Anything Goes is Gaslight Theatre’s biggest production yet

Release Date: 3/16/2006. Expired: 4/22/2006

The Gaslight Dinner Theatre presents the largest production in its seven-year history with the Tony Award-winning musical Anything Goes March 23-April 22 at The Renaissance Center in Dickson.

Anything Goes will feature the largest cast and biggest set of any show presented since the Gaslight Dinner Theatre opened in September 2000.

Evening performances will be Fridays and Saturdays, beginning with a buffet dinner at 6:30 p.m. and the show at 7:30 p.m. Tickets are $27 and include dinner, drink, dessert and the performance.

Senior matinees for patrons 55 and older are Thursdays and Fridays, beginning with a buffet lunch at noon and the show at 1 p.m. Tickets are $17 and include lunch, drink, dessert and the performance.

Anything Goes features the music of Cole Porter, with such memorable songs as I Get A Kick Out of You, You’re the Top, It’s De-Lovely, Let’s Misbehave and the title song. The show starred Ethel Merman and opened at the Alvin Theatre on Nov. 21, 1934, and became the fourth-longest running musical of the decade. A 1988 revival starring Patti Lupone earned 10 Tony Award nominations and won three, including Best Musical Revival. A 1936 movie version starred Merman and Bing Crosby.

The play follows the madcap antics of passengers on an ocean liner crossing the Atlantic to England in the 1930s. Evangelist-turned-nightclub singer Reno Sweeney plans to help her pal, the dashing Billy Crocker, who stows away trying to stop the girl he loves, the beautiful Hope Harcourt, from marrying a British aristocrat. Adding to the confusion are an inept gangster, Moonface Martin disguised as a missionary, and his moll Erma, along with Hope’s meddling mother, Billy’s irascible boss and an assortment of other passengers and crew members.

Porter wrote the music and lyrics while the writing credits went to Guy Bolton, P.G. Wodehouse, Howard Lindsey and Russel Crouse. The new book for the 1988 version was written by Timothy Crouse and John Weidman.

With a cast of 18, large music and dance numbers, and a multi-level set representing the ocean liner, Anything Goes presents the biggest challenge for staging a show in the intimate Gaslight Dinner Theatre.

“The decision to produce Anything Goes in the Gaslight represents our most ambitious undertaking to date in the dinner theatre,” Harp said. “It will have the biggest cast of any show we’ve produced and we’re working closely with Robert Cooper and our Toy Sop to design a set that will accommodate the dance numbers and maintains the closeness with the audience that has become the trademark of the Gaslight Dinner Theatre.”

Anything Goes is the first Gaslight Dinner Theatre show to feature several large tap dancing numbers. Brian J. Marcum is choreographer and Bryan J. Wlas is assistant choreographer.

Marcum has been in the original casts of four Broadway musicals while living and working in New York City over the last 11 years. His Broadway credits include roles in the Tony Award-winning 2001 revival of 42nd Street (for which he was assistant dance captain), The Boy From Oz, Saturday Night Fever and The Gershwins’ Fascinating Rhythm (dance captain). He toured with national companies of State Fair (dance captain) and Annie Get Your Gun, and toured Brazil with a production of The Who’s Tommy (dance captain).

A native of Lexington, Tenn., Marcum and his wife Jennifer recently relocated to Nashville. He received a Bachelor of Performing Arts in Dance Performance from Oklahoma City University and has taught dance across the country and is now part of the dance faculty of The Renaissance Center.

Wlas was choreographer for the Gaslight’s productions of My Way: A Musical Tribute to Frank Sinatra and Nuncrackers and the MET series production of Schoolhouse Rock Live! Jr. The Woodbridge, Ill., native earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Musical Theatre with a Dance minor from Millikin University and has been a performer and choreographer for theatre companies and theme parks across the country and Western Europe.

Nathan W. Brown is serving as music director. He was previously music director for Nuncrackers and has served as music director and performed for several theatre companies, theme parks and a cruise ship touring Western Europe.

“Brian Marcum and Bryan Wlas have brought the dance performances in our shows to a whole new level,” said Harp. “Brian has said the dance numbers installed in the Gaslight’s production of Anything Goes are comparable to many of the shows on Broadway and this show most definitely has larger and more intricate dance numbers than anything else we’ve done at The Renaissance Center.”

For more information on the Gaslight Dinner Theatre production of Anything Goes, call (615)740-5600. To purchase tickets, call (615)740-5570.

The Renaissance Center is a fine arts and technology education and performing arts center at 855 Highway 46 South in Dickson, just 35 miles west of Nashville on Interstate 40 at exit 172.

Visit the Theatre page for more about community and professional theatre.

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