Education & Outreach

proudly presents

The Study Guide

for

Jerome Kern’s

Show Boat Book & Lyrics by

Oscar Hammerstein II

Writing and Research by Alexis Hamilton

Portland Opera appreciates the continuing support of The Regional Arts and Culture

Council, Work for Art, Oregon Arts Commission, The National Endowment for the Arts

and the Oregon Cultural Trust. Portland Opera is a member of OPERA AMERICA.

Act I

1887: After the Cotton Blossom docks in Natchez, a fight over Julie La Verne breaks out between her husband Steve and the boat’s engineer Pete. Pete claims he knows an important secret about Julie’s past. Cap’n Andy tells the assembled crowd that the fight is part of a melodrama his troupe will perform. Gaylord Ravenal appears; he is immediately attracted to Magnolia Hawks and she to him. Magnolia confesses her newfound love to Julie, who cautions her that Ravenal may be a “no-account river fellow.” Magnolia says that she would stop loving him if that were true; Julie replies that it’s not so easy to do so, singing “Can’t Help Lovin’ That Man.” Queenie is surprised, saying she has only heard “colored folks” sing that song before. The town sheriff arrives, intending to arrest Julie and Steve. Pete has disclosed that Julie is of mixed-race parentage; her marriage to a white man violates local laws against miscegenation. Thanks to a clever ruse, Steve is also able to claim having a mixed-race background, which forestalls their arrest but forces them to leave the show boat, because they will no longer be acceptable to white audiences as the romantic leads. Ravenal returns and Cap’n Andy hires him as the new leading man, partnering him with Magnolia as Julie’s replacement. Their rehearsal of love

scenes becomes increasingly realistic, annoying Parthy, Magnolia’s mother. Ravenal and Magnolia are soon onstage hits and offstage fiancées. They wed, despite Parthy’s objections.

Act II

1893: Gaylord and Magnolia are in Chicago, living luxuriously at the Palmer House off the former’s gambling winnings. 1903: Now down on their luck, Gaylord and Magnolia having been living in a boarding house with their young daughter, Kim. Frank and Ellie, two performers from the Cotton Blossom, chance upon Magnolia, who has been abandoned by Ravenal. They arrange an audition for Magnolia at the Trocadero, where they and Julie La Verne have been performing. When she hears Magnolia auditioning, Julie secretly quits her job so that Magnolia will be hired. New Year’s Eve: Cap’n Andy and Parthy make a surprise visit to Chicago, but cannot find Magnolia at the Palmer House. Andy discovers her at the Trocadero, where his presence boosts her failing confidence. Her show-

stopping performance leads her to become an internationally known musical comedy star. 1927: The Cotton Blossom is again docked at the Natchez levee, where Kim performs. Magnolia has retired from the stage and her return to the show boat gives Cap’n Andy the opportunity to engineer a reconciliation between Gaylord and Magnolia.

Synopsis

Poster for the 1929 Universal film, which was originally intended to be a silent film. After the Broadway show was such a smash, it was converted into an (unsuccessful) talkie.

“I give you my word, my hair stood on end, the tears came to my eyes, I breathed like a heroine in a melodrama. This was great music. This was music that would outlast Jerome Kern’s day, or mine.”

~~Edna Ferber~~

Show Boat has rightly been called the first modern musical—the first in which text and music were fully integrated and the featherweight comic innocence of Broadway in the 1920s was melded with more serious material. Show Boat was the first American Broadway musical with a chiaro scuro score, where not only the popular 32 bar song, but the sophistication of European operetta worked in concert to create musical characterizations. As such, Show Boat is a defining moment for the Broadway musical, and an equally important moment for theater history. Had they done nothing else in their long and illustrious careers, Jerome Kern and Oscar Hammerstein II would have been lionized for this contribution alone. After all, they cast the mold in which Broadway would shape itself for the next 40 years. All of this is true. But Show Boat is so much more. Show Boat is a romance with generational sweep, but it primarily concerns the affairs of one family. We are treated to the love and loss of Magnolia, the young and beautiful daughter of Cap’n Andy and Parthy. We watch her fall into a fanciful, juvenile love with the handsome and charming ne’er-do-well Gaylord Ravenal, marry him, bear his child and be left destitute after he abandons his young family. We cheer as Magnolia pulls herself up by her bootstraps to become a successful vaudeville star and raise

her daughter into a successful career. This is a satisfying evening of theater, but if this is all that Show Boat was, it is unlikely that it would remain one of the few musicals of its day that ever sees a revival—let alone as many important ones as Show Boat has. Show Boat remains relevant and popular today, nearly 100 years after its debut. Even its status as “first great contemporary musical” wouldn’t be enough to take it off the shelf so regularly.

Origins:

Making Show Boat

The 1926 novel which started it all.

The primary story of Magnolia and Ravenal is set against a larger historical backdrop, filled with compelling characters. It brushes up against the endemic racism of the time in which it was set, and the time in which it was written. It has much to say about the burgeoning social awareness of its creators, Jerome Kern, and to a much greater extent, Oscar Hammerstein II; and it has much to say to us about our own attitudes towards race—if we let it. But to see it, we can’t allow ourselves to be seduced by the grandeur of the music, or the remove of the setting. The musical pushes past the Ferber novel upon which it is based in a way that only the powerfully aural and visual medium of music theater can. Show Boat, without ever losing the vitality and romance of the central story, manages to confront racial issues sympathetically and present what, in 1927, was

a potently progressive point of view about the role thrust upon African Americans in the late 19th century along the Mississippi, and, more subtly, in 1927. Clearly, this was something Hammerstein felt strongly about. In Show Boat, we begin to see the germ of a musical he would write twenty-two years later with Richard Rogers in which he makes his position on racism even more explicit, South Pacific. Another theme in both the book and the musical, which has been picked up and emphasized in the 1994 Hal Prince version which Portland Opera is producing, is the adoption (co-option) and popularization of black music and dance by the dominant white culture. This is a small, but significant thread in the novel, which describes Magnolia singing black songs, “as she had learned to sing them from [black Joe and from Queenie], in an unconscious imitation of the soft, husky Negro voice of her teacher[s].” This imitation, this talent, enabled Magnolia to build a successful singing career and support herself and her daughter after Ravenal’s desertion. This theme is developed further by Hammerstein and Kern. How it has been dealt with (or not dealt with) in subsequent versions is the fascinating subject of Todd Decker’s landmark 2013 book Show Boat: Performing Race in the American Musical. Productions of Show Boat provide a sort of Rorschach test of this country’s attitudes toward race and willingness to confront the issues inherent in the play. Many opportunities to explore and confront race exist in Show Boat, but depending on what is emphasized, added, cut or pointedly ignored, it can become a very different show. For instance, the Show Boat of 1927 seems shockingly modern compared with the 1946 revival or the 1951 MGM movie confection, both of which minimalize the racial themes running through the script and score. The number of revivals and versions of the show, each of which cuts numbers or adds them, moves scenes or changes the flavor of them,

Poster for the definitive movie version of Show Boat, Universal’s 1936 remake based on Kern & Hammerstein’s musical.

makes a “definitive” score for Show Boat non-existent. A study of how various productions have handled the use of the “N-word” in the original score’s opening chorus could be a treatise in and of itself. Because a comprehensive study of the various versions of Show Boat is beyond the scope of one article, we will focus on the development of the 1927 original, and the initial intent of Oscar Hammerstein and Jerome Kern.

Edna Ferber became obsessed with the idea of show boats in 1924, when she heard them mentioned by William Ames at a party (or rather a wake. The get-

together was for the cast and crew of the play she had just opened, which had failed superbly). Ferber didn’t know what they were and Ames amiably explained that a show boat was a floating theater, built upon a barge towed up and down the river, playing the towns along the way. The acting company lived and worked upon the show boat, forming a tight knit community. Ferber was enchanted by the idea and began a quest to learn all she could about show boats.

She found her answers aboard the James Adams Floating Theater, run by Charles and Beulah Hunter, both of whom, by extraordinary coincidence, were fans of Edna Ferber’s novels. They invited her to tour with them, gave her their own room and, along with their cast and crew, entertained her with tales of show boat life. They explained the hierarchy of a show boat: a pair of romantic leads, a pair of ingénues and a pair of juveniles; a comedy team, a character team, a versatile utility man, and a “heavy.” Ferber soaked it all in. After a few days of floating along North Carolina’s rivers on the James Adams, she had filled her yellow pad with notes and pronounced herself ready to write her novel about a show boat. In 1925, she ensconced herself in a sunny, French hotel room overlooking the ocean and began to write. The novel first appeared in 1926 in serial form in The Woman’s Home Companion. In 1926, it was published as a novel and enjoyed roaring success. Copies flew off the shelves, and one of those initial 25,000 fell into the hands of Jerome Kern. Kern read Show Boat in October of 1926 and was deeply impressed with it. The opportunities it presented to a theatrical composer were numerous: its sprawling, generational story and interracial cast of characters allowed for multiple styles of music to be showcased; the multiple settings could provide the requisite spectacle for a Broadway

Edna Ferber

The inspiration for Show Boat, the John Adams Floating Theater (after the novel came out, they re-christened her the John Adams Show Boat.)

show, and most importantly, the story itself would provide ample opportunity for Kern to finally fully realize his ideas about what musical theater was capable of doing. Kern and Ferber met on October 12, 1926 at the opening of Criss Cross, a deeply flawed Jerome Kern/Charles Dillingham collaboration. Though the fate of Criss Cross was dismal, it served a useful purpose by facilitating a Kern/Ferber meeting and enabling him to pitch his idea about using her novel, Show Boat, as the basis for a new musical. Baldly put, Ferber thought he was crazy. During the 1920s, Broadway musicals were pretty much concerned with which girl would get the earl or how an impoverished nephew might convince his intimidating and wealthy aunt to allow him to marry the girl of his dreams while still receiving his inheritance. There were no musicals dealing with racial injustice. There was no wife abandonment, no destructive gambling nor alcoholism on Broadway. Ferber’s novel dealt with all of these things and more. Plus it covered fifty years and required multiple sets. In short, Kern’s idea was nuts. Kern made a compelling argument for Show Boat, the musical. Obviously, music theater was capable of dealing with serious issues in works with an integrated book and score. It had been doing so for 350 years in the opera house. Why shouldn’t it be possible to use contemporary American theatrical music to tell an American story? Why shouldn’t America be able to tell meaningful stories through their own idiom? Kern was thoroughly convinced that it was possible, and he chose young librettist and lyricist, Oscar Hammerstein II to write the book—not without a tryout, however. Kern had been aware of Hammerstein’s talent since their work together on the Ziegfeld smash, Sunny (1925), but his plans for Show Boat required something unique.

