Tag Archives: Show Boat

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October 2, 2010

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Books, Film, It's Not Where You Start, Theater

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It’s Not Where You Start: You Must Love Me

Originally published on It’s Not Where You Start.

Don’t freak out, this isn’t a post about my love life. At least, not my romantic life. This is about my first love: musicals.

Within my general obsession with musical theater, there are a few areas I find particularly interesting, all of which can be grouped under the rubric of transformations. I am fascinated with the way stories are told and retold, and few storytelling arenas are as obsessed with retelling as musical theater.

I love to read/watch the books, plays, and movies that musicals were based on to see how the composers, lyricists, bookwriters, directors et al applied their craft. For example, my already huge admiration for Oscar Hammerstein II grew exponentially after reading Edna Ferber’s original novel Show Boat. The way that Hammerstein transformed the central metaphor of the book — Magnolia’s relationship with the Mississippi River — into the central metaphor of the show — Magnolia’s relationship with the musical stage — is genius.  Continue reading →

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June 19, 2001

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Fynsworth Alley, Interviews, Theater

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Fynsworth Alley: Rebecca Luker

Originally published on Fynsworth Alley.

Rebecca Luker

Rebecca Luker

REBECCA LUKER is currently starring in The Music Man on Broadway. She has also starred in The Sound Of Music, Show Boat, The Secret Garden, and The Phantom of the Opera on Broadway, and she can be heard on her Fynsworth Alley cd, Anything Goes: Rebecca Luker sings Cole Porter.

DL: You’re from Alabama, and I understand you were recently inducted into the Hall of Fame there. What’s that about?

RL: Paul Luney started this whole thing three years ago, down in Tuscaloosa. He just wanted to honor Alabamians that had done something in the arts. I am very, very honored, because the night I was honored this past March, To Kill A Mockingbird was also being honored, and Truman Capote was also being honored. I was flattered to death. It was a lovely ceremony. I’m still not sure why it happened, but I’m very, very honored that it did, and now I’m on a plaque on a wall at a Tuscaloosa college, and I have a plaque on my coffee table. It’s very sweet. It was just a lovely night.

DL: When you grew up there, were you involved in theatre and the arts in the community?

RL: Certainly as a young child I was not at all. I sang at church, at school, and in various groups, but we weren’t theatre-going people. There wasn’t much to see around there. I saw the occasional children’s theatre, but there just wasn’t time for that. It wasn’t part of our culture. As I grew up, I began to watch movie musicals when I could, but I still was very removed from that world.
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