Richard Storm

Hell's Kitchen

A program from the original 1927 production of Show Boat. (The attached image is from the sheet music folio, but I'm sure there is an actual program in existence.)

The musical comedy has been one of the most recognizable and specific products of New York City and one of its most vivid representations, particularly as so many Broadway musicals and performers (and just the idea of the Broadway musical) were transmitted all over the country and the world in Hollywood films, and it remains a magnet for visitors to this city to this day. Show Boat was the first true book musical (as distinct from the revue and operetta), blazing the trail for Rodgers & Hammerstein and so many others, tells a homegrown American story, and incorporates black music as well as issues of race and historical change. It was originally produced by Florenz Ziegfield, a true New York City original, and seems a great symbol of the importance and centrality of the musical comedy in the history of New York City.