Robert Russell Bennett, who orchestrated Show Boat believed that Hammerstein “was sent here to be a poet,” but according to Bennett, Broadway proved too great (and lucrative) a distraction. “He was satisfied to write those lyrics, which he made into works of art. But they have it all…they all sound as if it’s a poet trying to talk. It just burst out of him all the time.” Hammerstein had something special all right, but in 1927, at just 31 years old, that poetry hadn’t yet been established, but it would be in Show Boat. But first he had to get the gig. Kern called Hammerstein and asked him if he had read Show Boat. Not yet. Kern told him to read it and come up with a scenario for a musical based on the book. But there was a catch. Kern too would be writing a scenario. In two weeks, they would compare notes, and if the scenarios jibed, then the two were in business.

Oscar Hammerstein II and Jerome Kern.

Two weeks later, two remarkably similar scenarios were ready. It looked like Kern and Hammerstein were in business. The rights were secured from Edna Ferber, and the pair were off to the races. The next order of business was to procure a suitable producer for the massive show they were planning. Only one name on Broadway packed the necessary “oomph.” Florenz Ziegfeld. Ziegfeld, of course, had made a name for himself with his “Follies” revues, characterized by lavish sets and costumes, and Ziegfeld’s “Glorified Beauties,” a bevy of gorgeous chorus girls in elaborate dresses, arriving on the stage for no reason but to serve as eye candy. It seems odd that Kern and Hammerstein should consider Ziegfeld as the ideal producer for a show like Show Boat, but Ziegfeld had panache, power, and specialized in big shows, big moments and big names, all of which were necessary for a multi-scened, bi-racial, boundary-breaking extravaganza. On November 26, 1926, Kern and Hammerstein presented Act I to Ziegfeld. The next day, Ziegfeld wrote, “This is the best musical comedy

I have ever been fortunate enough to get hold of; it looks wonderful…This show is the opportunity of my life, and is an opportunity that comes once in a lifetime…” Ziegfeld was on board. From the beginning, Kern and Hammerstein intended the role of Joe, the African American stevedore to be played by Paul Robeson. It was written with Robeson’s persona, voice and star power in mind. Though Robeson did not originate the role on Broadway, he shaped it, as Kern and Hammerstein expanded and grounded the character’s presence in the musical in a way not seen in the novel. Through one great song with multiple reprises, Joe becomes the spiritual center of the musical, both above and of the plot. In 1958, Hammerstein said of writing Show Boat, “I thought that we lacked something to make it cohesive. I wanted to keep the spirit of Edna’s book, and the one focal influence I could find was the river, because she quite consciously brought the river into every

Paul Robeson, Jerome Kern and Oscar Hammerstein II in Kern’s library, years after the original opening.

Florenz Ziegfeld

important turn of the story. The Mississippi. So I decided to write a theme—a river theme.” And in Kern’s and Hammerstein’s conception of Ol’ Man River, Paul Robeson was the man with the gravitas and the rolling bass voice to embody the river, the experience of the people

on the river, and its eternal nature. Paul Robeson was an extraordinarily popular black singing star, who had made his name in concert halls singing black spirituals, accompanied only by piano. In the mid-1920s, he was a major star with both black and white audiences. His first concert appearance was described this way in a biography presented in a promotional piece:

In 1925, he gave his first concert in New York. His gloriously pure and velvet voice flooded the hall with magic beauty. People shouted and stamped until he had given an hour of encores. For his next concert they lined up in a snowstorm to buy standing room.

(Notice, that nowhere is Robeson’s race mentioned.) According to orchestrator Robert Russell Bennett, the tune for Ol’ Man River doesn’t seem to add up to much (to see what he means,

try to imagine NOT knowing the tune or the words). Remembering his first encounter with it, he wrote:

“…When [Kern] handed it to me it had no name and no lyric. It was 32 not wholly convincing measures that sounded to me like they wanted to be wanted. In the first place, it starts with two harmonically powerful and self-reliant bars and then comes to a mud puddle and doesn’t know where to put its feet for the next two.”

It is a testament to Oscar Hammerstein’s art that Bennett changed his mind when he saw the words scribbled under the melody a few days later. Bennett turned to Kern and said, “Gee, that’s a great song!” Kern observed drily, “You didn’t say that when I gave it to you.” But as good as Ol’ Man River was, it still did not negate the fact that Robeson was unavailable to play Joe. Kern and Hammerstein weren’t only in the business of changing the face of the American musical. They wanted a commercial success too, and they needed a box office draw. They couldn’t have Robeson. So they turned to another non-traditional performer making a big splash in New York, Helen Morgan. She would play Julie. Or rather Ziegfeld told them she would play Julie. Hammerstein recalled him pushing Morgan:

“He was a bold caster. For what Jerry and I considered a small but effective part, Ziegfeld persuaded us to take Helen Morgan, who had just appeared in an intimate revue and had attracted attention as a singer with a personality that was very much her own. Could she act? We did not know. She had had no experience.”

But Ziegfeld was the producer, and this was a small concession to make.

Paul Robeson

Helen Morgan was, according to author Todd Decker, “an up-and-coming star, a [calculated] risk that yielded tangible returns to the original production and redounded to the benefit of many Julies and Show Boats in ensuing decades.” Signing Morgan fundamentally changed the role of Julie. Morgan’s persona was built upon her wistful style of singing torch songs. Unlike other singers of these ballads, who typically have smoky, husky, low voices, Morgan’s was high, sweet, clear, and sounded heartbreakingly vulnerable. She sang from atop her piano, simply. Seeing her perform convinced Kern and Hammerstein to build the role around her particular talents. They cut a scene straight from the novel in which the impoverished Julie, deserted by her husband, reappears as the appointment secretary for a brothel, and instead transformed Julie into a broken-down, alcoholic singer at the Trocadero Club. Kern resurrected the song Bill from another of his shows. While Bill hadn’t had much effect in Oh,

Lady! Lady!!, with Morgan’s style, it came alive and is now an indelible and touching moment in Show Boat. While Ziegfeld certainly had a good nose for casting, he was out of his depth with regard to how long it would take for Hammerstein and Kern to create a working score. Ziegfeld was used to his old school musicals, which were much more vaudeville revue than integrated musical play. With an hour’s notice songs could be written and plugged into a follies show. Even whole comedy scenes could be conceived in the morning and inserted that evening into one of the book shows Ziegfeld was used to presenting! While Ziegfeld expected Show Boat to start rehearsals in early spring and open on April 1st, Kern and Hammerstein simply weren’t ready. The principals Ziegfeld had already secured were released, and Elizabeth Heines, cast in the role of Magnolia, sued Ziegfeld for $200,000 for breach of contract. She lost in the Supreme Court, but caused Ziegfeld considerable heartburn in the process. So was the developing Hammerstein libretto. He wired Kern on March 3, 1927:

I feel Hammerstein not keen on my doing Show Boat. I am very keen on doing it on account of your music but Hammerstein book in present shape has not got a chance except with critics but the public no, and I have stopped producing for critics and empty houses. I don’t want Bolton or anyone else if Hammerstein can and will do the work. If not, then for all concerned we should have someone help. How about Dorothy Donnelly or anyone you suggest or Hammerstein suggests. I am told Hammerstein never did anything alone. His present lay-out too serious. Not enough comedy…”

Poor Jerome Kern had to manage Ziegfeld’s histrionics. Ziegfeld was forced to wait while Hammerstein honed the script.

Quintessential Helen Morgan in her night club act, perched on the piano…right where she should be!

Show Boat opened in tryouts on November 15, 1927 at the National Theater, Washington D.C. The audience received a warning before the curtain rose:

Charles Winninger [the actor who created the role of Cap’n Andy] appeared before the curtain…and in the name of Florenz Ziegfeld bespoke the patience of the audience on behalf of the new opera about to begin. Mr. Ziegfeld, said his principal comedian, proposed to present every rehearsed scene, sans cut or slash, if we didn’t get out of the trenches till Septuagesima. After a little amiable back-tickling concerning the good taste and discernment of the Washington audience, Mr. Winninger bowed and withdrew, and the curtain went up. (The Washington Daily News)

Winninger wasn’t just whistling Dixie. The curtain went up at 8:30 pm and came down at 12:40 pm—an odyssey for all concerned. Critics

praised it, but echoed what the cast and crew already knew. Draconian cuts were in order. Sadly, some cuts were less fortuitous than others. A ballet opening the Trocadero scene was no great loss, but losing the song Mis’ry’s Comin’ Around was tragic. A moving moment foreshadowing the miscegenation scene, Mis’ry’s Comin’ Around was another moment for the black chorus to shine and to underscore yet again the different worlds occupied by the black and white characters. Luckily, it still appeared in the 1928 piano vocal score, and it is returned to its rightful place in the 1994 Hal Prince production presented by the Portland Opera. Cuts and substitutions continued to be made to the score throughout tryouts. On December 27, 1927, Show Boat made its triumphant Broadway premier at the (almost) brand new, 1600 seat Ziegfeld Theater—which was almost as grand a spectacle as Show Boat. That night, audiences were stunned to silence by the magnificent breadth and scope of the

