I Get a Kick Out of This

Colin C. Pritchard as Billy Crocker and LeeAnn Payne as Reno Sweeney in Cole Porter's "Anything Goes"
News-Progress photos by Keith Stewart

Some get a kick from cocaine

I'm sure that if

I took even one sniff

That would bore me terr--ifically, too

Yet, I get a kick out of you.

— “I Get a Kick Out of You” from “Anything Goes”

By Dan Hagen

Quick! What do Mickey Mouse, Mahatma Gandhi, Pepsodent and a Waldorf Salad have in common?

They’re all made to order for Cole Porter, of course. That Broadway genius could work any word into a lyric, up to and including “tin-pan-tithesis.”

No pan this time, though, with Little Theatre’s Kelly Shook directing and choreographing the Depression-era sea froth “Anything Goes” as the theatre’s midsummer firecracker. Shook has shaped an eclectic show from its various incarnations throughout a nearly 80-year history.

The absolute necessities are still there, songs like “You’re the Top,” “I Get a Kick Out of You” and the ever-truer title tune. But surprises are also featured to freshen things up, numbers like the delightful afterlife dance craze “Heaven Hop” from a 1962 off-Broadway revival with Hal Linden.

Only one number in the second act, “Take Me Back to Manhattan,” struck me as being extraneous. Didn’t seem to go much of anywhere in terms of the show’s finish.

Although clearly of their time and place, Porter’s best songs are durable, maybe indefatigable. They still deliver a saucy wink to the audience, still smart, still charming. Listen to the bored sophistication of “I Get a Kick Out of You,” or watch the passive-aggressive progression of “Friendship,” in which protestations of mutual loyalty become slyly hostile. Is there a song that beats “You’re the Top” as a delivery system of simple, sunny joy? I think not. This is how it’s done.

Kelsey Andres as Bonnie: a low-class gal with high-octane charisma

The story is a P.G. Wodehouse farce, funny enough without demanding too much of the audience’s attention, largely a structure on which to hang some great songs and dance numbers.

The boy is the able Colin C. Pritchard as Billy Crocker, a protean American go-getter type. The girl he loses and gets is Hope Harcourt, played by the sweet-voiced Kara Guy. The role of her snobby mom is effectively Margaret Dumonted by Therese Kincade.

Particularly effective is Jared Titus as the amiable, angular Englishman Lord Evelyn Oakley. He can get the silly laughs, but also deliver his lines with a surprisingly subtle sincerity when necessary. His song of wild abandon, “Let’s Misbehave,” is hilarious.

His partner in that number is the immensely talented LeeAnn Payne as Reno Sweeney, the showstopper Ethel Merman part. She rises to the occasion of the biggest and most satisfying songs in the show — “Blow, Gabriel, Blow,” a rousing gospel tune that says one thing and means another, and “Anything Goes,” the first-act curtain number and a tap-dance avalanche.

The most consistent crowd pleasers may have been Little vet Jack Milo as Moonface Martin, America’s friendliest public enemy, and Kelsey Andres as his gun moll sidekick Bonnie.

Milo always knows how to tickle, tease and string along a laugh, and his deadpan tweet-tweeting admonition to “Be Like the Bluebird” is a strange wonder to behold. Andres plays a low-class gal with high-octane charisma in the “Heaven Hop” and “Let’s Step Out” numbers.

Sitting behind us during dress rehearsal was the Charleston High School cast of this spring’s musical, “Anything Goes.” After my friend Matt Mattingly told one of the high school girls that the Little Theatre cast and crew put this high-energy production together in just two weeks, she exclaimed, “It's like they’re superheroes!”

It’s true. They’re the top, a Bendel bonnet (that’s a hat), a Shakespeare sonnet (that’s art), they’re Mickey Mouse (that’s a rodent, true, but an extremely popular one).

Incidental intelligence: The 1934 show “Anything Goes,” with music and lyrics by Cole Porter, has a book by Guy Bolton, P.G. Wodehouse, Howard Lindsay and Russel Crouse.

The cast includes Marc Pera, Melissa Jones, Rachel Perin, Ashley Klinger, Mandy Modic, Matthew Glover, Matthew Schmidt, Colin Shea Denniston, Andy Frank, Peter Marinaro,  Karl Skyler Urban, Amanda Johns, Sarah Ledtke and Connie Mulligan. The show has lighting design by Greg Solomon, scenic design by Matthew J. Frick, costume design by Matt Malone, stage management by Jeremy J. Phillip and musical direction by Kevin Long.

Performances will run through July 14. Tickets may be purchased by calling The Little Theatre on the Square Box Office at (217)-728-7375 or online at www .thelittletheatre.org.