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Showboat
A showboat, or show boat, was a floating theater that traveled along the waterways of the United States, especially along the Mississippi and Ohio rivers, to bring culture and entertainment to the inhabitants of river frontiers. Showboats were a special type of riverboat designed to carry passengers rather than cargo, and they had to be pushed by a small (and misleadingly labeled) towboat, also known as a pusher, which was attached to it. Showboats were rarely steam-powered because the steam engine had to be placed right in the auditorium for logistical reasons, therefore making it difficult to have a large theater. History During the American frontier era, populations of potential audiences were widely scattered about the area that is now the United States. Actors traveled to America from England, and theatre venues as well as touring companies were developed. Noah Ludlow, an early pioneer in travelling theater, purchased a keelboat in 1816 for $200 and named it ''Noah's Ark''. ...
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Showboat Majestic
''The Majestic'' is a historic riverboat that is moored on the Ohio River at Manchester, Ohio. Built in 1923, she was the last floating theater to be built in the United States, and one of its longest-lived. Declared a National Historic Landmark on December 20, 1989. Description ''Majestic'' is moored on the Ohio River at New Richmond, Ohio. She is long, with a beam of and a draft depth of . Her wooden hull has been sheathed inside a steel one, and is still visible from within the boat. Its superstructure housing the theater has been little altered since 1969. History The last of the original traveling showboats, ''Majestic'' was built in 1923 in Pittsburgh, and plied the Ohio River and other portions of its watershed for many years, offering shows at towns along the way. The showboat was not necessarily a "ship" at all. It has no motor and no means of movement. Therefore, she came as a pair with a tugboat the ''Attaboy'' which towed her from venue to venue. Tom Reynolds and ...
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Showboat Majestic
''The Majestic'' is a historic riverboat that is moored on the Ohio River at Manchester, Ohio. Built in 1923, she was the last floating theater to be built in the United States, and one of its longest-lived. Declared a National Historic Landmark on December 20, 1989. Description ''Majestic'' is moored on the Ohio River at New Richmond, Ohio. She is long, with a beam of and a draft depth of . Her wooden hull has been sheathed inside a steel one, and is still visible from within the boat. Its superstructure housing the theater has been little altered since 1969. History The last of the original traveling showboats, ''Majestic'' was built in 1923 in Pittsburgh, and plied the Ohio River and other portions of its watershed for many years, offering shows at towns along the way. The showboat was not necessarily a "ship" at all. It has no motor and no means of movement. Therefore, she came as a pair with a tugboat the ''Attaboy'' which towed her from venue to venue. Tom Reynolds and ...
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Goldenrod (showboat)
The showboat ''Goldenrod'' was designated U.S. National Historic Landmark on 24 December 1967. She was placed on the 'Threatened Historical Landmarks' list in 2001. One of two remaining examples of the modern era of showboats that ended in the 1920s, ''Goldenrod'' is the largest and most elaborately decorated of the showboats. She provided entertainment in the form of minstrel shows, vaudeville, and serious drama. The boat is designed in the manner of a 19th-century showboat rather than a late 20th century one, in other words, not like a paddlewheeler steamboat. In October 2017, the boat burned to its hull and was presumed a total loss. History ''Goldenrod'' was built in 1909 by Pope Dock Company of Parkersburg, West Virginia for W.R. Markle at a cost $75,000. At long and wide, she had an auditorium long with twenty-one red velour upholstered boxes and a seating capacity of 1,400. In 1910, twenty-one showboats, plied the Mississippi, visiting 15 mid-western states. (Sh ...