Show Boat at the Ziegfeld Theater

Kern/Hammerstein, and yes, Ziegfeld accomplishment. Their silence was so deafening that it left Ziegfeld weeping in the balcony. “The show’s a flop. I knew that it would be. I never wanted to do it.” It was a disheartening and confusing opening for the entire creative team. Their confusion was resolved the next day, however, when critics raved their approval and articulated their unprecedented delight. Audiences flooded to see Show Boat and Ziegfeld’s risk paid off with his greatest success. For those of us whose only frame of reference for Show Boat is MGM’s 1951 mess of a movie, it might be hard to envision what so impressed audiences in 1927. As mentioned before, so many changes, revisions, cuts, white-washings, and re-orderings have made a definitive version of Show Boat nonexistent, but in its original incarnation, Show Boat stepped out boldly on a number of different levels. Not only did Show Boat integrate words and music and plot; not only did it deal with serious issues, altogether unheard of in Jazz Age musicals, but it provided a venue in which black and white actors appeared together in an essential and equal way on stage. While Show Boat “will never be [an] unproblematic vessel of progressive sentiment” to quote Todd Decker, it nevertheless paved the way for post-civil rights era musicals like Ragtime to take up the issues

it had tried to present in an admittedly nascent form. Each subsequent revival of Show Boat attempts to mitigate material that when written was in no way trying to be offensive, yet in the modern age is so. Some revivals have chosen to whitewash the show by cleaning up potentially offensive moments either by changing the words—or worse, as in a 1966 revival, simply minimalizing and marginalizing the role of the

black players and focusing primarily on the central white story, with merely a nod to Joe and Ol’ Man River. To quote Lonette McKee, the first African American woman to play Julie, “I think it’s important that [audiences] remember where we came from, what we’ve been through, and what we’re still going through on many levels. At its best, Show Boat is about more than lovely tunes. Kern and Hammerstein envisioned a show with black performers and white performers, “black” music and “white” music, black and white dance, characters, themes and issues. This enduring vision made Show Boat a “show with the potential to address history as it passed by, made it the first in a line of shows to use music and

dance to explore what it has meant to be black and white in the United States.” (Todd Decker) In these times, it is vital that we continue to explore what was, so that we can contextualize what is, and visualize what may be. Theater, music, and dance help us by giving us the tools to see in a different way. And Show Boat? It just keeps rollin’ along.

Norma Terris and Howard Marsh as Magnolia and Ravenal in the original 1927 production of Show Boat.

The fact that the theater going public likes my music is no credit to me. There are many other

composers who write better music that the public doesn't like.

~~Jerome Kern~~

Jerome Kern wrote over 1000 songs, only 46 of which are readily available in print. All of his myriad songs were written for the stage, or for use in the movies (with the exception of The Last Time I

Saw Paris, which was a love letter to the city after World War II). He wrote 40-odd stage shows for which he is credited as the sole composer, and countless other pieces which were interpolated into shows ascribed to others. No show exists printed in a score which includes dialogue. While over 800 of his songs were published as individual pieces, they are (excepting those golden 46) out of print. One can lay one’s hands on them occasionally through collectors of period sheet music. It is curious and tragic that such a prolific composer should be so poorly represented in print. As biographer and musicologist Stephen Banfield points out, however, Kern was not alone in this. Gershwin, Porter, Cole and Berlin all have similar holes in the record of their not

insignificant output. But though Kern was an influence on all of these composers, he is curiously less well represented. No one has taken the time to collect or catalogue his works—all those songs were considered by their contemporaries as ephemera. And yet Ol’ Man River, Smoke Gets in Your Eyes, The Way You Look Tonight, and All the Things You Are are all nearing the century mark, considered timeless classics. Nevertheless, even as Kern was producing these gems, he was writing more songs, more shows—a seemingly endless river of melody—so much of which is now lost. One would think there would be more available about the personal life of such a prolific and beloved composer. The airwaves exploded with platitudes upon the news of his death. But vanishing few remembrances offer us more than a glimpse of the man himself. Most talk about him as a sprightly, pixie-like man with a penchant for practical jokes. Many will acknowledge a mercurial man with a leonine temper, and a hard head for business. While there were sometimes hurt feelings, there were rarely misunderstandings. One knew where one stood with Kern. He was a plain-talker and a determined advocate for himself. Jerome Kern had a stable, happy childhood. He was the beloved son of beloved parents. His father, Henry Kern, was a successful

Meet

Jerome Kern (1885-1945)

businessman who eventually became partner in a furniture and clothing business, Woolf & Company. His mother, Fannie Kern, was the daughter of Hungarian immigrants, a lover of music and art, and a gifted pianist. She instilled her love of the theater in her youngest son, and all of her boys learned how to play the piano from her—well-enough that they would perform eight-handed concerts for their father. On the day that Jerome was born (January 27, 1885), Fannie Kern accompanied her husband to the horse races at Jerome Park, despite being enormously pregnant. It was a long, chilly carriage ride from their Manhattan apartment to the upper Bronx, but they enjoyed a pleasant afternoon in fashionable surrounds. On the way home, Fannie went into labor. Later that evening, safe and sound at home, little Jerry arrived. He was the third and most famous of the Kern’s three surviving sons, and the last of the Kern children. Little is known of Jerry’s early years, but Joseph Myron, a neighbor and classmate of his recalls

that at twelve, Jerry was a “wistful, sensitive boy, whose only interest was music.” Myron hints at some childhood bullying, but it cannot have lasted long. Jerry soon earned quite a reputation for his excellent piano skills. When Jerry was ten-years-old, his mother took him to a Broadway show. Asked years later what it was, Jerry could not recall, but it made a sufficient enough impression upon him that he would return the theaters many times. The morning after such an outing, he would return to school and regale his classmates by playing the score he had heard the night before on the piano. Soon after Jerry discovered Broadway, the family moved to Newark, New Jersey to follow a business opportunity. Jerry quickly embraced his new life. Entering the Thirteenth Avenue School shortly after his arrival in Newark, Jerry entranced everyone with his legendary charm—and he tickled the ivories better than anyone anybody knew (including him.). He was well-loved and well-cared for which gave him

Jerome Park Racetrack in what is now Brookyn. 1868 by Thomas Kelly

confidence and optimism, as well as a healthy— and not undeserved—ego. By the time he entered high school in 1899, Jerry was a very busy young man. He began playing piano and organ at school assemblies. His classmates were sufficiently impressed with his talent that the class of 1901 asked Jerry, then a junior, to join the senior class show. He did so with gusto. Much to everyone’s amazement and amusement, the exuberant, energetic Jerry Kern entered the scene riding a unicycle. After a few laps around the stage (no doubt accompanied by the enthusiastic calls and whoops of his classmates), he leapt from the unicycle to the piano stool and launched into a lively rag. His set complete (and after several encores, made necessary by the appreciative crowd), Jerry darted backstage to his post as assistant stage manager. Jerry continued to make an impression wherever he went. At 17, a mere year after his theatrical debut in The Merry Menu (where he had so admirably played piano, the clown and stage manager), he was asked to write the music for the Newark Yacht Club’s farcical production of Uncle Tom’s Cabin. Critics hailed his music as “catchy and up to date…much better than some of the music heard in many of the comic operas on the stage today.” His

father even sent him to Heidelberg, Germany for four months to study music, but accounts of this time are murky and contradictory. Jerry continued his studies in orchestration and theory at New York College of Music, despite not having graduated from high school. A promising young musician who had thrilled his audiences and inspired his teachers, Jerry was confident in his abilities, and expected to make his living as a composer. His father however, expected that Jerry would enter the business. Jerry loved and respected his father, and started work at Woolf and Company. After several weeks, Jerry’s father heard that a consignment of pianos had just arrived from Italy up in the Bronx. As most middle class family homes contained a piano, Mr. Kern figured it would be good business to have a couple (2) on hand—after all, Jerry could demonstrate the instruments to prospective buyers. Since Jerry was the expert, his dad sent him up to the Bronx to arrange to buy two pianos for Woolf and Company. Following a very pleasant lunch with the sellers, a deal was struck and a happy Jerry returned home.

Wannamaker's Department Store in New York City. These department stores were grand, glamorous destinations.

The next day the shipment arrived. Jerry and his father were there to greet it. “You can’t imagine what it looks like for two hundred pianos to come off vans.” Jerry often told this story. One can only imagine the look on his father’s face, but he seems to have taken it with good grace. “Son,” he said, “I think I am going into the piano business. As for you, I think you should become a musician.” (Quoted by Lee Davis in his book, Bolton, Wodehouse and Kern, The Men Who Made Musical Comedy) Given his later business acumen, it is hard to imagine Jerry Kern making such a mistake, but given his true affection for his father, it is equally difficult to believe that he did this on purpose. At any rate, the incident had the desired effect, and Jerry began his professional musical career as a song plugger for Lyceum Music. One hundred years ago, recorded music was still not universally available. Disc shaped records only began being mass marketed in the 1890s, and up into the 1920s, records and cylinders were competing for market shares. Home phonographs didn’t become common until the 1930s and 40s. But sheet music was very common. Myriad songs were available on sheet music for the amateur musician to play and enjoy at home. The song plugger would play/sing new music for prospective buyers at department and sheet music stores. Jerry, smooth, charming and talented, was one of these. He played anything the customer wanted to hear—as long as it was published by Lyceum Music. Lyceum Music, in addition to paying him $7 a week for song plugging, had published two of Jerry’s tunes, At the Casino and In a Shady Bungalow. Musically, they are nothing special, but they are the first songs Kern published and they gave young Jerry the confidence to believe that his time with Lyceum should be short. He began to plot the next move up the ladder.

There were other music pluggers at Wannamaker’s Department Store. They pushed songs published by other companies, including Witmark, a giant in the field. Witmark published the works of such luminaries as Victor Herbert and Ernest Ball. Ball, in addition to composing, also plugged songs at Wannamaker’s—for Witmark. Ball’s busy schedule meant that Jerry was often the only one playing music in the store. Ever ambitious, the extra exposure suited the young man just fine, and he began to slip Witmark publications into his rotation—judiciously. He was angling for an introduction at Witmark, and his “in” was going to be Ernest Ball. According to biographer Lee Davis:

One day, when Ernest Ball appeared late, he heard one of his original melodies coming from young Kern’s corner of the music department.

Jerry opined to his bemused fellow composer that it was a nice tune.

Ball agreed, but he also observed that Lyceum didn’t publish it. He went on to observe that since Lyceum didn’t publish his tunes, it didn’t publish the best tunes.

The young Jerome Kern

It was the sort of conversation for which Jerry had hoped. He had been angling for an introduction at Witmark. He slid gracefully into another Ball tune.

