Anything Goes! was first
envisioned by producer Vinton Freedley while he was hiding
out aboard a fishing boat in the Gulf of Panama. Eventually, Vinton
returned to New York and
began assembling his dream team, which consisted of
Cole Porter, Guy Bolton, P.G. Wodehouse, and Ethel Merman.
Soon Freedley had a script that he felt confident would
reverse his bad luck and sagging fortunes. Then, with
rehearsals just about to begin, the S.S. Morro Castle
went down off the coast of New Jersey. Over 125 passengers
lost their lives in this highly publicized disaster.
Anything Goes!, Freedley decided, would have to be
rewritten.
Anything Goes! did not actually appear as the title
of the musical until this second draft and it referred to the
desperation with which the show was put together.
The rewrite retained most of the same characters, but
did away with the idea of the ship sinking. The plot
revolved around nightclub singer Reno Sweeney (Merman),
her pal Billy Crocker, Crocker's debutante/love, Hope Harcourt,
Moon-Face Mooney, and Public Enemy No.13, who slips
onto the ship to avoid the FBI.
Anything Goes! opened at the Alvin Theatre
on November 21, 1934 and turned out to be the fourth
longest running musical of the 1930s. In 1987, it was
revived at the Vivian Beaumont Theatre with Patti LuPone
in the leading role and a revised book by Timothy Crouse
and John Weidman. The 1936 screen version starred Ethel
Merman and Bing Crosby. |