Sarah Bowden leads the gang in Anything Goes, opening Gulfshore Playhouse in Naples new buildin g/ Photos by Matt Schipper
By Nancy Stetson
It’s an amazing thing to experience someone else’s dream, to live inside it.
We do that every time we attend a show.
Every play, every musical was once someone’s inspiration, someone’s dream of what a theatrical show could be. And then, we get to sit in the audience and see it all come to life in front of our eyes.
Opening night for Anything Goes at Gulfshore Playhouse in Naples was that experience compounded, because it is the first show of the inaugural season in the venue’s newly opened $72 million Baker Theatre and Education Center.
Patrons were walking about, mingling and drinking champagne in the lobby of founder/CEO/artistic producing director Kristen Coury’s dream-come-true.
The theater previously staged shows at the Norris Center, a community center near downtown Naples, which was limited in stage- and wing-space, as well as seating and dressing rooms.
Coury had long dreamed Gulfshore Playhouse would have a building of its own. And now that dream is a reality, with a 368-seat theater (Moran Mainstage), a 125-seat black box (Struthers Studio) and an education center.
Before she could even speak a word of her pre-curtain speech, Coury was greeted with a standing ovation from the invitation-only audience dressed in black tie and gowns.
“We did this,” she told the crowd. “We did this together. This was a shared dream.”
She spoke about how, as a 13-year-old, she would listen to the cast album of Anything Goes and sing along to “Blow, Gabriel, Blow” over and over.
It’s a musical the theater wouldn’t have been able to produce at the Norris Center, but is an ideal selection to show off all that the new space has to offer: generous stage space for 22 performers and a two-tiered set of a luxury ocean liner (scenic designer Kelly James Tighe).
It’s accompanied by an eight-piece orchestra – something the old space wouldn’t have had room for either.(The live orchestra plays in a second-floor room in the theater, with the music piped in. Coury explained that with Florida hurricanes and storm surge an orchestra pit would flood.)
The show is just what it needed in our difficult times: upbeat and optimistic.
“This musical has been a balm to my soul,” shared Coury, who directed the production.
Anything Goes, which celebrates its 90th anniversary this month, is a light, fluffy confection of a musical. This is the updated version of the show (original book by P.G. Wodehouse and Guy Bolton and Howard Lindsay and Russel Crouse) with a new book by Timothy Crouse and John Weidman. The current version, based on the adapted from the 1987 Broadway revival, eliminates some of the original’s racism.
But the plot is still paper thin and almost as convoluted as a soap opera. It’s really just an excuse to perform over a dozen classic Cole Porter songs. And oh, the songs are exquisite.
Reno Sweeney (Sarah Bowden), a nightclub evangelist/singer, is in love with Billy Crocker (Josh Canfield). But Billy is in love with heiress Hope Harcourt (Sara Esty), who is engaged to Lord Evelyn (Kilty Reidy.) Hope’s mother, Evangeline (Michele Ragusa) is pushing for the marriage, because Lord Evelyn has money. Billy’s boss, Elisha (David Baida) knew Evangeline from their younger days, and is in love with her.
hey all wind up on a luxury liner together (with Jay Aubrey Jones as the captain). Billy is a stowaway, hiding from his boss while also trying to woo Hope. But there are also gangsters onboard (Mike Labbadia as Moonface Martin and Maya Santiago as Erma, his wisecracking sidekick) as well as two not-so-well-converted sinners, who are skilled at picking pockets and prefer thieving to praying.
Add a quartet of sailors and Reno’s back-up singers and a few other passengers, and you have a show bursting with characters.
The majority of the action takes place on deck, with characters strolling on, telling one-liners or performing very short skits with often-corny punchlines. It’s like a vaudeville show or revue, with old-timey humor and jokes that received their AARP card many decades ago.
But this is a professional cast, and they manage to make the most of the slight material. They’re so skilled they can coax a chuckle or a laugh out of the flimsiest jokes, delivering them with the lightest of ease.
They also know how to put across a comedic song. The novelty numbers in this show land because the performers know what they’re doing.
Labbadia, as a tough gangster, garners laughs as he flits about like a bird while singing “Be Like the Bluebird.” He and Bowden also do a top-notch job with “Friendship,” a vaudevillian number about being there for the other, no matter what the situation.
And Bowden and Canfield deliver on “You’re the Top,” with all its myriad high-brow and low-brow cultural references, including Garbo, Mickey Mouse, Shakespeare, Mae West and Whistler. The lyrics are dense with names, like a musical Who’s Who, but they move through the lyrics as deftly as they perform their dance steps.
It’s all light-hearted fun.
Sarah Bowden
This is truly an ensemble piece, but it would flounder without a strong Reno to anchor it. And Bowden delivers. She belts, she sasses, she winks. She’s both tough and sultry at the same time, an intoxicating mix.
Reno has five songs: “I Get a Kick Out of You,” “You’re the Top,” “Friendship,” “Anything Goes” and “Blow, Gabriel, Blow.” While all are enjoyable, the latter two are show-stoppers.
Anything Goes, a tap-dancing extravaganza, explodes with joy. It just grows and grows, going on for almost 10 glorious minutes. (Choreography by Sara Brians)
And “Blow, Gabriel, Blow,” early in Act II, is a gospel number that’s maybe only rivaled in religious fervor by “Sit Down You’re Rockin’ the Boat” in Guys and Dolls.
As Billy, Canfield is earnest and sweet as a puppy. You cheer for his character to win Hope, because that’s who he wants, though you wonder how he could ignore Reno’s desire for him.
His numbers are sweet without being saccharine, romantic and full of yearning.
The ensemble’s supported by a top-notch orchestra led by Trevor M. Pierce.
The music, while performed live elsewhere in the building, is piped in. On opening night, the venue was still working out the kinks of sound balance. The volume was a tad too high, and in the beginning, it seemed the percussion was too loud and stood apart from the rest of the orchestra. But these are minor complaints, easily fixed as they adjust to being in their new building.
Coury did an excellent job directing this mega-production, while also overseeing the finishing touches of the striking venue.
This first show of Gulfshore Playhouse’s inaugural season seems to be raising the bar and making a statement: look, this is what we can do now.
To have seen a production of Anything Goes that’d rival this one, you’d have to have gone to Broadway.
The arts may be floundering in Florida, but Gulfshore Playhouse just threw it a lifesaver.
If this is what it’s like to live inside Kristen Coury’s dream, don’t wake me up.
Anything Goes through Nov. 24 at the Gulfshore Playhouse, 100 Goodlette-Frank Road, Naples. Tickets $44-134. Call (239) 261-7529 or go to www.gulfshoreplayhouse.org
