Waterfront Museum in Red Hook, Brooklyn, New York, NY

SHOWBOAT 'Round the Bend! A collaborative exhibit by the Theatre Musuem and the Waterfront Museum
"Showboat-Comin’ Round the Bend!”, an exhibition co-produced by The Theatre Museum is displayed on the walls of the Waterfront Museum’s historic Lehigh Valley Railroad Barge’s deckhouse. The glorious history and development of the showboat as an indigenous and popular form of American entertainment -- both along our nation’s waterways and within our own New York Harbor will be depicted. On the frontier of the 19th century, many settlers got all they needed by boats coming to their town’s river landing. Through the 20th century, showboats were the way people in small river towns got their entertainment from vaudeville to drama to moving pictures. Curated by Mary Habstritt and Virginia Willets the show features informative panels, video clips, and a painted scrim donated by the Local One of the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees.
The exhibition, designed by Elizabeth York is currently on view during our Open Hours on Thursdays 4-8pm and Saturdays 1-5pm. Donations are requested. School and group tours are availble by appointment. The exhibit will also be on display during The Waterfront Museum’s popular CIRCUSundays in June. SHOWBOAT ‘Round the Bend! is made possible in part by funds from NY Council for the Humanities, Abraham & Lillian Rosenberg Foundation, Independence Community Foundation and by generous donations from Local One of the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees, MSD Visual, Hudson Scenic Studio and the MetLife Volunteer Ventures Program. Special thanks to Greg O’Connell. Our grand Showboat Weekend in 2007 provided accompaniment to the exhibit of history and artifacts. A panel of experts, both scholars and former showboat operators and family members, as well as vintage showboat entertainment, from vaudeville to calliope performances, all under the artistic direction of Travis Stewart, will bring history to life over the two-day festival.

Our Opening Weekend was a festive celebration of showboat history!

DAY ONE:
12:00 Calliope music
Performance by Sophie Sharps and Vlada Yaneva, players
12:30 Welcome
David Sharps, Captain and President, The Waterfront Museum and Showboat Barge
12:45 The Calliope: Call of the Showboat
Presentation by Conrad Milster, steam engineer, Pratt Institute
1:30 The American Showboat: A Historic Overview
Presentation byMary Habstritt, exhibition curator, “Showboat ‘Round the Bend!”
2:30 Showboats: Reality & Representation
Panel Discussion with Helen Marie Guditis, The Theatre Museum, Moderator
Laurence Maslon, PhD., theatre history scholar & co-author of PBS special on the history of the musical and Julie Gilbert, great-niece of Edna Ferber and Pulitzer-prize nominated Ferber scholar
4:00 Melodrama!
Performance by Director Ian W. Hill presents his version of William W. Pratt’s 1858 temperance melodrama “Ten Nights in a Barroom,” featuring a cast of established indie theater actors from the Brick Theater, GeminiCollisonworks, and Trav S.D.’s Mountebanks.
5:00 Magic Lantern Slide Show
Performance

DAY TWO:
12:00 Calliope music
Performance by Sophie Sharps and Vlada Yaneva, players
12:30 Welcome
Captain David Sharps, The Waterfront Museum and Showboat Barge
1:30 Music and Entertainment on the Showboat
Panel Discussion with Helen Marie Guditis, The Theatre Museum, Moderator
David Carlyon, a former actor, circus clown, and professor, is author of Dan Rice: The Most Famous Man You've Never Heard Of and Eric Lott, author of “Love and Theft,” and professor at the University of Virginia and Loren Schoenberg, Executive Director of the Jazz Museum in Harlem
2:30 Variety!
Performance - A period re-creation of a nineteenth-century variety show, curated and presented by Travis Stewart (Trav S.D.), series curator and vaudeville scholar. The show would feature clog dancing, banjo playing, a period comedy routine, acrobatics, a Shakespearean soliloquy, a pantomime, dancers, a wrestling match and a lecture with slides.
4:30 Showboats--Reborn
Panel Discussion with Mary Habstritt, exhibition curator, “Showboat ‘Round the Bend!”
David Sharps, Captain and President of the Waterfront Museum and Showboat Barge and Tim Perrino, Director of the theatre program for the Cincinnati Ohio Recreation Commission, Showboat Majestic and Capt'n Tom McGuire, Driftwood Floating Theatre
5:30 Sharps’ Follies: Serious Foolishness and Chinese Vase Manipulation
Performance
David Sharps and The Mermaidens, Sophie and Dalia Sharps, on the trapeze
6:00 Steam Whistles and Calliope
Interactive performance—your chance at the keyboard with Conrad Milster, steam engineer, Pratt Institute