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Showboating
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''. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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 Oper ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Burlesque
A burlesque is a literary, dramatic or musical work intended to cause laughter by caricaturing the manner or spirit of serious works, or by ludicrous treatment of their subjects."Burlesque" ''Oxford English Dictionary'', Oxford University Press, accessed 16 February 2011 The word derives from the Italian ', which, in turn, is derived from the Italian ' – a joke, ridicule or mockery. Burlesque overlaps in meaning with caricature, parody and travesty, and, in its theatrical sense, with extravaganza, as presented during the Victorian burlesque, Victorian era. "Burlesque" has been used in English in this literary and theatrical sense since the late 17th century. It has been applied retrospectively to works of Geoffrey Chaucer, Chaucer and William Shakespeare, Shakespeare and to the Graeco-Roman classics.Baldick, Chris [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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''), Vincent Y ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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, rather than rejec ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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, they ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Virginia
Virginia, officially the Commonwealth of Virginia, is a state in the Mid-Atlantic and Southeastern regions of the United States, between the Atlantic Coast and the Appalachian Mountains. The geography and climate of the Commonwealth are shaped by the Blue Ridge Mountains and the Chesapeake Bay, which provide habitat for much of its flora and fauna. The capital of the Commonwealth is Richmond; Virginia Beach is the most-populous city, and Fairfax County is the most-populous political subdivision. The Commonwealth's population was over 8.65million, with 36% of them living in the Baltimore–Washington metropolitan area. The area's history begins with several indigenous groups, including the Powhatan. In 1607, the London Company established the Colony of Virginia as the first permanent English colony in the New World. Virginia's state nickname, the Old Dominion, is a reference to this status. Slave labor and land acquired from displaced native tribes fueled the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Maryland
Maryland ( ) is a state in the Mid-Atlantic region of the United States. It shares borders with Virginia, West Virginia, and the District of Columbia to its south and west; Pennsylvania to its north; and Delaware and the Atlantic Ocean to its east. Baltimore is the largest city in the state, and the capital is Annapolis. Among its occasional nicknames are '' Old Line State'', the ''Free State'', and the '' Chesapeake Bay State''. It is named after Henrietta Maria, the French-born queen of England, Scotland, and Ireland, who was known then in England as Mary. Before its coastline was explored by Europeans in the 16th century, Maryland was inhabited by several groups of Native Americans – mostly by Algonquian peoples and, to a lesser degree, Iroquoian and Siouan. As one of the original Thirteen Colonies of England, Maryland was founded by George Calvert, 1st Baron Baltimore, a Catholic convert"George Calvert and Cecilius Calvert, Barons Baltimore" William Hand Browne, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Chesapeake Bay
The Chesapeake Bay ( ) is the largest estuary in the United States. The Bay is located in the Mid-Atlantic (United States), Mid-Atlantic region and is primarily separated from the Atlantic Ocean by the Delmarva Peninsula (including the parts: the Eastern Shore of Maryland / Eastern Shore of Virginia and the state of Delaware) with its mouth of the Bay at the south end located between Cape Henry and Cape Charles (headland), Cape Charles. With its northern portion in Maryland and the southern part in Virginia, the Chesapeake Bay is a very important feature for the ecology and economy of those two states, as well as others surrounding within its watershed. More than 150 major rivers and streams flow into the Bay's drainage basin, which covers parts of six states (New York, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia and West Virginia) and all of District of Columbia. The Bay is approximately long from its northern headwaters in the Susquehanna River to its outlet in the Atlantic Ocea ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
James Adams Floating Theatre
The James Adams Floating Theatre was a floating theater founded in 1914 by James Adams and his wife Gertrude, that toured Chesapeake Bay staging theater in Maryland, Virginia, and North Carolina. It was visited in 1925 by Edna Ferber, who boarded the vessel in Bath, North Carolina, while writing the 1926 novel which inspired Jerome Kern and Oscar Hammerstein II’s Broadway show ''Show Boat''. After the James and Beulah retired in 1917, the management of the theater was turned over to Charles Hunter and his wife Beulah Adams Hunter (sister of James Adams). In early decades of the 20th century, the showboat, a huge, scow-like wooden craft plying the Chesapeake Bay, called at waterfront towns from the top of the Chesapeake down to the coast of North Carolina. It occasionally ventured as far south as South Carolina and Georgia, but spent most of its time in Virginia, Maryland and North Carolina. The arrival of the Adams Floating Theater was an exciting time for residents in these isol ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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