Target Margin Theater is presenting the world premiere production of Show/Boat: A River, a daring reconsideration of the seminal musical Show Boat, featuring an ensemble cast of ten actors playing multiple roles. Running through January 26, 2025 at NYU Skirball. Read the reviews!
Directed by Target Margin Theater’s Founding Artistic Director David Herskovits, this bold adaptation reframes the original 1927 book and score by Jerome Kern and Oscar Hammerstein II for today’s audience, challenging us to confront our past and envision a reimagined America for 2025.
Show Boat, based on the 1926 novel by Edna Ferber, is both a powerful narrative and a historical reflection, revealing a legacy marked by violent racism while striving for a more just America. The work explores America’s transformation from the 1880s through the Jazz Age —journeying from steamboats to airplanes, vaudeville to radio, and the Spanish-moss South to the bustling city of Chicago amid the Great Migration.
Show Boat forever changed the face of American theater. The first show to integrate its music and plot, Show Boat presented complex characters grappling with timely, realistic themes woven into a substantial plot. Its epic narrative concerns the lives, loves and heartbreaks of three generations of show folk and their lifelong friends on the Mississippi, in Chicago and on Broadway.
Show Boat opened on Broadway on December 27, 1927, produced by Florenz Ziegfeld. Show Boat’s glorious songs include “Ol’ Man River,” “Can’t Help Lovin’ Dat Man,” “Make Believe” and “Why Do I Love You?” The show was a critical and popular success, running for a total of 572 performances. Show Boat returned to Broadway no less than six times and has been made into three films.
The creative team for Show/Boat: A River includes Dionne McClain-Freeney (musical director/vocal arranger), Dan Schlosberg (musical director/orchestrator), Caroline Fermin (choreography), Kaye Voyce (scenic design), Dina El-Aziz (costume design), Cha See (lighting design), Ryan Gohsman (production stage manager), Daria Walcott (production manager) and Adam M. Kassim (assistant director).
Jesse Green, The New York Times: If you want to replace it with a new work told from a new and arguably more authentic perspective, do that. But the halfway treatment in this case feels like keeping the bath water and drowning the baby. As many more-faithful revivals have proved, what’s great about “Show Boat” is not really separable from what isn’t. Not even with the help of a sash or a slash.
David Cote, Observer: Purists or anyone allergic to experimental-theater tropes (metatheatrical gags, presentational acting, deadpan delivery) may flee at intermission. At my performance, a few did. It helps to read the original libretto or watch the 1936 film before going. I did both, which help me appreciate how the staging scraped away a century of cultural rust and sentimentality to reveal an often deeply sad and frequently funny masterpiece of music-theater. Full disclosure: It was the first Show Boat I ever saw live. Will it be my last? Centenary’s coming in two years. Will the country have moved on so much that no rewrite would justify a return to Broadway? Or will Ol’ Man River roll backwards, sweeping us into a past where we don’t belong and don’t want to live?
Average Rating:
40.0%
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