Show Boat Centennial

[William Keating]

Posted: 3/13/26 at 1:28pm

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 saved in the 1930s film, for decades was anointed as Broadway’s best song. Nancy Sinatra recalls the night when father Frank brought tears to the eyes of Martin Luther King when he sang it at a Carnegie Hall fundraiser.

The last Broadway production was the renowned 1994 Harold Prince show that brought us the late Rebecca Luker in the Tony-nominated role of Magnolia. Thirty years is a long time between productions, although a revival is not for the faint-hearted. Casting the many principal actors is difficult, and so many new songs were written for subsequent stage and film productions that hard choices must be made on which songs to exclude. Most of the second act is open for new creative interpretation as long as Gaylord deserts his wife due to his gambling debts and Julie some years later in an accidental meeting directs him back to Magnolia for a reunion of undetermined length.

Although bypassing a full production of a show so seminal to the creation of the modern musical seems criminal, I’m not optimistic.

 

[Jordan Catalano]

Posted: 3/13/26 at 1:42pm

Word on the street for a while has been this will be at Lincoln Center next year. 

[Joyce 9]

Posted: 3/13/26 at 2:37pm

Directed by who?  Hopefully Bart instead of Lear.   I absolutely love this score. 

[Call_me_jorge]

Posted: 3/13/26 at 3:01pm

It won’t happen, but I would love to see Lonette McKee come out of retirement to play Julie again. Her performance of Can’t Help Lovin’ Dat Man is one of my all time favorites.

[Jordan Catalano]

Posted: 3/13/26 at 3:37pm

Joyce 9 said: "Directed by who? Hopefully Bart instead of Lear. I absolutely love this score."

Directed by Bart. 

[ErmengardeStopSniveling]

Posted: 3/13/26 at 5:05pm

LCT is looking like LIVENT in the 90s!

What a missed opportunity to not have a Black director for this show…

[Ensemble17591322022]

Posted: 3/13/26 at 5:22pm

ErmengardeStopSniveling said: "What a missed opportunity to not have a Black director for this show…"

Why this show in particular? Why not any and all shows? The longer people keep thinking of everything racially, the longer those same people will keep trying to “stamp out racism”.

And the dog keeps chasing its tail.  

[Joyce 9]

Posted: 3/13/26 at 5:31pm

Are we still pushing wokeness?  Literally everyone has gone in the opposite direction.  The casting of 1776 at Paper Mill is going for a more naturalistic approach, all founding fathers being played by white men.  At the end of the day, none of this matters. A good director is a good director, a good actor is a good actor.  Sharing characteristics with the character doesn’t necessarily give you any more insight on them than someone who doesn’t have those similarities.  And Show Boat is written by whites, are you dismissing the show because of this?   Are we going to dismiss Shakespeare because he was writing about Italians?

[raddersons]

Posted: 3/13/26 at 7:16pm

Oh sweet Jesus this is a one hundred year old musical. Please do not derail this thread with one hundred year old rhetoric.

[Joyce 9]

Posted: 3/13/26 at 7:34pm

lol society has done a loop.  DEI is out, very last ten years, TALENT is back in. 

Updated On: 3/13/26 at 07:34 PM

[Ensemble17591322022]

Posted: 3/13/26 at 7:46pm

raddersons said: "Oh sweet Jesus this is a one hundred year old musical. Please do not derail this thread with one hundredyear old rhetoric."

But someone above is practically calling for a certain color of director based on the color of a portion of the cast. How old is THAT mentality? Will it be a black director for the black actors, and a white director for the white actors? 

Updated On: 3/13/26 at 07:46 PM

[SteveSanders]

Posted: 3/13/26 at 8:02pm

Less the color of the cast ad more the nature of the story if I had to guess.

[denou_32]

Posted: 3/13/26 at 10:03pm

Ensemble17591322022 said: "raddersons said: "Oh sweet Jesus this is a one hundred year old musical. Please do not derail this thread with one hundredyear old rhetoric."

But someone above is practically calling for a certain color of director based on the color of a portion of the cast. How old is THAT mentality? Will it be a black director for the black actors, and a white director for the white actors?"

Thank god you and all your personalities are here to ruin yet ANOTHER thread with inane babbling.

[Ensemble17591322022]

Posted: 3/13/26 at 10:23pm

denou_32 said: "Ensemble17591322022 said: "raddersons said: "Oh sweet Jesus this is a one hundred year old musical. Please do not derail this thread with one hundredyear old rhetoric."

But someone above is practically calling for a certain color of director based on the color of a portion of the cast. How old is THAT mentality? Will it be a black director for the black actors, and a white director for the white actors?"

Thank god you and all your personalities are here to ruin yet ANOTHER thread with inane babbling."

You realize there’s more than one person on the planet who thinks in ways contrary to your own, right?

[Kad]

Posted: 3/13/26 at 10:31pm

This thread went off the rails by post 7. Amazing, great job. 

[KevinKlawitter]

Posted: 3/13/26 at 10:41pm

Joyce 9 said: "lol society has done a loop. DEI is out, very last tenyears, TALENT is back in."

I'm sure you're making this argument in good faith, account that was made two days ago. 

[malcs98]

Posted: 3/13/26 at 10:56pm

Kad said: "This thread went off the rails by post 7. Amazing, great job."

I mean I did see this amazing experimental production Show Boat: A River at NYU Skirball as part of the UTR Festival

[rosscoe(au)]

Posted: 3/14/26 at 2:00am

Updated On: 3/14/26 at 02:00 AM

[rg7759]

Posted: 3/14/26 at 1:44pm

Unfortunately to quote tim chalam, if they couldn't do a proper anniversary celebration for rent, no one will care about this. But putting the films in theaters again would be nice

[Jarethan]

Posted: 3/14/26 at 3:09pm

rg7759 said: "Unfortunately to quote tim chalam, if they couldn't do a proper anniversary celebration for rent, no one will care about this. But putting the films in theaters again would be nice"

One hundred years for a trailblazing musical that altered the direction of musical theatre does not seem on the same level as the 20th or 25th anniversary of Rent.  I have read so many times that Oklahoma was the trailblazer.  I think they always forget Show Boat.  I guess the technicality is that, since Show Boat is a show business story, there are songs that have nothing to do with the main story.  IMO that is a bologna argument.

Again IMO, it would be criminal not to have a 1ooth anniversary production, especially considering the fact that the last revival proved that it has held up incredibly well with the right director.  And please do not bting back Lonette McKee...the role should be played by someone much younger.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[CATSNYrevival]

Posted: 3/14/26 at 4:39pm

It would be interesting to see what Sher and LCT would do with the piece since every single production seems to be different. I’ve never seen two Show Boats use the same song stack. There’s always songs getting added, cut and shuffled around.

[darquegk]

Posted: 3/14/26 at 5:28pm

Some of you may remember an article Concord Theatricals posted a few years ago when Show Boat went public domain, about what you could and couldn't do with the material and the song stack. It was helpful but also somewhat condescending: it ultimately boiled down to "who are you to think YOU can fix Show Boat? We already fixed it; we can't stop you from doing your own remix of the show's PD material, but we can strongly suggest you just license the revival version from us instead and save yourself the hassle."