NYU SKIRBALL MEMBERS PRE-SALE BEGINS OCTOBER 1.
Tickets will go on sale to the General Public starting October 15.
Tickets are up to 25% OFF for Members! Plus, NYU Skirball Members gain access to exclusive online and in-person events offering behind-the-scenes insights into our artists and our productions.
MEMBER MINGLE
Members, join us after the performance on Wednesday, January 15th in the lower lobby for a special reception. Not a member? Join or renew today!
CONTENT ADVISORY
The production includes Racially offensive language and incidents.
ABOUT THE WORK
Obie Award-winning Target Margin Theater, in collaboration with NYU Skirball, presents a daring reimagining of the seminal musical Show Boat, now re-envisioned as Show/Boat: A River. This bold adaptation reframes the 1927 classic for today’s audience, exploring 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 is both a powerful narrative and a historical reflection, revealing a legacy marked by violent racism while striving for a more just America. Director David Herskovits, known for his provocative interpretations, brings a fresh perspective to this quintessentially American masterpiece. Building on Target Margin’s renowned tradition of re-envisioning classic works, this new staging promises the company’s trademark extravagant theatricality, intricate design layers, and a vibrant celebration of language, song, and spirit.
Show/Boat: A River challenges us to confront our past and envision a reimagined America for 2025, bridging the gap between history and the present with striking relevance.
ABOUT THE ARTISTS
David Herskovits is the Founding Artistic Director of Target Margin Theater. He has directed a broad range of work, classics and neglected older work, new opera and music-theater, and adaptations of history and literature, for TMT and theaters, festivals, and universities all over, including The Spoleto Festival USA, Theatre for A New Audience, Lincoln Center Festival, The Bonn Biennale, The Kitchen, Mass MoCA, and many others. His Target Margin works have won multiple OBIEs and been presented nationally and internationally. David has lectured at Harvard, Yale, Williams, Wesleyan, The University of Nebraska, The School of Visual Art in Jerusalem, Juilliard, and other Universities and drama schools. He has written for The New York Times, American Theatre, Theatre Magazine, and Performing Arts Journal, among others. David does not know what a play is and seeks to answer that question.
Target Margin Theater exists to change our shared culture, to remake the world as a more engaged, aware, and humane version of itself. We are founded on the principle that works of art return us to real truths most powerfully by their divergence from a strict illustration of reality. Over the past 34 years, we have produced more than 50 Mainstage productions, 130 individual lab productions by emerging artists, and won multiple OBIE awards. We seek continuously to expand our conception of what can take place in a theater, through innovative, experimental performances of classic plays, opera, literature and historical sources. ‘Difference’ is the generative principle of all we do – from reimagining the relationship between audience and performed event to the strong history of age, race, and gender diversity in our company – and is one of Target Margin’s most identifiable features.
CREATIVE CREDITS
Show Boat
Music by Jerome Kern
Book and Lyrics by Oscar Hammerstein II
Based on the Novel by Edna Faber
Director: David Herskovits
Musical Director/Orchestrator: Dan Schlosberg
Musical Director/Vocal Arranger: Dionne McClain-Freeney
Costume Design: Dina El-Aziz
Scenic Design: Kaye Voyce
Lighting Design: Cha See
Choreographer: Caroline Fermin
Show/Boat: A River is presented in partnership with the 2025 Under the Radar Festival.