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• Anything Goes: The Definitive 30s Comedy

• The Great Depression

• The Leatherhead Theatre - A History

• Cole Porter

• Cast Interviews

• Mr Edwards - A Director’s View

ANYTHING GOES

Music and Lyrics by Cole Porter

Original Book by P.G. Wodehouse & Guy Bolton

and Howard Lindsay & Russel Crouse

New Book by Timothy Crouse & John Weidman

This version of ANYTHING GOES was adapted from the 1987 Broadway revival, originally produced by Lincoln Center Theater

When Anything Goes set sail in 1934, the American musical was still finding its sea legs. Broadway in the 1920s was dominated by plush revues like the Ziegfeld Follies and musicals with featherweight stories that had little connection to their songs. In 1927. Showboat, by Jerome Kern and Oscar Hammerstein, changed everything with a ground-breaking book portraying marital problems, racism, and alcoholism, and had a unified, character-driven score. Broadway continued to provide escapist entertainment in the early 1930s, but welcomed overtly political topics, as well as social and economic satire. George and Ira Gershwin created a series orbit shows with strong scores and breakout songs, spearheading these new subjects for musical theatre. The political satire, Strike Up The Band (1930) portrayed a war between the U.S. and Switzerland over chocolate tariffs. In 1931, Of Thee I Sing satirized an American presidential election and became the longest running book musical of its time. Anything Goes satirized the rich and glamorous set and was inspired by celebrities including criminals John Dillinger (rumoured to have escaped by trans-Atlantic ship) and ‘Baby Face’ Nelson. Cole Porter's lyrics reference the Rockefellers, Vanderbilts, Bishop Manning of New York, and even the Roosevelts.

First titled Hard to Get, then Bon Voyage, the show's original book by Guy Bolton and P. G. Wodehouse involved a tragic event on a ship. When a ship called the Morro Castle was wrecked off the coast of New Jersey just before rehearsals, director Howard Lindsay and press agent Russel Crouse quickly collaborated on a new book. An atmosphere of urgency and crisis permeated the process: the final scene was written on a train to Boston the night of its out-of-town opening. The show's title emerged after actor William Gaxton replied to a question about making an entrance: "In this kind of a spot, anything goes!" The next morning, Porter arrived with the title song complete. Anything Goes opened at the Alvin Theatre on Broadway on November 21, 1934. It ran 420 performances and starred Ethel Merman. It became the fourth longest running musical of the 1930s, had five hit songs and marked the peak of Porter's career. As the epitome of sophisticated, escapist entertainment and satire, it has been called "the definitive 1930s musical comedy."

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The Great Depression

THE DIRTY THIRTIES

Anything Goes is set in 1934 during the Great Depression, also known as ‘The Dirty 30s’. The Great Depression arguably began with the New York Stock Market crash on ‘Black Tuesday’, October 29, 1929, and was perpetuated by the farmer's mortgage crisis which forced farms to foreclose due to low-priced crops. Everyone in the United States and Europe suffered the effects of high unemployment rates and poverty at the conclusion of World War I. One headline from a newspaper in 1932 read "Detroit Tastes Blood and Lead: Ford Plant Mobbed by 3,000 Idle".

The content that followed told the story of 3,000 unemployed people who had stormed the Ford Motor Company building to demand food and jobs. Crime rates, family violence and psychological problems were on the rise, but perhaps the best way to tell the story of what life was like during the Great Depression is through a series of anecdotes from those who lived it.

The Great Depression ended in 1939 with the help of President Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal initiative. Families today however, living in the Great Recession may be experiencing similar situations of unemployment and poverty. Anything Goes condenses the chaos of our struggles into the diversified cast of characters aboard the S.S. American and aims to help people forget their problems of today.

During the Great Depression, 60 to 80 million Americans went to the movies each week, turning to Hollywood for reassurance. In the face of doubt and despair, the movies helped raise national morale by providing escape and hope; even a couple of hours away from the troubles of everyday life could provide relief. But even the breeziest entertainments were grounded in the social realities of the day. The earliest gangster films, such as Public Enemy starring James Cagney, portrayed a world of gangsters, prostitutes, sleazy politicians, cynical journalists, and lawyers, all reflecting despair about American life during the early Depression. On a brighter note, Busby Berkeley's musical spectaculars, such as Gold Diggers of 1933, featured large choruses of girls on ornate sets, filmed in kaleidoscopic perspectives; but even these stories were still set in the realistic circumstances of the Depression. The Marx Brothers' antics spoofed everything from patriotism to the upper classes. In 1939, Frank Capra's It Happened One Night introduced a new, good-natured genre: the screwball comedy. Film critic Pauline Kael commented that the screwball comedies portrayed '“Americans' idealized view of themselves—breezy; likable, sexy, gallant, and maybe just a little hare-brained." Through its most popular formulas—whether a poor boy climbing a dark ladder of success through crime, a back row chorus girl rising to stardom through luck, or a poor boy and a rich girl going through wacky adventures and falling in love—Hollywood movies helped Americans maintain both their faith in government's ability to protect them, and their hope that individual success and a classless society were still possible.

PUBLIC ENEMIES

In the 1920s, J. Edgar Hoover gave several gangsters the title ‘Public Enemy’ along with a designated number in order to identify them as the most wanted criminals in America. Most of the public enemies were caught and dealt with by the Nil. The notorious Al Capone was Public Enemy Number One; he was caught in 1931 just as the Gangster Nation accelerated into full force. In 1930s, movies’ gangsters were portrayed as victims of injustices and thus were tolerated by the general public -who also felt like victims of injustices, caused by the Great Depression. The most frequent crimes were bank robberies to acquire money and destroy mortgage notes. Famous gangsters include John Dillinger, ‘Baby Face’ Nelson and ‘Pretty Boy’ Floyd.

Further Watching

Check out these movies!

• Gold Diggers of 1933 (1933)

• Public Enemy (1931)

• Marx Brothers' A Night At the Opera (1935)

• It Happened One Night (1934)

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COLE PORTER

As a lyricist and composer, Cole Porter remains unrivaled in his wit, cleverness, sophistication, writing nearly one thousand songs.

Begin the Beguine

Born into a wealthy protestant family in Peru, Indiana on June 9, 1891, Cole Porter was named for his parents Samuel Porter, and Kate Cole, the daughter of the richest man in Indiana.

What a Joy To Be Young

Cole began playing the violin and piano at age six, and composing songs at age 10. He was sent to an east coast boarding school at the age of 14, where he became class valedictorian and met his first music mentor, who impressed upon him the intimate relationship between words and music.

Hall Yale

As an undergraduate at Yale, Cole created several full-scale musicals each year, and wrote 300 songs including football fight songs - some of which are still used today.

Goodbye, Little Dream, Goodbye

Cole's wealthy grandfather, who subsidised the family, was determined that Cole should become a lawyer. and made sure his grandson enrolled at Harvard Law School. In his second year however. Cole switched his studies to music, and never told his grandfather. Cole finally abandoned his studies to begin working on Broadway - but his first Broadway show was a dismal failure.

Be a Clown

Determined to escape the failure of his first Broadway show, Porter fled to Paris in 1917; the same year the US Draft was enacted. He lived a life of extravagance and luxury. His parties became famous for their lavishness and outrageousness, where gay and bisexual activity and drug use ran rampant, and no expense was spared.

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This amateur production of ANYTHING GOES is presented by arrangement with Concord

Theatricals Ltd. on behalf of Tams-Witmark LLC.

www.concordtheatricals.co.uk