Besides the three Shakespeare plays done every season, the Festival added three other plays -- usually a drama, a musical, and either a children's show or a comedy -- a number of years ago. This year's musical, Anything Goes, is the first with lots of dancing that the Festival has ever featured (or so I was told by Fred Adams, Festival founder).
Rhett Guter did the choreography and also plays a sailor in the show.
He's done a spectacular job. It truly is the best choreography I can recall seeing at the Festival. Tap dancing, people! Tap dancing!
Melinda Parett, who plays Reno Sweeny, is quite the dancer. And she has so much FUN doing it! You can see it in her face.
In fact, everyone has fun doing this show. It's funny, it has great Cole Porter music ("Anything Goes," "Blow, Gabriel Blow," "You're The Top."), and tons of great dancing. The set and lighting and costumes are all delightful.
Fred Adams keeps downplaying the plot. True, it's nothing but a bit of fluff: gal likes guy who likes other girl who's engaged to an Englishman, guy chases girl onto ship and is presumed to be missing mobster, in the end, everything works out fine. But it's the drama equivalent of a beach read; it's light, fun, and happy. You go out humming the tunes.
Why would you miss this? Here's a link; go buy your tickets now!
The photo is from the official website at bard.org.
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