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.
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 1880s Jim Crow to the challenges of today – 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.
PRODUCTION GUIDANCE
The source material, the musical Show Boat, includes racially offensive material. Show/Boat: A River, is a re-envisioned adaptation of that work.
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.
Dionne McClain-Freeney is a musician, musical director, conductor, arranger, composer-lyricist, and actor. Recent off-Broadway and regional credits include: Composer-Lyricist and Musical Director, The Cotillion (Desk Award Nominee, AUDELCO Award Nominee); Musical Director and Conductor, When We Get There, (Sweeney Todd, Passing Strange, The Color Purple, BRECHT ON BRECHT, commissioned children’s theater works for Piper Theatre and Brooklyn Children’s Theatre, including a song honoring, and performed live for renowned actor Viola Davis; and a song on the album, Rainbow Lullaby (Broadway Records), the world’s first collection of lullabies especially for the children of LGBTQ parents.
Dan Schlosberg’s music has been performed at Carnegie Hall, (le) poisson rouge, and David Lynch’s Festival of Disruption. Dan recently conducted/re-orchestrated Anthony Roth Costanzo’s Marriage of Figaro and current projects include music direction/orchestrations for The Last Bimbo of the Apocalypse, composition/music direction for Jeremy O. Harris’ A Boy’s Company Presents, and compositions for Patrick Wang’s film A. Rimbaud. He was the pianist for Spielberg’s West Side Story, a featured soloist for Only an Octave Apart with the NY Philharmonic and on NPR’s Tiny Desk, and has collaborated with Angel Blue, Ariana DeBose, Tony Kushner, Ben Stiller, and Justin Vivian Bond. He received a 2023 Drama Desk nomination for Outstanding Music in a Play (Montag, Soho Rep). Schlosberg is Music Director of Heartbeat Opera, and the New York Times described his work as “the vision of a master sculptor.” www.danschlosberg.com
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: A RIVER
A play with music adapted from Show Boat (1927)
Book and lyrics by OSCAR HAMMERSTEIN II
Music by JEROME KERN
Based on the novel by EDNA FERBER
Adapted and Directed by DAVID HERSKOVITS
The cast includes Tẹmídayọ Amay, Alvin Crawford, Caitlin Nasema Cassidy, Suzanne Darrell, Edwin Joseph, J Molière, Steven Rattazzi, Philip Themio Stoddard, Rebbekah Vega-Romero, and Stephanie Weeks
Musical Director/Vocal Arranger Dionne McClain-Freeney
Musical Director/Orchestrator Dan Schlosberg
Costume Design Dina El-Aziz
Scenic Design Kaye Voyce
Lighting Design Cha See
Sound Design Megumi Katayama
Choreographer Caroline Fermin
Production Stage Manager Hethyr (Red) Verhoef
Production Manager Daria Walcott
Assistant Director Adam M. Kassim
RUN TIME
Approximately 2 hours and 30 minutes with an intermission.
READ THE DIGITAL PROGRAM
SKIRBALL SALON
Join Professor Laurence Maslon (NYU Tisch) and Professor Michael Dinwiddie (NYU Gallatin) for a conversation on the history, significance, and legacy of Show Boat – including the reimagined staging at NYU Skirball in January 2025 – in the NYU Skirball Lower Lobby. LEARN MORE HERE.
SUPPORT
Under the Radar is the United States’ premier festival of experimental theater and performance art. As a long-time New York City-based platform for cutting-edge work hailing from around the globe. Produced by ArKtype with Festival Director Mark Russell, UTR has been reimagined in its 20th annual season as a city-wide celebration that incisively speaks to our moment. Rather than being tied to a single host institution, Under the Radar’s current iteration is curated collaboratively with an array of renowned arts organizations and curators, each harnessing the connective nature of the festival format to introduce some of the world’s most innovative multidisciplinary voices to wider audiences. The 2025 edition of UTR will include over 33 distinct programs at 24 theater spaces, presenting more than 250 performances in only 16 days from January 4 to 19. The depth, breadth and excellence of this year’s festival serves as proof that collaboration can power the American theater through this era of existential crisis into a reinvigorated future of conjoined artists ready to embrace diversity, challenge and reinvention.