Ball, shrugging off his overcoat, eyed the brash young boy with the curly hair and the undeniable talent. And then, for reasons that might have had something to do with self-protection, he suggested that the young man take his tunes to another, older company, T.B. Harms, which was currently being resurrected by another young man named Max Dreyfus. Dreyfus, he added, was looking for new talent, and Witmark wasn’t.

“Whoever heard of Max Dreyfus?” asked Jerry, reaching for his coat.

“Whoever heard of Jerome Kern?” echoed Ball, busying himself at the keyboard.

Apocryphal? Maybe. But it is a great story. Jerry did go and visit Max Dreyfus at T.B. Harms. Dreyfus and Kern, both young and ambitious, immediately recognized in one another a kindred spirit. In no time at all, Dreyfus, with his unerring sense for talent, had Kern on his way to Broadway, interpolating songs into British imports. In 1904, the not-yet-twenty-year-old Kern made his Broadway debut with two songs inserted into an inveterate flop called An English Daisy. The flop status was no fault of

Jerry’s. The show had left England a dog and no amount of fresh American tunes could save it. But Kern was on Broadway, and he was developing a good relationship with Max

Dreyfus. Jerry bought a junior partnership in T.B. Harms and eventually represented the company’s publishing interests in London, a city which would claim much of his affection and time in the early part of his career. Dreyfus then introduced Kern to Edward Rice, a very famous producer in his day, who was importing yet another English failure, Mr. Wix of Wickham, score by Herbert Donnelly. Convinced that fresh music would save the show in the States, Rice turned to Jerry, who would write 12 of the show’s 23 numbers. The play was still atrocious and failed abysmally. But it was useful to Kern, who earned critical praise for his tunes from Alan Dale, who said that Kern’s music “tower[ed] in such an Eiffel way above the average hurdy-gurdy-penny-in-the-slot primitive accompaniment to the musical show that criticism is disarmed…” Following this, Jerry took off for London to check out the West End theaters. The visit was fruitful, and he earned himself a contract with two Titans of the West End, Charles Frohman and Seymour Hicks. Jerry was to provide them with 12 songs a year for three years. Pleased, Jerry hustled home. Here he met up with an old school chum, Edward Laska. Laska had just written a lilting little lyric and wondered if maybe Jerry would want to set it. He did. (This is a little unusual. Typically, Jerry presented his melodies to his librettists, who then fitted them with words.) Jerry was pleased with the results, grabbed Laska, and the two began to promote the tune. First stop, Charles’s Frohman’s New York office, but Mr. Frohman was away. An assistant approved of the music but not the words. Huffily, Jerry marched himself and Laska to Lee Schubert’s office. Schubert, another Broadway producer, liked it and put it into a new show, The Earl and the Girl. The song How’d You Like to Spoon with Me? became Kern’s first bona fide hit. Max Dreyfus as an older man

Shortly hereafter, Kern returned to London to fulfill his contract. While here, he met the young librettist P.G. Wodehouse, who was asked to write lyrics for several of

the songs Jerry was writing for some current English shows. Wodehouse wouldn’t soon forget meeting Kern, nor Kern him. The two wouldn’t work together again for another ten years, but when they did, they would be joined by Guy Bolton and together the three would change the face of musical theater. For the next several years, Jerry gained popularity on both sides of the Atlantic. His songs were everywhere, and he dazzled the producers, actors and directors who would later so influence his career. At twenty-two, Jerry was bereaved. His mother died on New Year’s Eve, 1907. Never again would he celebrate New Year’s Eve. Eight months later, his father also passed away. He had loved them both dearly, but Jerry’s natural privacy screened his grief from outsiders. He and his brothers sold the family home (where Jerry had still lived) quickly, and he moved to Manhattan, where he was close to work and friends. He soon found himself back in London. On this trip he met the woman who became his wife. Eva Leale was the pretty daughter of an inn-keeper whose beer was the best in the little village of Walton-on-Thames. Within six hours

of meeting her, full of bon ami and her father’s excellent lager, Jerry announced to young Eva that he would marry her one day. But first he had to convince her first that he really was a famous composer, which he accomplished by sending her his published sheet music, with his name clearly circled. Next, he had to win her love, which he did over the next year by writing her long, coded letters from New York. In 1910, he returned to her and proposed. They were married on October 25 at the small church in the village. Immediately, they moved to New York. At first Eva was a little overwhelmed. Jerry and she were very different on the face of it, and the early years of their marriage reflect the difficulties inherent in opposite attractions. Nevertheless, they were married for 35 years with no hint of scandal. In later years, Eva and Jerry were inseparable and considered quite the “item.” While biographers give conflicting accounts of their family life, no one can be inside another’s marriage, and if duration and dedication are any clues, theirs was a happy union. Together they had one daughter, Betty. She was loved and cossetted, but perhaps also buffeted by her parents’ fame. Jerry often sought her out for long chats as she grew older, and she never doubted her father’s love. Once he had arrived in New York with his bride, Jerry wasted no time getting back to work. For the next year, he interpolated songs into increasingly important shows, until in 1911, the Schubert Brothers gave him the opportunity to score an entire show on his own. The Red Petticoat met with mixed reviews and a disappointing run, but it was a great step forward for the young man. Now that Kern had written his own full score, he rarely allowed interpolations into his shows, even as he continued inserting his songs into the scores of others.

P.G. Wodehouse

Kern was increasingly discontent with interpolations. Musicals put together this way almost guaranteed a product with a “review” type feel, forcing writers into the most obvious clichés and virtually insuring that story, lyrics and music were disjointed. Jerry wanted to change this, but as yet he lacked the power and credibility to try out his new ideas. In 1914, despite having a full score to his credit, he was still busy interpolating his tunes into shows like The Girl from Utah. What elevated this show was Jerry’s song, The Didn’t Believe Me. The melody was so easy and natural, so unexpected, so appealing and so clearly integrated with the lyric that upon hearing it Victor Herbert, the reigning lion of Broadway jungle, said, “That man will one day inherit my mantle.” Not yet, though. Show Boat was still thirteen years away. But very soon, Jerry would take another giant leap forward in his quest for an integrated Broadway show. In 1915, he partnered with Bessie Marbury and Ray Comstock, and together they ushered in a new era.

Ray Comstock was the manager of a tiny, 299 seat theater owned by the Schuberts. His programming so far had failed and by 1914, it was time to change the programming and become profitable or dump the theater. At this crossroads, Comstock came

into contact—or rather conflict—with Bessy Marbury, an author and artist’s agent who swore that a play Comstock had presented was plagiarized from one of her clients. Like rival schoolboys after a definitive school yard scuffle, the two emerged as friends and business partners.

Bessie took one look at the jewelry box that was the Princess Theater and suggested that Comstock use the intimacy and beauty of the theater to his advantage. Plays at the Princess

should be as intimate, stylish and charming as the facility. Little shows, pretty girls, comedy, music…those elements would do the trick and turn box office around. Ray Comstock, without fresh ideas of his own, figured, why not? Marbury’s idea seemed sound, and she was willing take on the financial risk. The Princess Formula was simple: Keep it cheap. Contemporary plot lines made costuming less expensive; no more than two sets slashed the cost of building and designing; a small orchestra (only 11 pieces), small chorus (no more than 8-12 members), and young, lesser known actors and composers cut down on personnel costs. Voila! The Princess Musical DNA. But who should write the first one? Bessie Marbury contacted Jerome Kern. She had known him from his work with librettist Guy Bolton from their collaboration, 90 in the Shade. With this piece, Bolton and Kern had moved swiftly towards Kern’s vision of musical integration, but despite some quite good things in the original iteration, continual tinkering to please a committee of producers and performers rendered the show boneless in the

Bessie Marbury

Ray Comstock

theater. But Bolton and Kern had gotten on like a house on fire. Jerry approved of Bessie’s Princess Musical formula. He felt he could get a foothold for his vision at the Princess Theater. His first assignment for the theater was to collaborate with Paul Rubens, who came cheap, but understood neither Bessie’s true ambition for the Princess, nor Jerry’s brave new direction for musical theater. The ensuing fiasco was entitled Nobody Home. Kern demanded that Guy Bolton be brought in. Bolton and Kern were given free rein to fix the Ruben’s debacle. But Comstock, concerned as ever with the bottom line, growled as the agreement was made, “One thing. We’ve got to open this month. And with the same sets and costumes.” Up to the challenge, two ambitious young men, drunk with possibility, locked themselves in the Kern’s apartment and tore apart Ruben’s mess, making sure that “cue song” and plot were one in the same. Nobody’s Home opened to mixed reviews on April 20, 1915. If critics were ambivalent, audiences were not. They came; they saw; they were entranced. Everything about it delighted, from the costumes and sets (which influenced many a top-drawer apartment’s décor) to the

witty repartee and music described as, “a fox-trotting series of delights with joyous zip.” Nobody’s Home did well for the Princess and Comstock and Marbury decided to give Jerry and Guy Bolton another go with Very Good Eddie. Based on a play and scenario by Philip Bartholomae, Very Good Eddie took the good start made by Nobody’s Home and hit a home run. Brilliantly successful, the December opening would facilitate the final piece of the puzzle to fall into place and ensure that the Princess model would birth the modern musical. And what was the final piece? Lyricist

P.G. Wodehouse. At the time Very Good Eddie debuted, Wodehouse was almost wholly responsible for the written content in Vanity Fair magazine (under various pseudonyms). Wodehouse was in the theater for the premiere of Very Good Eddie in his theater critic’s guise. The

circumstances of the Kern/Bolton/Wodehouse meeting are murky—Wodehouse and Bolton, who, once met, became fast friends, embellish the story to delicious effect in their autobiographical book Bring on the Girls. According to this account, Wodehouse wrote in his diary:

Went to opening of Very Good Eddie. Enjoyed it in spite of lamentable lyrics. Bolton evidently conscious of this weakness, offered

Guy Bolton, P.G. Wodehouse and Jerome Kern

partnership. Tried to hold back and weigh the suggestion, but his eagerness so pathetic that consented. Mem: Am I too impulsive? Fight against this tendency.

