does anything really go?

ANYTHING GOES
THEATER 28
-fall 1990
Back at WCU for my final semester, Bob's ANYTHING GOES was a curious tale. Or rather, my participation in it was. You have to go back one year to Bob's production of AS YOU LIKE IT. I was no fan of Shakespeare, i thought him too linguistically obscure (it wouldn't be until 1990 that i started to love the Bard, from doing an amazing MACBETH scene with Jeff). AS YOU LIKE IT had seemed meritless fluff. Bob had asked whether i would be auditioning. Mind you, he hadn't cast me since my freshman year, when he and Jane Saddoris, the children's director, had fundamentally critiqued my vocal technique. Jane worked with me, and the work strayed from technique to emotional barriers, which triggered much self-discovery (thank you, Jane). But by my senior year i had taken to thinking that i wasn't Bob's kind of actor, so i was non-committal when he asked me about auditioning. I decided that in my growth as an artist, it was important to assert what i wasn't interested in, so i didn't go. It was the first (and only) college show i didn't audition for. Bob chastened me, and i realized he had really wanted me to be there. If he had asked me to be in the show right then, i would have done it. Anyway, i had no misgivings. Fast forward to the following fall. I'm in my final semester. ANYTHING GOES is a Cole Porter musical, typical of those insipid pieces wherein the music has little relation to the plot (if there even is one). I wasn't interested, but Bob told me in no uncertain terms that i was going to audition. I truly felt bad that he had been counting on me the previous year, so i went. And what followed felt vaguely like he was trying to teach me a lesson. Whether he intended that, i don’t know, but he cast me...in the chorus. To humble me, to make me pay for my presumption? Or maybe it all just happened, as things do. I'd like to ask him someday. I decided that if i were going to be in the chorus, i'd be the best damn chorus member i could be. It was a big, sprawling show, a multi-departmental collaboration. Nearly half the cast was from the music department, and it was interesting to watch the actors and singers interact, and the snootiness exhibited by both sides. Barb Lappano was the choreographer. I'd had tap and jazz classes with her, and loved her. I played a sailor, the bartender, and the cameraman. I had one or two lines as the cameraman. A singer had the lead role of Billy; he sang well and was wooden. Stephanie Lord played Reno, and she was dynamite. Lou was the stowaway gangster, and he pretty much overcame the insipidness of his material. His moll (from the music department) was pretty damned good, too. I interacted with the music students much more than the other theater students did (i was the only "actor" sailor). My best sailor buddies were Jason Winkleblech and Dave Tillistrand. We had fun together, in rehearsal and out of it. A number of the singers told me i was the only theater person they could relate to. One of the funniest moments came in rehearsal. During a dance number, i got a nerve stinger in my shoulder. If you've never had one, it's like someone has shot you, and you go spasmodic for a second, like a puppet with its strings cut. I was dancing next to the Captain when it happened. I'll never forget the bewildered look on his face. During one performance i did an unintentional dyslexic butchering of some lyrics, and my buddies joked about it for a week or two. If Bob had intended my casting as a lesson, it didn't work, because i had a fun time. Occasionally i bemusedly bemoaned the insipidness of it all, but it didn't get me down, for even as the show was in production, i was in happy rehearsals for my first post-college play.