One of the most performed American Musicals of all time, nearly didn't make it to the stage. The story of the creation of Anything Goes is worthy of its own dramatic presentation.

Alexander F Aarons and Vinton Freedley were a producing partnership with a number of successes when they opened the new Alvin Theatre (named from their first names) with Funny Face, starring the Astaires on November 22, 1927. Their partnership dissolved in 1933 and, to escape his creditors, Freedley and his wife sailed on a boat to the Caribbean island of Tobago. There he conceived the idea of an ocean liner sailing to England with an assortment of eccentric passengers. He envisioned music by Jerome Kern and words by Guy Bolton and P.G. Wodehouse and a production in a small theatre seating fewer than 300. None of these were available at the time but still, before anything was written, he engaged the comedy team of William Gaxton and Victor Moore and the rising singer Ethel Merman. He then contacted composer Cole Porter (who was boating on the Rhine), and Bolton and Wodehouse who were in London,

Freedley sailed off to London where he hired Howard Lindsay to direct the still nonexistent piece and managed to collect all three writers on the coast of France. Soon Bolton and Wodehouse sent Porter an outline of their proposed story, and the composer showed up at Freedley's hotel with a bunch of songs from the show Hard to Get. All was in motion when Bolton got appendicitis and peritonitis, leaving Wodehouse to finish the script himself. By August it was ready and, the following day, Porter returned to New York with the score. (This was long before the day of the fax, computers et cetera.) It was announced that rehearsals would begin on September 10 and, after a tryout in Boston or Philadelphia, the show would open in New York in late October.

Then disaster struck! This first version tells of Barbara Frisbee who was sailing to London to marry Eric Oakleigh. Her father sends an employee Jimmy Crocker to break up the wedding. Jimmy meets Moon, Public Enemy Number Thirteen, who is on the ship disguised as a minister. There is nightclub singer, Jenny, who loves Jimmy, and a screenwriter Elmer Purkis. Purkis and Jimmy come up with an idea which involves a bomb to discredit the Englishman. Then disaster struck! The cruise ship S.S. Morro Castle burst into flame off of Asbury Park as it was returning from Havana and over 100 lives were lost. The burnt vessel washed up on shore and became a grim tourist attraction. There was now no way that the new work could involve a bomb.

Rehearsals were due to start in a few days and a complete rewrite was necessary. Merman, Moore and Gaxton were under contract and would have had to be paid two weeks salary if the show were canceled. This would have cost $14,000 which doesn't sound like much now, but at the time was worth about a quarter million in today's money. A friend heard Freedly was looking for someone to work with Lindsay with a new script and suggested Russel Crouse who was brought in to help.. The rest is history. Lindsay and Crouse became one of the greatest writing teams in theatrical history. Their works include Call me Madam and The Sound of Music. Crouse had a day job so they had to work evenings. Since the sets had already been built, their only limitation was that the, still unnamed, show had to be set on an ocean liner.

Lindsey and Crouse actually used only a handful of lines from the original Bolton-Wodehouse script, and they changed many of the characters. The roles were specifically fashioned for William Gaxton (Billy Crocker) and Victor Moore (Moonface Mooney). (The many costume changes for Billy were done for characters the actor felt comfortable with.) One day, at lunch at the Algonquin Hotel, the writers mistook a well-known nightclub singer for the lady evangelist, Aimee Sempel McPherson. Reno Sweeney, the evangelist cum nightclub singer, was born and written for Ethel Merman. The final title was decided only when rehearsals were underway. When rehearsals started, only a few scenes from Act One had been ready and none from Act Two. The first act was completed in ten days and rehearsals started while Act Two was being written. The last scene was finished on a train to Boston for the November 5 opening night of the tryout! (On the Friday before the Boston opening the location of the finale still had not been decided and given to the set designer.)

What was conceived as an intimate little show had become a spectacular with seven sets mounted on a turntable, with twenty-nine speaking parts, and with a plethora of extras. During rehearsals several original songs were cut, one of which was to become the melody for "Wunderbar" from Kiss Me Kate. All now seemed to be ready! Then, on opening night they were informed that there was a real New Jersey mobster named Mooney and were threatened with trouble if they used that name; Victor Moore became Moonface Martin. In spite of all the problems Anything Goes was a success in Boston and was signed for a London production before the New York opening on November 21.

That opening was one of the most glamorous New York events since the beginning of the Depression. There were lines of limousines, extra police, photographers, and crowds of onlookers gawking at the rich and famous. A hit from the start, Anything Goes was hailed as "the brightest moment in the theatre since the start of the Great Depression. Reviews were ecstatic. The New York Times said it had "a dashing score with impish lyrics", while The New York World Telegram reported: "Mr. Porter is the bold, bad, lets-call-it-sophisticated words-and-music man of America, while another critic said it outclassed serious drama even with regard to satirizing faults in society. It ran, with some cast changes, for over 400 performances. In turn, the London opening on June 14, 1935 was the most fashionable first night of its season. (Since the songs had not been allowed to be played in England beforehand, it was all new to the audience.)

Cole Porter had deliberately omitted the standard opening chorus of the time and insisted on a block-buster song ("I Get a Kick out of You" in the 1934 original version) be sung during the first five minutes to shame the social set who liked to make entrances after the show had begun. He warned them ahead of time, and they did not appreciate it. Sung by Ethel Merman it was a really rousing opener. In the 1962 version "You're the Top" is moved to this place.

Revised in 1962 by Guy Bolton, and in 1987 for the New York stage, and made into a movie with Ethel Merman and Bing Crosby in 1936, Anything Goes is one of most revived musicals and is being performed somewhere almost daily by professional and amateur groups. It allows the insertion of comic scenes and new songs and resembles Commedia by allowing improvisation. In the 1934 original which the first scene had been set in a New York night club, Moonface carried a saxophone case for his machine gun, and the last scene, with the Chinese denouement, was set in Evelyn's home. For 1962 some songs were dropped and others added. Three songs were new: "Heaven Hop", "Friendship" and "DeLovely". Two more were taken from other Cole Porter shows: "Let's Misbehave" from Paris and "Manhattan" from The New Yorkers. This is now the most performed version of the piece and is the one being produced by Lyric Opera San Diego.

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Revised August 2009
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