Show Boat

Performing Race in an American Musical

Todd Decker

Broadway Legacies

First book to look at the complete history of this landmark work of the Broadway stage through the prism of race.
Uses exhaustive archival research conducted in Hollywood, New York, London, and elsewhere
Draws on previously unknown sources, including scripts and scores from the earliest productions, rejected draft scripts for all three Show Boat films, and a musical source for Jerome Kern's famous melody for "Ol' Man River."
Moves important historical figures such as Paul Robeson to the center of the story of how Show Boat was made.
Based on over twenty stage productions of Show Boat-including those in London's West End-and four Hollywood film versions

Show Boat

Performing Race in an American Musical

Todd Decker

Description

Show Boat: Performing Race in an American Musical tells the full story of the making and remaking of the most important musical in Broadway history. Drawing on exhaustive archival research and including much new information from early draft scripts and scores, this book reveals how Oscar Hammerstein II and Jerome Kern created Show Boat in the crucible of the Jazz Age to fit the talents of the show's original 1927 cast. After showing how major figures such as Paul Robeson and Helen Morgan defined the content of the show, the book goes on to detail how Show Boat was altered by later directors, choreographers, and performers up to the end of the twentieth century. All the major New York productions are covered, as are five important London productions and four Hollywood versions.

Again and again, the story of Show Boat circles back to the power of performers to remake the show, winning appreciative audiences for over seven decades. Unlike most Broadway musicals, Show Boat put black and white performers side by side. This book is the first to take Show Boat's innovative interracial cast as the defining feature of the show. From its beginnings, Show Boat juxtaposed the talents of black and white performers and mixed the conventions of white-cast operetta and the black-cast musical. Bringing black and white onto the same stage -- revealing the mixed-race roots of musical comedy -- Show Boat stimulated creative artists and performers to renegotiate the color line as expressed in the American musical. This tremendous longevity allowed Show Boat to enter a creative dialogue with the full span of Broadway history. Show Boat's voyage through the twentieth century offers a vantage point on more than just the Broadway musical. It tells a complex tale of interracial encounter performed in popular music and dance on the national stage during a century of profound transformations.

Show Boat

Performing Race in an American Musical

Todd Decker

Broadway Legacies

Foreword by Geoffrey Block
Acknowledgements

Introduction: Magnolia's Black Voice

Part One: Making
1. A Ferber Plot
2. The Robeson Plan
3. The Morgan Plan
4. A Ziegfeld Soprano and a Shubert Tenor
5. Colored Chorus Curtains

Part Two: Remaking
6. Featuring Robeson: 1928-1940
7. Broadway Black, Hollywood White: 1943-1957
8. Landmark Status: 1954-1989
9. Queenie's Laugh: 1966-1998

Epilogue

Appendix 1 Cast of Characters
Appendix 2 Archival Sources for the 1927 Broadway Production
Appendix 3 Select Stage and Screen Versions (1928-1998)

References
Notes
Index

Show Boat

Performing Race in an American Musical

Todd Decker

Broadway Legacies

Author Information

Todd Decker is Associate Professor of Music at Washington University in St. Louis and the author of Who Should Sing 'Ol' Man River'?: The Lives of an American Song and Music Makes Me: Fred Astaire and Jazz, winner of the Best First Book Award from the Society for Cinema and Media Studies.

Show Boat

Performing Race in an American Musical

Todd Decker

Broadway Legacies

Reviews and Awards

"A fascinating look at how Show Boat helped shape the American musical form and the significant role it continues to play in our conversation about race. Todd Decker has compiled an exhaustive, engaging, and immensely readable cultural history that resonates with the same vibrant emotional impact of the musical itself." --Susan Stroman, Director & Choreographer

"Traveling through seemingly familiar territory, one makes startling new discoveries on every page about American music, theater, identity, and racial history. Decker demonstrates forcefully and conclusively why Show Boat was and remains the 'most important [American] musical ever made.'" --Thomas L. Riis, Director, American Music Research Center, University of Colorado at Boulder

"Todd Decker opens a wide window on the extraordinary cultural reach of Show Boat, with special focus on its racial complexities. For Decker, Show Boat is not a fixed text but rather a fascinating and fluid performance object that shifts with the social codes and commercial demands of its many eras." --Carol J. Oja, Professor, Harvard University, and author of Making Music Modern: New York in the 1920s

"A well written, thoroughly researched and cogently presented new study on one of the most studied and, for that matter, most deserving of study musicals of the twentieth century." --Brad Hathaway - Theater Shelf

"An excellent overview of all aspects of the show...Decker demonstrates a fine command of sources, furnishes good documentation, and includes some photos, illustrations, and musical examples...Recommended." --Choice

"Decker offers a persuasive argument for the continued relevance of this classic musical, [demonstrating] the productive potential for historiographies of American musical theatre written across rather than 'along divided racial lines.'" --Theatre Journal

"[A] fascinating read about one of the true classics of the American stage." --Studies in Musical Theatre

"...There is a great deal to ponder in it." --JAMS

"Show Boat's voyage through the twentieth century offers a vantage point on more than just the Broadway musical. It tells a complex tale of interracial encounter performed in popular music and dance on the national stage during a century of profound transformations."--Broadway World

"Decker has woven many excellent historical threads together to form a unified narrative concerning race, both within and surrounding Show Boat. The importance of Robeson to the show and the importance of the character (Joe) and his music to Robeson's life are deftly considered here. As Decker explains, there is no question that race was far more important to the musical than it was to the book, and that the performance of the show has reflected that emphasis more and more throughout the decades. Another important contribution is to show where, exactly, performative elements (such as Andy's fiddle playing) come from. There are too few performance-based histories out there, especially for musical theater, and Decker's represents an excellent model for this type of approach." -- Journal of the Society for American Music