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Showboat (musical)
''Show Boat'' is a musical with music by Jerome Kern and book and lyrics by Oscar Hammerstein II. It is based on Edna Ferber's best-selling 1926 novel of the same name. The musical follows the lives of the performers, stagehands and dock workers on the ''Cotton Blossom'', a Mississippi River show boat, over 40 years from 1887 to 1927. Its themes include racial prejudice and tragic, enduring love. The musical contributed such classic songs as "Ol' Man River", "Make Believe", and "Can't Help Lovin' Dat Man". The musical was first produced in 1927 by Florenz Ziegfeld. The premiere of ''Show Boat'' on Broadway was an important event in the history of American musical theatre. It "was a radical departure in musical storytelling, marrying spectacle with seriousness", compared with the trivial and unrealistic operettas, light musical comedies and "Follies"-type musical revues that defined Broadway in the 1890s and early 20th century. According to ''The Complete Book of Light Opera'': ...
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Show Boat (1951 Film)
''Show Boat'' is a 1951 American musical romantic drama film, based on the 1927 stage musical of the same name by Jerome Kern (music) and Oscar Hammerstein II (script and lyrics), and the 1926 novel by Edna Ferber. It was made by MGM, adapted for the screen by John Lee Mahin, produced by Arthur Freed and directed by George Sidney. Filmed previously in 1929 and in 1936, this third adaptation of ''Show Boat'' was shot in Technicolor in the typical MGM lavish style, while the basic plot remains unchanged. The film stars Kathryn Grayson, Ava Gardner, and Howard Keel, with Joe E. Brown, Marge Champion, Gower Champion, William Warfield, Robert Sterling, Agnes Moorehead and Leif Erickson. Unlike the 1936 film, none of the members of the original Broadway cast of the show appeared in this version. The 1951 ''Show Boat'' was the most financially successful of the film adaptations of the show: one of MGM's most popular musicals, it was the second highest-grossing film ...
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Show Boat (novel)
''Show Boat'' is a 1926 novel by American author and dramatist Edna Ferber. It chronicles the lives of three generations of performers on the ''Cotton Blossom'', a floating theater on a steamboat that travels between small towns along the banks of the Mississippi River, from the 1880s to the 1920s. The story moves from the Reconstruction Era riverboat to Gilded Age Chicago to Roaring Twenties New York, and finally returns to the Mississippi River. ''Show Boat'' was adapted as a Broadway musical in 1927 by Jerome Kern and Oscar Hammerstein II. Three films followed: a 1929 version that depended partly on the musical, and two full adaptations of the musical in 1936 and 1951. Background In August 1924, Edna Ferber watched as the opening performance of her play '' Minick'' (co-written with George S. Kaufman) was disrupted by an invasion of bats that had been nesting undetected in the chandeliers and dome of the playhouse. Alarmed theatergoers scurried for the exits. As the crew r ...
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Towboat
A pusher, pusher craft, pusher boat, pusher tug, or towboat, is a boat designed for pushing barges or car floats. In the United States, the industries that use these vessels refer to them as towboats. These vessels are characterized by a square bow, a shallow draft, and typically have knees, which are large plates mounted to the bow for pushing barges of various heights. These boats usually operate on rivers and inland waterways. Multiple barges lashed together, or a boat and any barges lashed to it, are referred to as a "tow" and can have dozens of barges. Many of these vessels, especially the long distances, or long haul boats, include living quarters for the crew. Size Towboat engine outputs range from less than up to . Most towboats are from long, and wide. Smaller boats are used in harbors, fleeting areas and around locks while larger boats operate in "line-haul" operations over long distances and between major ports. In the United States, south of the Chain of Ro ...
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Jerome Kern
Jerome David Kern (January 27, 1885 – November 11, 1945) was an American composer of musical theatre and popular music. One of the most important American theatre composers of the early 20th century, he wrote more than 700 songs, used in over 100 stage works, including such classics as " Ol' Man River", " Can't Help Lovin' Dat Man", " A Fine Romance", " Smoke Gets in Your Eyes", "The Song Is You", " All the Things You Are", "The Way You Look Tonight" and "Long Ago (and Far Away)". He collaborated with many of the leading librettists and lyricists of his era, including George Grossmith Jr., Guy Bolton, P. G. Wodehouse, Otto Harbach, Oscar Hammerstein II, Dorothy Fields, Johnny Mercer, Ira Gershwin and Yip Harburg. A native New Yorker, Kern created dozens of Broadway musicals and Hollywood films in a career that lasted for more than four decades. His musical innovations, such as 4/4 dance rhythms and the employment of syncopation and jazz progressions, built on, ra ...