Whatever the facts of the case, the three, Bolton, Wodehouse and Kern were now linked and would soon begin to write a series of musicals for the Princess that cemented their reputations and influence musical comedy in the United States for the next forty years. Together the three wrote four musicals (Have a Heart, Oh Boy!, Leave it to Jane, and Oh, Lady! Lady!!) and became the taste-setters for theater-going audiences. In 1918, Dorothy Parker wrote:

Well, Bolton and Wodehouse and Kern have done it again. Every time these three gather together, the Princess Theatre is sold out for months in advance. You can get a seat for Oh, Lady! Lady!! somewhere in the middle of August for just about the price of one on the stock exchange. If you aske me, I will look you fearlessly in the eye and tell you in low, throbbing tones that it has it over any other musical comedy in town. But then Bolton and Wodehouse and Kern are my favorite indoor sport. I like the way they go about a musical comedy. …I like the way the action slides casually into the songs. …I like the deft rhyming of the song that is always sung in the last act by two comedians and a comedienne. And oh, how I do like Jerome Kern’s music!

Unfortunately, the trio broke up over a disagreement over money and some rather shocking behavior from Kern. According to Guy Bolton, the opening salvo in the battle occurred soon after the phenomenal success of Oh, Boy! Bolton recalls approaching Jerry (Kern being by far the best businessman of the trio) to urge him to go to Comstock and ask for a raise of 10% for each of them. Kern seemed to Bolton

to be reluctant and declared that he didn’t believe the Princess could afford it. Bolton recalled that he was disappointed, but resigned to accept Kern’s appraisal of the situation, when the company manager gave Kern a copy of the previous night’s receipts. When Bolton inquired why neither he nor Wodehouse received them, the manager said baldly, “Mr. Kern has 10% of the show. You don’t.” Ten percent of the show! Things would never be the same between them, and it certainly wasn’t Kern’s finest hour. Despite this highly regrettable breakup, Kern’s career continued to progress rapidly. Kern was working on shows for Florenz Ziegfeld of Follies fame and churning out songs and shows at an unbelievable pace. All of this work and success earned him the trust necessary to allow him and Oscar Hammerstein II to create his best known work the landmark Show Boat in 1927. Jerome Kern met Oscar Hammerstein II in 1925. Hammerstein was the young and talented protégé of the established librettist Otto Harbach and yet another young librettist graciously invited to the Kern home to be looked over by the increasingly powerful composer. Kern threw out a couple of his melodies for Hammerstein to try his teeth on. Evidently, Kern liked him, because he and Harbach went on to collaborate on Kern’s next Ziegfeld show, Sunny (1925). It was a huge hit. From then on, every important Broadway show that Kern ever wrote would include some combination of Hammerstein and Harbach. In October of 1926, Kern read Edna Ferber’s best-selling novel, Show Boat and thought it might be just the thing to take musicals to a new level. By happy coincidence, Ferber was in the house for opening night of Criss Cross (a dreadful play with a Kern score). They met. Jerry explained his idea for a musical version of Show Boat to her.

Having convinced Ferber to take him seriously, he contacted Hammerstein, urging him to read the book and come up with a scenario for a musical. Convinced that they had something great, they acquired the rights to the book from Ferber on November 17, 1926, and a week later, Kern and Hammerstein pitched Act I to the producer Florenz Ziegfeld, who promptly commissioned a working score to be delivered by January 1, 1927. As if creating and casting Show Boat weren’t enough, Kern’s personal life was becoming rocky and unstable. His wife, Eva, suffered a mental collapse, and his schedule was filled with several unsuccessful projects. Worried about Eva and too busy to be as solicitous as he wished, Kern found himself having to manage Ziegfeld’s anxieties about the progress and direction of the show.

One can only imagine the reaction of Jerome Kern, notoriously short tempered, under pressure professionally, and concerned with his slowly recovering, but still fragile wife. Ziegfeld could not win this battle, however. Hammerstein and Kern were dedicated to the vision of a fully integrated musical. Words and music and plot action were inextricably entwined. Show Boat had changed the face of Broadway. After Show Boat, Kern took a year off. He expanded his collection of rare books and bought a yacht which he named Show Boat—after all that is where he got the money for it! The yacht became a kind of floating studio, where Kern and Hammerstein wrote their next hit, Sweet Adeline. The stock market crash wound up taking the wind out of this production’s sails, but Kern was already looking west to Hollywood. Talkies were well established now and music was becoming necessary to the movies.

The summer of 1930 found Kern in Beverly Hills with Otto Harbach working on a movie musical called Stolen Dream. It was Kern’s first experience with the vagaries of film work. By 1931, the producers had scrapped the score and released something called Men of the Sky, with not one iota of the work Kern and Harbach had done. Back to Broadway. Kern and Harbach wrote another show, The Cat and the Fiddle. Jerry was pleased with it, even if not all of the critics were. He said, “A composer should never compose unless he has something to say. The characters wrote the music. I only placed the notes on the paper. That is why it is the most direct, uncompromising thing I have accomplished.” Unfortunately, it never really caught on. Broadway was barely treading water anyway, with theaters closing their doors and audiences struggling to keep their heads above water, let alone buying theater tickets. As the Depression

At the movies--Kern with Fred Astaire and Rita Hayworth on the set of You Were Never Lovelier.

George Gershwin and Jerome Kern

continued its sodden gray march across the country, Hollywood managed to continue sparkling—if only with rhinestones and paste. Jerry headed west for good. In 1935, the Kerns began to build their West Coast home. By 1937, it was complete, and the Kerns were moving in when Kern suffered what might seem to be a minor tragedy, but was taken by him as a body blow. Jerry’s beloved Bluthner piano—the piano upon which he composed—arrived in its crate. As it was unpacked, it was revealed that a screw had been driven through the crate and into the sound board. The piano was through, and Jerry was beside himself with grief and fury. This terrible shock coupled with a weak heart and the stress of the move all compounded to cause a massive heart attack, complicated by a stroke. Kern barely survived. Recovery was a long and difficult process. He spent three months in the hospital, conscientiously attended by his wife, Eva, Oscar Hammerstein and Dorothy Fields (who had begun writing lyrics for some of Kern’s movie musicals some years before, and soon became a lifelong friend of the family.) During his

recuperation, Kern learned that his protégé and friend George Gershwin had died on another floor in the very hospital in which he lay, but that his family and staff had kept it from him as long as possible, hoping to spare him another trauma until he was stronger. Gershwin had not yet reached his fortieth birthday when he died. Jerry was devastated. As he continued to recover, Kern continued his work in film, but by 1937, wanted to return to Broadway. He turned down MGM’s offer to score The Wizard of Oz. Instead, Kern created Gentlemen Unafraid, an ambitious Civil War epic that was an epic box office failure. Kern’s last musical for Broadway, Very Warm for May suffered a similar ignominious fate, despite having inspired a nine-year-old Stephen Sondheim to pursue a career in the theater and being deemed by posterity the best Kern score since Show Boat. During the war years, Kern worked tirelessly at the movies. By 1945, he was in constant motion. Then Oscar and Richard Rogers lured him back to Broadway with a contract for a new show based on the life of sharp shooter Annie Oakley. In addition, another Broadway revival of Show Boat was underway. Happy and

hopeful, the Kerns went to New York to shepherd these two projects. Sadly, despite his feeling of well-being, Jerome Kern collapsed in the street after visiting his parent’s graves. He had no identification on him, and was therefore sent to City Hospital. The attending physician diagnosed a massive stroke and a desperate search for his next of kin ensued. They found only Kern’s union card in his wallet. The hospital called ASCAP, who identified Kern from his membership number. The union contacted Oscar Hammerstein who in turn tracked down Eva, who had just finished lunching with Dorothy Fields. Eva and Oscar rushed to the hospital. The Kern’s daughter, Betty, was informed of her father’s condition and immediately flew in from California. Kern remained in a coma throughout a transfer to

Doctors Hospital and despite a steady stream of well-wishers. Without ever regaining consciousness, Jerome Kern died on November 11, 1945. Kern is best remembered for his individual songs, which have become the foundation for that amazing collection of vocal music referred to now as the Great American Songbook, but Kern wrote every one of those songs for some type of theatrical release. That incredible output for the stage, the context for all of his magnificent songs, spans the distance between European operetta and the American musical theater. Jerome Kern’s legacy is a genre. As fellow composer Arthur Schwartz put it, “[Kern was] the daddy of modern musical comedy.”

Oscar Hammerstein, seated, with, from left, Jerome Kern, Louis A. Hirsch, A. Baldwin Sloane, Rudolph Friml, Alfred Robyn, Gustave Kerker, Hugo Felix, John Philip Sousa, Leslie Stuart, Raymond Hubbell, John Golden, Sylvio Hein and Irving Berlin.

“I have an unusual statement to make. I am a man who believes he is happy. What makes it unusual is that a man who is happy seldom tells anyone. The unhappy man is more communicative. He is eager to recite what is wrong with the world, and he seems to have a talent for gathering a large audience. It is a modern tragedy that despair has so many spokesmen, and hope so few. I believe, therefore, that it is important for a man to announce that he is happy even though such an announcement is less dramatic and less entertaining than the cries of his pessimistic opposite.”

~~Oscar Hammerstein~~

Stephen Sondheim, perhaps the greatest living librettist heir of Oscar Hammerstein II said, “What few people understand is that Oscar’s big contribution to the theater was as a theoretician, as a Peter Brook, as an innovator. People don’t understand how experimental Show Boat and Oklahoma! felt at the time they were done. Oscar is not about the ‘lark that is learning to pray’—that’s easy to make fun of. He’s about Allegro.” Sondheim has more reason than most to admire and love Oscar

Hammerstein for he was a close friend of Hammerstein’s son, Jamie, and spent many, many happy moments with the family. Generously, Hammerstein took young Sondheim seriously. When the 15-year-old boy brought him a script he had written for a play at his and Jamie’s school, Hammerstein agreed to take a look at it and tell him what he thought. Young Stephen asked Mr. Hammerstein to behave “as if we were strangers” when giving his feedback. After reviewing the script, Hammerstein asked if Stephen had meant what he said about wanting feedback about his play as if they were strangers. “Yes,” replied the boy. Hammerstein let him have it. “In that case, it is the worst thing I’ve ever read.” But as Sondheim’s eyes filled with tears, he said, “I didn’t say it doesn’t show talent. But it’s just terrible. If you want to know why it’s terrible, I’ll tell you.” And he did. Every line, lyric and stage direction was combed through. Sondheim says that after those hours spent with Hammerstein plowing through that work of juvenilia, he knew how to write for himself. For years, Hammerstein was Sondheim’s mentor and advisor.

