William Gaxton News

This week's Theater Stories features the Imperial Theatre. Learn about the stars and shows to have graced the theatre's stage, including Ethel Merman in Annie Get Your Gun and Gypsy; the Broadway premiere of Mary Martin; the theatre's current show, Ain't Too Proud, and much more!

'I've got a little favor to ask of you,' an American president asks the members of the Supreme Court on the night he's lost his re-election bid.

Say what you will about ANYTHING GOES and KISS, ME KATE, but for this musical theatre lover, there's no finer Cole Porter score than the one he whipped up for the 1929 hit, Fifty Million Frenchmen.

Back in 1931, when the firm Kaufman, Ryskind, Gershwin & Gershwin had the novel idea to infuse that stodgy old music/theatre entertainment, the Broadway operetta, with the jauntiness of showtune and a chaotic mixture of comedic highbrow and lowbrow to tell the tale of an unqualified, but charismatic American politician who rides a wave of popular support for his questionable platform to the United States presidency, musical comedies typically employed a bit more on-stage and front-of-stage talent than audiences are accustomed to seeing nowadays.

STAGES St. Louis continues the voyage through its 29th season with the tap-happy Broadway classic, Anything Goes. The de-lovely Cole Porter musical comedy from Broadway's Golden Age kicks off performances today, July 17th, where it will run through August 16th at the Robert G. Reim Theatre in Kirkwood.

STAGES St. Louis continues the voyage through its 29th season with the tap-happy Broadway classic, Anything Goes. The de-lovely Cole Porter musical comedy from Broadway's Golden Age will run July 17th - August 16th at the Robert G. Reim Theatre in Kirkwood.

If there's one thing this town can't resist it's a gal who can reinvent herself, and in director/choreographer Kathleen Marshall's smashing new revival of the Cole Porter classic, Anything Goes, Sutton Foster foregoes the spunky wholesomeness that made her a Broadway star for a sleek, sophisticated and sexy turn as nightclub singer turned evangelist, Reno Sweeney.

The Victory Gardens Theater will host their 28th Annual Casting Auction, one of Chicago's most unique benefit fundraisers on Saturday, November 14 at 6 pm at the Victory Gardens Biograph Theater.

The Victory Gardens Theater will host their 28th Annual Casting Auction, one of Chicago's most unique benefit fundraisers on Saturday, November 14 at 6 pm at the Victory Gardens Biograph Theater.

Do you have a favorite theatre song that didn't make it into its show's movie version? I have several.

Lost Musicals revives Cole Porter and Herbert Fields' witty escapist fluff about Americans in Paris

Sondra Lee, Christine Pedi and KT Sullivan will star in Lost Musicals' upcoming staged concert presentation of Cole Porter's '20s musical Fifty Million Frenchmen

Following last year's presentation of Silk Stockings, Lost Musicals will again dip into the Cole Porter repertoire for its next show, Fifty Million Frenchmen

Jenny Powers has been cast as Diana Devereaux in the Encores! production of Of Thee I Sing, running from May 11th through 15th

A leading lady who yells her lines and a director going for too much realism saps much of the humor from this Neil Simon classic

Victor Garber will play John P. Wintergreen in the Encores! production of the Gershwins' Of Thee I Sing, which will run from May 11th through 14th, 2006

The Gershwins' satiric musical Of Thee I Sing will be the third entry in City Center's Encores!' 2006 season

ont size="2"> When you go to a fringe theatre festival it's expected you'll be choosing your entertainment from an assortment of one-person plays, avant-guarde pieces, multi-media productions and cutting edge social commentaries. In such an atmosphere, perhaps the most experimental type of theatre piece you can do nowadays is a traditionally structured, show-tune laden book musical with a ten piece orchestra (no synthesizers), a full singing/dancing/acting chorus and a plot that lightheartedly spoofs American politics without holding a particular politician or party up to ridicule. Back in the 1930's, before Saturday Night Live and The Onion, theatregoers would often get their political satire by taking in the latest hit Broadway musical. But shows like I'd Rather Be Right and Leave It to Me, big hits in their day, would be quickly be considered unrevivable because, as satire, the issues they dealt with dated quickly. But one exception was the Pulitzer Prize winning Of Thee I Sing, which eschewed taking it's plot from the latest headlines and instead explored the timeless theme of swaying public sympathy. That silly, gentle-humored spirit is re-created in Seth Bisen-Hersh (music and lyrics) and Daniel Scribner's (book and lyrics) charming gumdrop of a musical, The Spickner Spin.