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Downtown Cincinnati
Downtown Cincinnati is the central business district of Cincinnati, Ohio, as well the economic and symbiotic center of the Cincinnati metropolitan area. It also contains a number of urban neighborhoods in the low land area between the Ohio River and the high land areas of uptown. These neighborhoods include Over-the-Rhine, Pendleton, Queensgate, and West End. Demographics 5,838 live in Downtown Cincinnati as of the 2020 Census. Geography Downtown Cincinnati is laid out on a basin on the Ohio River, surrounded by steep hills. Downtown Cincinnati's streets are arranged on a grid. Streets are split between the east and west by Vine Street. Bridges from Downtown Cincinnati span the Ohio River across to Covington and Newport in Northern Kentucky. Often considered to be the heart of Cincinnati, Fountain Square is located in the center of the Central Business District. The 1871 dedicated Tyler Davidson Fountain stands prominently on the often busy city square. Other city park ...
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Oscar Hammerstein II
Oscar Greeley Clendenning Hammerstein II (; July 12, 1895 – August 23, 1960) was an American lyricist, librettist, theatrical producer, and (usually uncredited) director in the musical theater for almost 40 years. He won eight Tony Awards and two Academy Awards for Best Original Song. Many of his songs are standard repertoire for vocalists and jazz musicians. He co-wrote 850 songs. He is best known for his collaborations with composer Richard Rodgers, as the duo Rodgers and Hammerstein, whose musicals include '' Oklahoma!'', '' Carousel'', ''South Pacific'', '' The King and I'', and '' The Sound of Music''. Described by Stephen Sondheim as an "experimental playwright", Hammerstein helped bring the American musical to new maturity by popularizing musicals that focused on stories and character rather than the lighthearted entertainment that the musical had been known for beforehand. He also collaborated with Jerome Kern (with whom he wrote '' Show Boat''), ...
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Edna Ferber
Edna Ferber (August 15, 1885 – April 16, 1968) was an American novelist, short story writer and playwright. Her novels include the Pulitzer Prize-winning '' So Big'' (1924), ''Show Boat'' (1926; made into the celebrated 1927 musical), '' Cimarron'' (1930; adapted into the 1931 film which won the Academy Award for Best Picture), ''Giant'' (1952; made into the 1956 film of the same name) and ''Ice Palace'' (1958), which also received a film adaptation in 1960. Life and career Early years Ferber was born August 15, 1885, in Kalamazoo, Michigan, to a Hungarian-born Jewish storekeeper, Jacob Charles Ferber, and his Milwaukee, Wisconsin-born wife, Julia (Neumann) Ferber, who was of German Jewish descent. The Ferbers had moved to Kalamazoo from Chicago, Illinois in order to open a dry goods store, and her older sister Fannie was born there three years earlier. Ferber's father was not adept at business, and the family moved often during Ferber's childhood. From Kalamazoo, t ...
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North Carolina
North Carolina () is a state in the Southeastern region of the United States. The state is the 28th largest and 9th-most populous of the United States. It is bordered by Virginia to the north, the Atlantic Ocean to the east, Georgia and South Carolina to the south, and Tennessee to the west. In the 2020 census, the state had a population of 10,439,388. Raleigh is the state's capital and Charlotte is its largest city. The Charlotte metropolitan area, with a population of 2,595,027 in 2020, is the most-populous metropolitan area in North Carolina, the 21st-most populous in the United States, and the largest banking center in the nation after New York City. The Raleigh-Durham-Cary combined statistical area is the second-largest metropolitan area in the state and 32nd-most populous in the United States, with a population of 2,043,867 in 2020, and is home to the largest research park in the United States, Research Triangle Park. The earliest evidence of human occupation i ...
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