Norm Lewis, Alli Mauzey & More to Star in New York Philharmonic’s Show Boat

Norm Lewis, Alli Mauzey, Fred Willard, Christopher Fitzgerald and Natasha Yvette Williams will "Make Believe" and join the previously announced Show Boat, starring Vanessa Williams, Julian Ovenden and Lauren Worsham. The New York Philharmonic’s semi-staged production of the classic tuner, which features music by Jerome Kern and a book and lyrics by Oscar Hammerstein II, is set to play Avery Fisher Hall from November 5 through November 8. Ted Sperling will conduct and direct.

Current Phantom and Tony nominee Lewis (Porgy & Bess) will play Joe, Wicked alums Mauzey and Fitzgerald will play Ellie and Frank respectively, while Willard (HBO’s Family Tree) will appear as Cap’n Andy and Natasha Yvette Williams (A Night With Janis Joplin) as Queenie.

Show Boat follows the lives of three generations of performers, stagehands and dock workers as their theater, the Cotton Blossom, floats along the Mississippi River. The musical was first performed on Broadway in 1927 and has been revived on the Great White Way and by opera companies numerous times since then. The tuner features such classic showtunes as "Can't Help Lovin' Dat Man," "Ol' Man River," "Make Believe" and “You Are Love.”