Photo Coverage: First Look at Vanessa Williams, Lauren Worsham, Jane Alexander & More in New York Philharmonic's SHOW BOAT - Part One
By: Walter McBride Nov. 06, 2014
The New York Philharmonic presents a semi-staged production of Kern & Hammerstein's Show Boat, running through November 8, 2014. SHOW BOAT stars Christopher Fitzgerald as Frank, Norm Lewis as Joe, Alli Mauzey as Ellie, Julian Ovenden as Gaylord Ravenal, Edward Watts as Steve, Fred Willard as Cap'n Andy,NaTasha Yvette Williamsas Queenie, Vanessa Williams as Julie, Jane Alexander as Parthy, Erika Henningsen as Kim, and Lauren Worsham as Magnolia. BroadwayWorld brings you photos from inside the concert below! Click here to check out Part 2!
The production will be telecast nationally on Live From Lincoln Center on PBS stations.
SHOW BOAT is Broadway's most revived and revised work; productions vary widely, with scenes and songs added or eliminated to serve each production's vision. The Philharmonic's presentation will take the original 1927 score as a basis and emphasize the music in its original orchestration by Robert Russell Bennett. It will include several rarely heard songs, including "Let's Start the New Year" and "Mis'ry's Comin' Round," which are operatic in scope and spotlight the chorus and orchestra; "It's Getting Hotter in the North," a bluesy number cut during the original tryouts; and "Ah Still Suits Me," written especially for Hattie McDaniel and Paul Robeson for the 1936 film. The scenes selected for this production will primarily be those that include music behind the dialogue; scenes without underscoring will be included only as needed to tell the story.
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' DatMan." 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. Recent productions have garnered the Tony Award for Best Revival of a Musical (1995) and the Laurence Olivier Award for Best Musical Revival (1991).
Photo Credit: Walter McBride
Theatre Marquee
Program and Credits
Program and Credits
The stage
The orchestra
Ted Sperling and orchestra
Lauren Worsham and Vanessa Williams
Lauren Worsham and Vanessa Williams
Lauren Worsham and Vanessa Williams
Lauren Worsham and Vanessa Williams
Lauren Worsham and Vanessa Williams
Edward Watts and Vanessa Williams
Jane Alexander, Fred Willard, Vanessa Williams and Edward Watts
Fred Willard, Vanessa Williams and Edward Watts
Vanessa Williams and Edward Watts
Vanessa Williams and Edward Watts
Edward Watts and Vanessa Williams
Vanessa Williams and Edward Watts
Jane Alexander and cast
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