What is the summary to the play showboat?
The story spans 47 years, beginning aboard the showboat Cotton Blossom in the 1880s, on the Mississippi River near Natchez, Mississippi. Cap’n Andy Hawks, owner of the showboat, introduces all of his actors to the excited crowd on the levee. Almost immediately, a fist fight breaks out between Steve Baker, the leading man of the troupe, and Pete, a rough, ill-mannered engineer who had been making passes at Steve’s wife, Julia La Verne, the company’s leading lady. Steve knocks Pete down and Pete swears revenge, apparently knowing some dark secret about Julia. Cap’n Andy pretends to the shocked crowd that the fight was a preview of a scene from one of the melodramas performed on the boat. The troupe exits with the showboat band. A riverboat gambler, Gaylord Ravenal, comes aboard the boat and is taken with eighteen year old Magnolia Hawks, an aspiring performer and daughter of Cap’n Andy and his wife Parthy Ann. Magnolia (aka Nola) is likewise smitten with Ravenal. She seeks advice from Jo