What about

Oscar Hammerstein?

In a final act of generosity to his young protégé, Hammerstein autographed a photo, “To Steve, my friend and teacher.” A sweet and profound reference to his lyric from the song Getting to Know You from The King and I: It’s a very ancient saying, But a true and honest thought, That if you become a teacher By your pupils you’ll be taught.

It is moments like these which give one an idea of the stature of the man, Oscar Hammerstein II, beyond the footlights, and just a glimpse into the profound ripples in the pond of theatrical life that were caused by his enormous presence. Ironically, his father never meant his son, Oscar, for the theater even though he, William Hammerstein, managed the famous Victoria Theater, and Oscar’s grandfather, Oscar I, was a well-known opera impresario. His uncle Arthur was an equally famous Broadway stage manager and producer. Theater was in the blood and sinew of the Hammerstein family, but, like many proud parents, William Hammerstein wanted Oscar to be a lawyer.

Oscar Greeley Clendenning Hammerstein II was born on July 12, 1895. He was named for both his opera impresario grandfather, Oscar I and his abolitionist newspaperman grandfather, Horace Greeley. All of his elder male relatives

were prominent and influential in their fields,

but all would lose a little of their luster in the long shadow of the baby born on July 12th. Despite losing his mother when he was fifteen, Hammerstein’s childhood was a happy one. He began taking piano lessons at age nine and participated in the usual childhood theatrical enterprises—Christmas pageants and Spring Showcases—but his father was adamant that he not pursue theater. Instead, Oscar enrolled at Columbia University to study law. Here he met Richard Rogers and Lorenz Hart. While at school, he participated in the Varsity shows as both an actor and a writer, but was not able to really turn his attention to his theatrical career until his father’s death in 1914. Since his father’s was the only real objection to Hammerstein participating the family business, Hammerstein was able to leave law school and convince his Uncle Arthur to hire him as an assistant stage manager on one of his productions. “On one condition,” Uncle Arthur said. “You may not write one line.” Young Oscar eagerly agreed and spent 1919 working on each of Arthur’s shows, working his way from managing the scenery all the way to production stage manager. He began noodling with the shows in development, writing or rewriting. Eventually, in 1922, Hammerstein partnered with Guy Bolton—another collaborator of Jerome Kern’s—on a dreadful little show called Daffy Dill. It was a fateful moment. The show was a dud, but more unfortunately for Hammerstein, it led to his divorce from his first wife, Myra. On the night of the dress rehearsal, Hammerstein was pulling an all-nighter, desperately trying to make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear. His wife, Myra, hated staying alone in their home, while her husband worked. Bolton, handsome and something of a ladies man, volunteered to go and check in on Hammerstein’s wife and kids. It was the death knell for Hammerstein’s first marriage.

Hammerstein while at Columbia University

1922 was a roller coaster of a year for Hammerstein, with failed shows, a dissolved marriage and his first great success, Wild Flower, with Otto Harbach. Harbach mentored Hammerstein and collaborated with him for twenty years. It was he who introduced Hammerstein to Jerome Kern, and the two went on to write first Sally (1925), with Harbach, and directly following that triumph, 1927’s Show Boat, a landmark in theater history, and a turning point in the way Broadway musicals were conceived and written. Hammerstein centered the entire show on the plot. All of the other elements: stars, music, sets, dialogue—all served the purpose of telling the story. He included some pretty heavy-hitting social commentary about race as well, though his message was often watered down in subsequent productions. This would happen to him throughout his career, leading later critics unaware of the original productions or scripts to view Hammerstein (and his most frequent collaborator, Richard Rogers) as treacly and Pollyanna-esque. But this quite untrue and unfair. Kern and Hammerstein went on to write several more musicals together. Hammerstein also wrote with Sigmund Romberg (The Desert Song and New Moon), but by far his most prolific and beloved partnership was with Richard Rogers. For years, Rodgers had battled with Lorenz Hart’s increasingly erratic behavior, caused by

Hart’s alcoholism. Finally, in the early 1940s, the two parted ways forever. Meanwhile, Hammerstein had spent a disheartening decade in Hollywood. Hollywood didn’t suit him. The hectic pace didn’t fit in with Hammerstein’s care and thoughtfulness. He had taken almost a year to write Show Boat with Kern. He called it quits in 1942, and moved back to New York, where he began work on Carmen Jones, his all-black adaptation of Bizet’s Carmen set in the United States. As he was finishing the libretto, Rodgers

got in touch. He had ended his collaboration with Hart and wanted Hammerstein to work with him on a musical adaptation of Lynn Riggs’ Green Grow the Lilacs. Once again, Hammerstein found himself working with a composer who was concerned with creating a fully integrated musical, where words and text were in accord. Unlike his other collaborations, this time, Hammerstein

got the first crack, presenting words to Rodgers to set; much more like the relationship that composers have with their librettists in opera—and the reverse of his work with Kern. (In fact, Mrs. Dorothy Hammerstein, Oscar’s second wife, is said to have quipped pointedly after an acquaintance mentioned that Jerome Kern had written Ol’ Man River, “Not at all. Jerome Kern wrote ‘dum, dum, dee-dum. My husband wrote Ol’ Man River.”) The result was Oklahoma!, opening on March 31, 1943, running an astonishing 2,243 performances and garnering its creators the 1944 Pulitzer Prize. Rodgers

Hammerstein and his wife, Dorothy, on one of their daily walks on “The Farm,” as their home was affectionately called.

Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II

and Hammerstein would from now on be linked as inextricably as Gilbert and Sullivan. Their partnership was so lucrative that it warrants the inclusion of an anecdote told by Hammerstein’s nephew, John Steele Gordon:

The financial success of Rodgers & Hammerstein was legendary. Their first show together, 1943’s Oklahoma! ran three times as long as any previous book musical; their nine Broadway musicals averaged more than a thousand performances each at a time when 500 performances marked a major success. In the late winter of 1951, as The King and I was trying out in Boston, the actress and comedienne, Bea Lillie gave a lunch party in her East End Avenue apartment overlooking the East River. As the theater-folk guests were drinking coctails, a barge, pushed by a tug, went down the river, carrying a large mound of something covered with tarpaulins.

“I wonder what’s in it,” one of the guests said.

Moss Hart [American playwright and theater director] looked out the window at the barge for a second and answered, “It’s Rodgers & Hammerstein sending their money down from Boston.”

But it isn’t just the financial success that made Rodgers and Hammerstein extraordinary—it was the artistic success. No, they weren’t out to write masterpieces; they were out to write hits. “They knew that the masterpiece unappreciated in its own time was a myth of the second rate to explain their failure.” (John Steele Gordon) Yet they managed to create some of the most enduring masterpieces of the musical genre. All told, Rodgers and Hammerstein produced 14 distinct productions (and several remakes). Their legacy cannot be overstated. When Hammerstein died of stomach cancer in 1960, Broadway turned off all its lights. According to author, Stanley Green:

For three minutes, on the night of September first, the entire Times Square area in New York City was blacked out in honor of the man who had done so much to light up that particular part of the world. From 8:57 to 9:00 pm, every neon sign and every light bulb was turned off and all traffic was halted between 42

nd Street and 53

rd Street,

and between 8th

Avenue and the Avenue of the Americas. A crowd of 5000 people, many with heads bowed assembled at the base of the statue of Father Duffy on Times Square where two trumpeters blew taps. It was the most complete blackout on Broadway since World War II, and the greatest tribute of its kind ever paid to one man.”

Jerome Kern and Oscar Hammerstein II wrote Show Boat in 1926, and it opened on Broadway in 1927. Their story, based on Edna Ferber’s novel of the same name, stretches over fifty years, but begins in 1895. As written in the opening chorus, the first word that audiences hear is the “N” Word: “Niggers all work on de Mississippi/Niggers all work, while the white folks play.” It was a shock then as it is now. While the Portland Opera production, which uses the 1994 Hal Prince script and score, does not open with the “N” Word but with “Colored folks”, the script nevertheless contains the word, used in its derogatory connotation, by a white character, directed at an African American character. This essay is an attempt to explore how we can deal with literature and art which contains the word—with students and children, with our friends and family, as audience members, and with the larger community. When we are confronted by art set in a specific time and place, which presents a word as repulsive, violent and taboo as the “N” Word, it is important to face it. The word still has power. It is still terrible and potent to most people. That is as it should be. It is weighted down with six hundred years of ugly history. As one African American teacher said, “It is just another term that white people put on us. We didn’t give it to ourselves.” It is my hope that through art and literature, we can begin to have the difficult and uncomfortable conversations that will lead to greater understanding and harmony. But the conversations will be hard and anxiety producing, possibly hurtful, and probably angering. Maybe through art we can garner the courage to have the conversation anyway.

Once riding in old Baltimore, Heart-filled, head-filled with glee,

I saw a Baltimorean Keep looking straight at me.

Now I was eight and very small,

And he was no whit bigger, And so I smiled, but he poked out

His tongue, and called me, “Nigger.”

I saw the whole of Baltimore From May until December;

Of all the things that happened there That’s all that I remember.

~~Countee Cullen, “Incident” (1925)~~

What about

The N-word?

“The N-word is a euphemism to shield us from the shame of our past. …It is a polite code for the slur, but the slur itself—Nigger—that looks like a Sunday morning in Alabama when five black girls went into

a bathroom of their church and only one came out.

~~Rapper Common, “Special Report on the N-word”, February, 2014

“Yo, I start to flinch as I try not to say it, but my lips is like the ooh-wap as I start to spray it.”

~~Q-tip, “Sucka Nigger”~~

“Definitions belong to the definers, not to the defined.”

~~Toni Morrison~~

The United States has never existed without it. As early as 1619 in Jamestown, settlers were using the N-word to describe the Africans who had been enslaved and brought to Virginia to work. The Anti-Bias Study Guide published by the Anti-Defamation League in 1998 presents the etymology this way:

Nigger (also spelled niggar): a word that is an alteration of the earlier neger, nigger derives from the French negre, from the Spanish and Portuguese negro, from the Latin niger (black). First recorded in 1587 (as negar), the word probably originated with the dialectal pronunciation of negro in northern England and Ireland.

