songs and scenes used in the different musical and film productions to patch together, along with anything new the director would care to contribute.

Flo Ziegfeld's secretary said years later that he had been terrified to put on a serious show unlike anything he had done. Opening night, she said, there was little applause after the songs and little laughter at the jokes. Ziegfeld went to bed sure that he had a colossal flop on his hands. But next morning

he saw the line for tickets two blocks long and he read the reviews.

Updated On: 9/21/22 at 03:03 AM

JAS said: "Not to be picky, but Julie is a biracial character who has survived living in the segregated South and marriage to a white man by passing as white. For the story to be convincing, Julie MUST be able to pass as white. I don’t think a white actress should play the role, but I’m sure there are many, many biracial actresses who would be magnificent!"

Absolutely. I was mainly responding to the list of white actors who should be considered for the role. Race is an important part of the character, so I think it should not be played by someone who identifies solely as white.

HeyMrMusic said: "Since Julie is a Black character, she should be played by a Black actress. I think a Black director would make the show feel fresh and seen from a different perspective. So much of the forward action depends on the Black characters and how they are treated, so it really needs to be handled with care. All that aside, I’d welcome a large-scale production. It was so ahead of its time, and in ways, it still could be with some deft direction."

If Julie is played by an actress who is recognizably Black, then the whole point of the character is lost. People always miss this. She's mixed race, and for years has successfully passed for white--apparently resumes doing so when she returns as a performer in Chicago. If the actress can't pass for white, how on earth did Julie get hired by the Cotton Blossom or manage to avoid for so long the horrors the 19th century south reserved for Black people anyway?

But this gets into the trickiness of Show Boat. It really broke ground in terms of subject, and clearly meant to defy racial prejudice, but the whole point of Julie--as with all "tragic mulattos" characters--is "Poor thing, she's so close to white, which would be so good. But she's not, so she has to suffer." These roles don't really help advance opportunities for Black actresses, nor do they work if you cast a Black actress with anything like traditional African American features or skin tone. But putting a white actress in the role is equally problematic. And worse, despite a heart-wrenching scene when Julie is exposed and expelled, the whole troupe after that basically goes on as they were before, as if she'd never existed. Less than a minute after Magnolia has been sobbing over Julie, Ravenal turns up again, and Magnolia totally forgets about her dearest friend in the world...until one line in Act 2 to remind us of her before her final scene in the show.

I'd love to see a revival of Show Boat because I think its strenghts far outweigh what's extremely out of date in it, but I think the material is far too controversial at this point. Julie disappears pretty quickly from the show until her final moment in Act 2, Joe is actually a very small role despite "Ole Man River," and though Hammerstein unquestionably meant to be progressive, a lot of the language and dialogue and even situations would deeply offend many audience members. And color-conscious casting would be very difficult because of the racial issues inherent in the storyline make having Black or other minority actors is traditionally white roles a big problem, thus opening up very few roles for actors of color.

This just isn't the right time for it. Maybe a new complete studio recording to surpass Angel's?

Updated On: 9/21/22 at 12:52 PM

If Julie is played by an actress who is recognizably Black, then the whole point of the character is lost. People always miss this. She's mixed race, and for years has successfully passed for white--apparently resumes doing so when she returns as a performer in Chicago. If the actress can't pass for white, how on earth did Julie get hired by the Cotton Blossom or manage to avoid for so long the horrors the 19th century south reserved for Black people anyway? But this gets into the trickiness of Show Boat. It really broke ground in terms of subject, and clearly meant to defy racial prejudice, but the whole point of Julie--as will all "tragic mulattos" characters--is "Poor thing, she's so close to white, which would be so good. But she's not, so she has to suffer." These roles don't really help advance opportunities for Black actresses, nor do they work if you cast a Black actress with anything like traditional African American features or skin tone. But putting a white actress in the role is equally problematic. And worse, despite a heart-wrenching scene when Julie is exposed and expelled, the whole troupe after that basically goes on as they were before, as if she'd never existed. Less than a minute after Magnolia has been sobbing over Julie, Ravenal turns up again, and Magnolia totally forgets about her dearest friend in the world...until one line in Act 2 to remind us of her before her final scene in the show. I'd love to see a revival of Show Boat because I think its strenghts far outweigh what's extremely out of date in it, but I think the material is far too controversial at this point. Julie disappears pretty quickly from the show until her final moment in Act 2, Joe is actually a very small role despite "Ole Man River," and though Hammerstein unquestionably meant to be progressive, a lot of the language and dialogue and even situations would deeply offend many audience members. And color-conscious casting would be very difficult because of the racial issues inherent in the storyline make having Black or other minority actors is traditionally white roles a big problem, thus opening up very few roles for actors of color. This just isn't the right time for it. Maybe a new complete studio recording to surpass Angel's?

I agree with everything you said.

I think that Show Boat would be ripe for a Daniel Fish-esque, wildly revisionist revival, but anything less I think would not be welcomed by today's audience. And without a MAJOR star, it would be a tough sell these days, in either the traditional or revisionist sense.

Updated On: 9/21/22 at 10:52 PM

Schele Williams seems like she’d perfect to tackle this material.

Whenever I think of Julie’s storyline, my mind immediately flashes to Mariah Carey, who was biracial but presented and styled herself as a white woman through the nineties. I remember jokes (which have not aged well for multiple reasons) about Carey taking all the blackness Michael Jackson was getting rid of at the time.

But it does track: you look at Mariah Carey today and there’s no way to see something other than a person of color, while Butterfly and Merry Christmas Mariah definitely was passing.

Show Boat is incredibly important in the canon of musical theatre, but to do the show justice, you have to put on a big production. And I just don’t know if the audience would justify the cost. Even with revisions, it will still feel very of-its-time. I would love to see the show performed, but I do so with academic interest. And would there be a large enough crowd who wants to do the same?