Based on a bestselling novel by Edna Ferber, Show Boat tells the 40-year story of the lives of performers, stagehands, and dock workers who are the denizens of the Cotton Blossom, a Mississippi River show boat. The New Yorker noted that the show “was a radical departure in musical storytelling, marrying spectacle with seriousness,” moving beyond the light and airy
plots of previous operettas and musical comedies with its serious subjects of racial prejudice and tragic love. Highlights include “Ol’ Man River,” “Make Believe,” and “Can’t Help Lovin’ Dat Man.” Broadway’s most revived and revised work, Show Boat was the first musical ever performed by an opera company — by New York City Opera in 1954.