Many sources tell us that the word, at first, was a neutral term, but it quickly morphed into a pejorative. How could it not, when it was used to define a class of people? How could it not, when it was not a term chosen by the people to whom it was applied? During the Revolutionary War, the British army regulars would taunt American troops as “Niggers” because blacks fought in the American army, the implication being that the Americans were so weak they needed to supplement themselves with slaves. (Of course not all black soldiers who fought during the American Revolutionary War were

slaves. Both free men and slaves served, most on the part of the Patriot Army. Some slave owners from the South sent their slaves to fight for the Loyalists in their stead, as some Northern slave owners sent their slaves to fight on their behalf in the Patriot Army. This was controversial. Most slave owners did not want their slaves armed and trained to fight—

Detail from The Death of Major Pierson, oil on canvas by John Singleton, 1782-84

including George Washington. Most historians agree that 10-15% of Patriot troops were black). By the early 19th century, it was generally agreed that the N-word was a slur. To distinguish between slaves and white people with common names, the N-word or “Black” was often placed before a black person’s name, once again defining him or her from outside. The word was everywhere. At the turn of the 20th century, one could hardly turn and look about one’s kitchen without seeing the word emblazoned across products, in magazines, in popular music. It was embedded in the culture. But that didn’t mean that African Americans were okay with it. Even in 1927, when Show Boat was written, it caused controversy within the black community and even within the black cast. After the show’s opening, it was discussed for months in the black press.

I must admit that the word nigger is used quite often through the show, but the scenes are laid in the South and we must look for that; however, if we would only stop to think that the show was written to entertain and not to ridicule, we could overlook the usage of the word. One thing sure, we have a chance to display our ability in the best theatres and that means much. I am informed by my old pal Wm. Vodery, who is responsible for the Colored end of the show, that the

lowest salary paid is $50.00 per week and the highest is $500.00 per week…I am sure that if this show makes good there will be other promoters producing shows that will open the doors to more Colored actors.

“Uncle Dud” The Pittsburgh Courier

Most of the black press seemed to take this pragmatic attitude. They may have felt more comfortable doing so because the producer was Florenz Ziegfeld. Not only was Ziegfeld the most powerful producer on Broadway, but he featured black performers, including Bert Williams, perhaps the greatest vaudeville performer of the early 1900s. The black press

had not forgotten that when Williams first joined the Follies in 1910, he was the only black performer in an all-white cast, and that Ziegfeld, when pressured by white cast members to fire Williams, flatly refused, saying, “I can replace any of you, except

him.” Ziegfeld helped to present Williams—and by proxy other black artists—to the white audience, and, in the words of Floyd Snelson, another African American journalist, “[Ziegfeld’s] opinions were master…[and in terms of presenting] talent, ability and artistic personality…regardless of color or state of being [Ziegfeld] was supreme.” But even if many were resigned to the use of the N-word, others were not. Chappy Gardner, also of the Courier, reported that many of the black chorus stopped singing the word—and

Negro Writers Guild of New York City in conference during strike: Chappy Gardner, Ted Yates, Floyd G. Snelson, Wilford Bain, many of whom wrote for The Pittsburgh Courier.

one night a group of them “filed off the stage, stopped warbling.” Gardner, in another column, advised the black choristers who didn’t like the N-word in Show Boat not to continue using it in their personal lives. “It is hard to convince any sane person that Ziegfeld, the producer, hates you when he builds a show with you and pays so well.” His argument echoes down through the years, another voice articulating the discomfort and ambiguity in the African American community about the N-word, and whether it is ever okay for anyone to say it. From Gardner calling out young blacks for using the N-word amongst themselves in the 1920s right to the present we see the ambivalence of trying to reclaim a word that was not chosen by a community for itself, but thrust upon it by another. In the 1970s, many in the black entertainment world began reclaiming the term, most visibly in the Blaxploitation films like Super Fly, Foxy Brown and Black Caesar. Richard Prior would bring the “reclaimed” word to white audiences in his comedy routines, although by the mid-eighties, he was disavowing its use. In the late 1980s it figured prominently in the rap of NWA, and continues to do so in hip hop today. There is a generational disconnect on the acceptability of blacks using the word even amongst themselves. Some believe that by reclaiming and using the word, it is robbed of its power, but others, like African American scholar, Dr. Neal A. Lester, disagree.

While I do not approach my talks, publications or interviews with the expressed purpose of convincing folks not to use any form of the N-word, I do intentionally challenge the notion that how the word is pronounced, intoned or spelled somehow changes its meaning from derogatory to endearing. It does not. …When we all cease to think about the words we use, we are not thinking critically or responsibly about how best to name our realities and our circumstances.

Language is powerful. And as U.S. Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. posits, “A word is…the skin of a living thought.”

What almost everyone agrees on is that white people should not use the word, regardless of intent. But how should we deal with it in major works of art? How do we approach great American books like Twain’s The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, or the original scores of Porgy and Bess and Show Boat in the theater and the classroom? There is no one answer. So much of classroom discussions will depend on the demographics of the class. In classrooms that are predominantly African American, some may feel more comfortable with the N-word—though not necessarily uttered by white characters in classic texts. Discussions of this sort can be extraordinarily uncomfortable for black students in predominantly white classrooms. As one African American student said, when studying Huck Finn in his otherwise white classroom, “Every time the word came up [during oral reading], everybody turned around to look at me.” While this black student articulated the discomfort of being an African American dealing with the word in a predominantly white class, Dr. Emily Bernard, an African American professor teaching an all-white college class about the N-word, articulates the discomfort white students feel as well in her moving and brilliant essay, Teaching the N-word. This dis-ease is articulated by her student “Sarah.” Dr. Bernard had opened an ongoing discussion about who can say the N-word, and when, and why, and if context matters. Sarah is adamant, “It’s not that I can’t say it, it’s that I don’t want to. I will not say it.” In a later class, when confronted by the book Nigger: The Strange Career of a Troublesome Word, and asked why she wouldn’t say the word, even as the title of a book, Sarah says, “No. I just don’t want to be the kind of person

who says that word, period…Regardless of context.” It is difficult to have a discussion about race, especially when confronted with a word as incendiary as the N-word. Nevertheless, it is an important discussion to have, especially now, when there seem to be more and more

instances of racial tension and violence and death between police officers and people of color in the news. We are not a “post –racial” society—whatever that might be, and whether or not that is even desirable. But it seems that in order to have a harmonious, accepting, truly integrated society, we need to talk. About race, culture, and class. Art can open that door.

Here are some Teaching Tips, taken from the Huck Finn Teachers Guide, Section 1: The N-Word at www.pbs.org. Some teachers may feel apprehensive about exploring racism and related issues. The following suggestions will help teachers deal with these or other emotionally charged subjects. You may also want to inform parents in advance about how you will be approaching the use of the word in the classroom.

Never assume of your students either that they are completely ignorant and disdainful of discussing race relations and cultural differences or completely aware of and extremely willing to discuss and better understand race relations and cultural differences.

You may want to ask the group to decide the format for discussion of these issues. (Anything said in the discussion session should not affect grades.) Depending on the demographics of your classroom, you may want to speak privately with African American students (or other students as needed) before beginning the unit.

Set ground rules for the discussion, such as no name-calling, no put-downs, and a respect for all viewpoints. Do not press for a resolution of friction that may occur during the discussion of these issues. Students should be responsible for their words and actions.

No one individual or group should be expected to be spokespersons for their race, gender, socioeconomic group, political affiliation or any other group.

Invite outside experts or community leaders to give other perspectives.

Be honest with students about your own feelings, and explain to them why you want to explore the subject.

If the class is initially hesitant to talk, try having students express their feelings through journal entries, free writing, or anonymous responses.

Students may be shocked to hear the N-word in the theater during Show Boat. Prepare the class for this by explaining that they are about to study/see a play that contains a pejorative term. To frame the discussion and to empower students to feel free to speak their thoughts and opinions, you may want to start with a key question, such as, “Many works of theater and literature contain the N-word. How shall we deal with this in the classroom?”

Emphasize that exploring the meaning and use of the word, as well as its context, does not mean an acceptance or approval of the word. Use the following questions to help foster classroom discussion. You may also want to expand this discussion to explore the power of words when used as epithets.

In general, who can or can’t say the word? When, if ever, can it be said?

How do you feel about the use of the word?

Is the use of the word in the classroom different from its use outside the classroom?

Is it different to read a text or see a play by an African American who uses it than it is to read it in a text by a non-African American? Why or why not?

Does the use of the word in a “classic” literary work, or a “period” piece give it validity outside of the classroom? If so, how?

“Black Friday” in Germany—the economic system collapsed.

Socialists riot in Vienna; A general strike took place following acquittal of Nazis for political murder.

Gottfried Feder published “The Program of the N.S.D.A.P.” (Hitler’s Nazi Party).

Sinclair Lewis published Elmer Gantry.

The Jazz Singer, the first “talkie” film opened.

Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences founded.

I.P. Pavlov published his paper Conditioned Reflexes.

Charles Lindberg flew the monoplane Spirit of St. Lewis nonstop from New York to Paris.

“Iron Lung” was invented by P. Drinker and L.A. Shaw.

Harlem Globetrotters basketball team was founded by Abe Saperstein.

Babe Ruth hit 60 home runs for the New York Yankees.

Babe Ruth

Charles Lindbergh and the Spirit of St. Louis

The original Harlem Globetrotters, 1927

Around the world in

1927

That Jerome Kern was a practical joker?

That Oscar Hammerstein II was intensely competitive when playing games? He was particularly good at tennis, and played baseball at Columbia.

That one of Oscar Hammerstein’s grandfathers was Horace Green, the famous abolitionist newspaper publisher and the other was Oscar Hammerstein I, an equally famous opera impresario?

That Paul Robeson did NOT create the role of Joe on Broadway? Jules Bledsoe had that honor.

That the role of Queenie was played by Tess Gardella, a white woman in black face make-up? Gardella played the vaudeville circuit as Aunt Jemima. She wasn’t even credited in the program for Show Boat. Aunt Jemima was.

