SHOW/BOAT:A RIVER Comes to NYU Skirball in 2025

NYU Skirball will present the Obie Award-winning Target Margin Theater’s world premiere production of Show/Boat: A River, a daring reconsideration of the seminal musical Show Boat, running January 9–26, 2025 at NYU Skirball, with an opening set for Wednesday, January 15.  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. Show/Boat: A River challenges us to confront our past and envision a reimagined America for 2025. It is presented in partnership with the 2025 Under the Radar Festival.

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. Spanning the years from 1880 to 1927, the 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, with music by Jerome Kern and book and lyrics by Oscar Hammerstein II, 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 most recent production, directed by the legendary Harold Prince in 1995, ran for 947 performances and won five Tony Awards, including Best Revival of a Musical.

Herskovits’ vision for this quintessential American masterpiece builds on Target Margin’s critically acclaimed history of examining and re-inventing classical works such as Shakespeare’s Titus Andronicus, DuBose Heyward's Mamba’s Daughters, Goethe’s Faust, and Eugene O'Neill's Mourning Becomes Electra, to name a few. On the cusp of Show Boat's centennial, this new staging showcases Target Margin’s signature extravagant theatricality, intricate design layers, and a vibrant celebration of language, song, and spirit.

David Herskovits said, “Show Boat is famously unresolved; it has been endlessly reworked, cut, emended, added to, and rearranged. Its gorgeous songs pulse through a chaotic story that is a back-stage romance, a fantasia of troubling racial tropes, and a history of the dawn of the American century. Above all, Show Boatis a call to all of us to reconsider who we are as a nation and as human beings.”

Jay Wegman, Director of NYU Skirball, said, “Show Boat changed the trajectory of American Musical Theater, and we are proud to part in present Target Margin’s reimagining of this quintessential American musical.” 

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) and Adam M. Kassim (Assistant Director). Casting will be announced at a later date.