<P> Note: Although the basic plot of Show Boat has always remained the same, over the years revisions and alterations were made by the creators, and over time by subsequent producers and directors . Some of these revisions were for length and some for convenience, as when a different actor played a certain role and was unable to perform a specialty piece written for the role's creator . Some have been made to reflect contemporary sensitivities toward race, gender and other social issues . </P> <Dl> <Dt> Act I </Dt> </Dl> <P> In 1887, the show boat Cotton Blossom arrives at the river dock in Natchez, Mississippi . The Reconstruction era had ended a decade earlier, and white - dominated Southern legislatures have imposed racial segregation and Jim Crow rules . The boat's owner, Cap'n Andy Hawks, introduces his actors to the crowd on the levee . A fistfight breaks out between Steve Baker, the leading man of the troupe, and Pete, a rough engineer who had been making passes at Steve's wife, the leading lady Julie La Verne, a mixed - race woman who passes as white . Steve knocks Pete down, and Pete swears revenge, suggesting he knows a dark secret about Julie . Cap'n Andy pretends to the shocked crowd that the fight was a preview of one of the melodramas to be performed . The troupe exits with the showboat band, and the crowd follows . </P> <P> A handsome riverboat gambler, Gaylord Ravenal, appears on the levee and is taken with eighteen - year - old Magnolia ("Nolie") Hawks, an aspiring performer and the daughter of Cap'n Andy and his wife Parthenia Ann (Parthy). Magnolia is likewise smitten with Ravenal ("Make Believe"). She seeks advice from Joe, a black dock worker aboard the boat, who has returned from buying flour for his wife Queenie, the ship's cook . He replies that there are "lots like (Ravenal) on the river ." As Magnolia goes inside the boat to tell her friend Julie about the handsome stranger, Joe mutters that she ought to ask the river for advice . He and the other dock workers reflect on the wisdom and indifference of "Ol' Man River", who doesn't seem to care what the world's troubles are, but "jes' keeps rollin' along". </P>

The orginal broadway production of oklahoma opened on broadway on