About the work
Big River is a musical by Roger Miller (music and lyrics) with a book by William Hauptman, premiered on Broadway in 1985. Based on Mark Twain's novel The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, it won seven Tony Awards, including Best Musical.
Plot
The young runaway Huckleberry Finn flees his violent father and stifling civilisation and sets off down the Mississippi on a raft with the escaped slave Jim. On their journey through the antebellum American South they encounter adventures, swindlers, and dangers—and Huck wrestles with the moral conflict of whether to betray Jim or help him to freedom. Their friendship calls into question the morality of a society built on slavery.
Cultural significance
Big River gave Mark Twain's American classic an authentic voice through Roger Miller's music steeped in country, bluegrass, and gospel. The number Worlds Apart movingly addresses racial segregation. The work combines American folklore with a visceral reckoning with slavery and freedom and is among the great literary-based musicals of the 1980s.