That Lena Horne lost the role of Julie to Ava Gardner (who did not sing the role) in the 1951 MGM film of Show Boat, because Hollywood didn’t want to offend its Southern audiences? Horne did play the role in scenes from the show inserted into Till the Clouds Roll By.

That Judy Garland was also considered for Julie in the 1951 movie, but was fired by MGM before they began production. Judy was by that time addicted to prescription drugs and unable to arrive to the set on time…or sometimes at all.

Did you know…

Lena Horne singing Julie in Till the Clouds Role By

Article « My Uncle Oscar Hammerstein « Commentary Magazine. (2011, April 1). Retrieved

March 6, 2015, from https://www.commentarymagazine.com/article/my-uncle-oscar-

hammerstein/

Banfield, S., & Block, G. (2006). Jerome Kern. New Haven: Yale University Press.

Bennett, R., & Ferencz, G. (1999). The Broadway sound: The autobiography and selected essays

of Robert Russell Bennett. Rochester, NY: University of Rochester Press.

Bernard, E. (2004, December 1). Teaching the N-Word. Retrieved March 10, 2015, from

https://theamericanscholar.org/teaching-the-n-word/#.VP9ixPISaQA

Bordman, G. (1985). Jerome David Kern: Innovator/Traditionalist. The Musical Quarterly, 71(4),

468-473. Retrieved December 8, 2014, from JSTOR.

Breon, R. (1995). Show Boat: The Revival, the Racism. The MIT Press, 39(2), 86-105. Retrieved

August 12, 2014, from JSTOR.

Davis, L. (1993). Bolton and Wodehouse and Kern: The men who made musical comedy. New

York, NY: James H. Heineman.

Decker, T. (n.d.). Show boat: Performing race in an American musical.

Francis, A. (1994, January 7). The "N" Word: It Just Slips Out. Retrieved March 10, 2015, from

http://www.youthcom.org/topics/african-

americans/The_'N'_Word:_It_Just_Slips_Out.html?story_id=NYC-1994-01-07

Hammerstein, O. (n.d.). Happy Talk. Retrieved March 6, 2015, from

To find out more… (Selected bibliography)

http://thisibelieve.org/essay/16609

Huck Fin in Context: The Curriculum, Section 1, Exploring the Controversy, The "N" Word. (n.d.).

Retrieved March 10, 2015, from

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/cultureshock/teachers/huck/section1_2.html

Knecht, K. (n.d.). Facing the 'N Word' Retrieved March 10, 2015, from

http://www.tolerance.org/article/facing-n-word

Kreuger, M. (1977). Show boat: The story of a classic American musical. New York: Oxford

University Press.

Lamb, A. (2010, October 1). Jerome Kern. Retrieved December 15, 2014.

Lester, N. (2014, April 21). The N-Word: Connected Through Historical Disconnect? Retrieved

March 10, 2015, from http://www.tolerance.org/blog/n-word-connected-through-

historical-disconnect

Masterworks Broadway. (n.d.). Retrieved March 6, 2015, from

http://www.masterworksbroadway.com/artist/oscar-hammerstein-ii

Oscar Hammerstein Biography. (n.d.). Retrieved March 6, 2015, from

http://www.notablebiographies.com/Gi-He/Hammerstien-Oscar.html

Oscar Hammerstein II. (n.d.). Retrieved March 6, 2015, from

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oscar_Hammerstein_II APA formatting by BibMe.org.

What do you call that? (Opera Vocabulary)

Aria (ah-ree-ah) a solo song. In opera, arias are often used to tell the audience what the

character is thinking or feeling—like a monologue in plays

Recitative (reh-chih-tah-teev) literally, “to recite.” Lines that are sung rather than spoken, and forward the action of the story. They are often followed by arias or ensembles which tell how the characters feel about the situation.

Ensemble Group singing, or the group itself. An ensemble can be a chorus of 50 or a duet—it just has to have more than one singer singing at the same time.

Duet Two people singing together

Trio Three people singing together

Quartet Four people singing together

Opera The plural form of the Latin word, opus, which literally translated means “work.” A play that is sung, usually with orchestral accompaniment

Soprano The highest female voice. Magnolia is a soprano.

Mezzo soprano

The middle female voice—in a choir, a second soprano or first alto. Julie is a mezzo soprano.

Contralto The lowest female voice. Queenie is a contralto.

Tenor The highest male voice.

Baritone The middle male voice. Ravenal is a baritone.

Bass The lowest male voice. Joe is a bass.

Trouser or pants role

In some operas, a mezzo soprano plays a young man or a boy whose voice hasn’t changed yet. This is a very old operatic convention.

Set Short for “setting.” The scenery the singers/actors work on.

Conductor The leader of the orchestra and singers. Just like on a train, the conductor keeps everything on track.

Props Short for “properties.” Anything onstage that is not part of the set or the costumes.

Curriculuar Connections For the Teacher

aesthetics & art criticism

♪ After preparing with the Study Guide and attending the Student Dress Rehearsal of Show Boat,

have students write a review of the opera, noting how the music directly affects the emotional interpretation of the listener.

♪ Show Boat is a musical and as such has both spoken dialogue and sung dialogue (recitative or a verse) and songs, duets, trios, choruses, etc. How does your understanding of the plot/character/emotion of the scene change as the performers go from spoken dialogue, to sung dialogue to song?

♪ Kern’s Show Boat is based on Edna Ferber’s novel of the same name. After attending the

Student Dress Rehearsal for Show Boat, have your students read excerpts from the novel. (The Ferber novel can be racially insensitive, please be selective.) How do the characters change? How does the music affect your perception of the characters? How does the story change? How do you feel about the depiction of African American characters in the novel versus the musical? Is there a difference?

english, reading & writing

♪ After seeing the Student Dress Rehearsal of Show Boat, have students write a journal entry or review of the show as a reflection.

♪ Write a sequel to Show Boat about what happens to the surviving characters 5 years after the

action of the opera. ♪ Using persuasive writing styles, create a new ending for the opera utilizing known character

information to produce absolute change within one or more of the characters. ♪ Most operas are not original stories, but are based on plays or novels. Have students choose a

favorite story and write an opera libretto. Remind them that they may have to streamline and/or simplify their story—it takes a lot longer to sing something than to say it. Also remind them that their libretto will consist almost exclusively of dialogue. After they have written their libretto, have them reflect on what they had to do to take a written story and make it work as a dramatic or musical one. They can use poetry or not, as they wish.

social science

♪ When Show Boat was written attitudes about African Americans was very different, and Show

Boat was one of the first (and only), Broadway musicals to include both black and white characters together on stage. Show Boat was considered to be very progressive when it was written. Do a little research about Black History during the 1920s. Do you agree that Show Boat was progressive? How should we approach it today?

♪ Show Boat includes the N-word. Spend some time discussing the impact of this word on black people and on the United States. See the article What about the N-Word in this study guide for some tips on dealing with discussions of the N-word in art and literature.

science

♪ The voice is a combination of a wind instrument and a string instrument…air passing through the vocal cords creates a vacuum, pulling the vocal cords closed. The cords then vibrate together and create sound. Pitch is determined by the tension of the vocal cords—just like a violin or a guitar. You can demonstrate this with a rubber band: Wrap a rubber band around your fingers. Pluck it a few times. Can you see and feel the vibrations? The harder you pluck the rubber band, the more it will vibrate, creating a louder sound. If you stretch the rubber band, making it longer and thinner, what do you hear? (It will be a higher pitch.) Have your students place their hands on their throats while speaking or singing at different pitches—have them feel the vibrations in their throats and their chests. Explore sound waves.

create, present, perform

♪ Have students break into groups and write their own “opera” using popular songs and stringing

them together with dialogue. Perform for the class. ♪ Sets and costumes play an ENORMOUS role in opera. Design sets and costumes for an updated

or reimagined version of Show Boat. Costumes are rendered in color on paper and set designers often make dioramas of their set designs. Keep in mind the symbolism possible in color and texture. Remind students that drawings on paper would have to be translated into three dimensions and made practical. How does that affect their designs? Have them present their sets and costumes to the class pointing out their challenges and the possible symbolism of their choices. Ask the class if they feel it is possible to “update” a show like Show Boat?

Hungry for More?

Join us for some of these exciting, informative events! Your opera experience doesn’t have to begin with the downbeat or end with the curtain call!

Bob’s Opera Overture One hour prior to every regular performance, join Portland Opera’s resident music historian, Bob Kingston, for an illuminating inside look at that evening’s (or afternoon’s!) performance! This is a free event. Just show up at the theater an hour prior to the performance and head on up to the first balcony.

Backtalk

Directly following each of our performances, join General Director Christopher Mattaliano for a conversation about the performance—ask questions, give feedback—it’s an opportunity to decompress after a riveting performance and make a magical evening all the more memorable.

Opera on the Couch Join Education and Outreach Manager Alexis Hamilton and members of the Oregon Psychoanalytic Institute for a unique look at some of our operas—it is opera on the couch! Each of our discussions is at The Hampton Opera Center, 211 SE Caruthers. The Rake’s Progress June 10, 2015 Dr. Ralph Beaumont

Opera Previews Join our Portland Opera Resident Artists for a delightful concert/lecture about each of our operatic gems. All previews are held at the Central Library, downtown at 2:00 pm. Show Boat April 26, 2015 The Rake’s Progress June 7, 2015 The Elixir of Love July 12, 2015

Opera In-Depth Want to go explore the depths of one of our operas this season? Join Education and Outreach Manager Alexis Hamilton and Portland Opera’s resident music historian Bob Kingston for a deeper look at each of our operas this season. These classes will explore the social/historical context of the opera, its background and its music, which will enliven and enrich your experience at the performance. This is a ticketed event and participants must register at portlandopera.org All classes are held at the Hampton Opera Center from 7:30 to 9:00 pm. Show Boat April 12, 2015 The Rake’s Progress June 2, 2015 The Elixir of Love July 13, 2015

Also! Please join us for a panel discussion of the racial issues in Show Boat on April 7, 2015 at 7:00 pm at Highland United Church of Christ located at 7600 NE Glisan St, Portland, OR 97213. Participants include Dr. Carmen Thompson, Bob Kingston, Alexis Hamilton, Angela Renee Simpson (playing Queenie in the Portland Opera production) and Arthur Woodley (who plays Joe). Admission is free.