Restoring the Original Arrangement of "Show Boat"

Hammerstein is also past president of the Society of Stage Directors and Choreographers. He has recently helped in the making of a new PBS tribute show about his father, Oscar Hammerstein.

Linguist Geoff Nunberg reflects on the use of racist terminology in the musical Show Boat. He says that later revisions were still problematic: they illustrated the enduring assumption that white liberals can accurately and authentically portray African American culture.

There has been a spate of new recordings of Broadway musicals. Classical music critic Lloyd Schwartz says that a new CD release of Show Boat is the best of the bunch, in part because of how it addresses race relations in way that's still relevant today.