One of North America’s best-loved musicals will sail into port in December. Salmon Arm Secondary’s Grade 11-12 drama class and student band will bring the 1930s to life in Cole Porter’s Anything Goes.
The story features madcap antics aboard an ocean liner bound from New York to London.
A stowaway, Billy Crocker, is madly in love with Hope Harcourt, an heiress who is engaged to be married to Lord Evelyn Oakleigh.
Crocker is aided in his quest for the object of his affection by Reno Sweeney, a nightclub singer and Moonface Martin, a criminal with the number 13 spot on the list of public enemies.
“It’s another play that has a lot of leads, lots of little subplots so it’s spread out nicely between quite a few characters,” says enthusiastic drama teacher Cathy Hay. “It’s very funny, and of course the Cole Porter music is fabulous.”
Popular numbers from Anything Goes, You’re the Top and I Get a Kick Out of You.
Hay laughs as she describes her students’ reaction to You’re The Top, a song that refers to items familiar to older generations – the “Louver” Museum, a Bendel bonnet, Vincent Youmans, Mahatma Ghandi and Garbo’s salary.
There was a lot of Googling going on to find answers to some of the lyrics, and Hay asked her students what they think would be included if You’re the Top was written today.
While the production is funny, Hay says Porter made fun of a lot of things in the class-conscious society of the ’30s.
“It’s a real comment on the social mores of the day,” she says. “It makes lots of observations about the situation, a real piece of history set to music.”
Anything Goes also marks David Izik-Dzurko’s debut as SAS musical director, a welcome addition, says Hay. “Audience members will leave the theatre with a smile on their face and a song in their heart.”
Anything Goes plays 7:30 p.m. nightly from Tuesday, Dec. 6 to Saturday, Dec. 10, with a Saturday matinee on the 10th as well. Tickets, priced at $10, are available at Acorn Music.