Big River

Act One

The story begins with Huckleberry Finn introducing himself to the audience and referencing his past adventures with his best friend, Tom Sawyer. He tells us that he has become rich as a result of he and Tom’s discovery of treasure in Injun Joe’s Cave, and that since then he has been living at the home of the Widow Douglas. She is a strict but kindly woman who shares her home with her sister Miss Watson, and together the two of them have resolved to raise Huck as a decent young man who can read and behave himself.

His new guardians and several other townspeople including Tom and Judge Thatcher inform Huck that he must learn to read the Bible if he ever hopes to make it to Heaven someday (“Do Ya Wanna Go to Heaven?”). Huck is not interested in schooling, however, and sneaks out of the house late that night to meet his friends at Injun Joe’s Cave.

There, the boys confer and ultimately decide to form a gang of robbers dedicated to raising hell across the countryside (“The