1. 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.

2. 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.

3. “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.

4. 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.

5. 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.)

6. 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.

7. 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

8. 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

9. 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!

10. 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

11. 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.

12. 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)

13. 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

14. 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.

15. 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

16. 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

17. 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

18. 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

19. 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

20. 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.

21. 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.

22. 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

23. 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.

24. “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?

25. 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

26. 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.

27. 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 8
th
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.”

28. 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?

29. “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

30. 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.

31. 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

32. 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?”

33. 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?

34.  “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

35.  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

36. 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)

37. 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.

38. 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.

39. 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.

40. 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?

41. 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.