LOGAN – Watching the Utah Festival Opera & Musical Theatre production of Anything Goes was like viewing a juke box musical – assuming that the music machine had been loaded with vinyl in 1934 and never updated since.
The similarities resulted from the fact that the mostly senior and summer citizen audience that filled the Ellen Eccles Theatre on July 12 knew all of the Cole Porter tunes in the show and had to fight the temptation to hum along, much less sing.
The nostalgic show was utterly charming; a wistful reminder of the quality of musical theater in a simpler age.
Porter’s score calls for a strong, versatile leading lady, a role that was performed by a young Ethel Merman when Anything Goes premiered in the 1930s. UFOMT managing director Michael Ballam has supplied that extraordinary performer in the person of actress Haley Sicking.
Classically trained in opera, the Dallas native effortlessly belts out a string of Cole Porter hits including “I Get a Kick Out of You”, “You’re The Top” and the title tune “Anything Goes.”
As evangelist turned nightclub singer Reno Sweeney, Ms. Sicking leads the UFOMT cast in a tale of hi-jinx on the high seas aboard an ocean liner bound from New York to London.
The plot focuses on Billy Crocker (winningly played by Ian Saverin), a stowaway in love with heiress Hope Harcourt (UFOMT veteran Trysten Reynolds), who is engaged to Lord Evelyn Oakleigh (Tony Mowatt).
Other characters include Hope’s strong-willed mother Evangeline (Sarah Nordin), the machine-gun toting gangster Moonface Martin (Gregory Sliskovich) and Billy’s boss Eli Whitney (Lee Gregory).
As per usual in madcap musicals from this era, you can depend on all of those characters to change partners at least once before Anything Goes ends in a triple wedding.
In a role that rivals Ms. Sicking for sheer pizzazz, Haley Jones is sizzling as Erma, a gang moll who seduces the entire crew of the SS America, while deliciously performing the Porter tune “Buddie, Beware.”
The show is also enlivened by dynamite tap dancing, choreographed by Alyssa Weathersby and Suzanne Seiber, performed by Reno’s angels (Katie Calderone, Allison Lian, Katy Plaziak and Devin Wiesner) and the ship’s sailors (Jymil Littles, Samuel William Meyer, Will Mosier and Luke Swaller).
The lively, crowd-pleasing score of Anything Goes was conducted by Andreas Mitisek and performed by the members of Utah Festival Opera orchestra.
Evening performances of Anything Goes are slated for July 26 and Aug. 3. Matinees are set for July 20, 22 and Aug. 1.
All performances will be staged in the Ellen Eccles Theatre at 43 South Main Street in downtown Logan.