An early stage in the writing of the Kern-Hammerstein musical Show Boat is captured in a typescript marked “from the Ziegfeld Collection” in the Theatre Collection at the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts. The script, #7430 in the Library numbering, is undated, but Paul Robeson, Elizabeth Hines, and Guy Robertson are penciled in for the roles of Joe, Magnolia, and Gaylord, with “Aunt Jemima” (Tess Gardella, in her famous blackface role) set for Queenie, Norma Terriss for Ellie, and Andy Tombes for Frank. These are principal parts. Magnolia is the ingenue who will fall in love with the dashing, undependable Gaylord, a gambler, in Act 1 and then will grow up to become a singing star after her marriage fails in Act 2; Ellie and Frank are performers on the show boat; Queenie is the boat's cook, and Joe—the part intended for Robeson—is her husband. As yet uncast are Julie, the leading actress who is forced off the show boat when it is discovered that she is mulatto, and Magnolia's parents, Cap'n Andy Hawkes and his shrewish wife Parthy.