After bats disrupted the premiere of Edna Ferber's play Minick, its producer jokingly suggested chartering a showboat. Ferber then researched the disappearing vessels and found the James Adams Floating Theatre, which had brought "A NEW Show Every Night" to mid-Atlantic towns, including Manteo and Skyco, since 1914. Beulah Adams and Charles Hunter, its managers and lead actors, invited her to the 1925 season opening in Bath, North Carolina. Four days with the troupe led to Ferber's novel Show Boat, set on the Mississippi River. The 1927 stage adaptation by Jerome Kern and Oscar Hammerstein is widely considered the first modern American musical. The James Adams Floating Theater brought live performances to North Carolina and the Chesapeake Bay region for a generation and provided raw material for a hit musical.