Question about "Anything Goes..."

I've been a fan of the musical "Anything Goes" for a couple years now and I recently saw a (God-awful) high school production which inspired me to buy the Patti LuPone cast recording. But, I noticed some differences. Like, the song "Let's Misbehave," is omitted, there was a character in the productions that I've seen named Bonnie who sang a fun song "Step Out," and it seems the character and the song are out, and there is a character named Erma who sings a completely pointless 11:00 number "Buddy Beware." Also, I usually see "Friendship" performed by Billy, Moonface, and Reno, but on the CD, it's only sung by Moonface and Reno. What's the deal with all of the changes? And what else is different? This has bothering me lately.

Anything Goes has been used, abused, cut, expanded, mistreated and disrespected for years and years. The original 30's version is never performed any more. In the 60's, the revival featured several extra Cole Porter "hit" songs added to the score. That version was released to amateur groups and is still performed often. Then, the Patti LuPone version cut some of the added songs and I think, added in a couple of different, more obscure Porter songs.

The show itself is free wheeling enough that songs can be added or subtracted without most audience members knowing the difference. (I don't really care for it, however) Amateur groups are also infamous for making duets trios or giving songs to other characters to "Balance" the parts better. I've never seen Buddie Beware sung by anyone other than Reno, however.

Definitely get the revival album (Orange cartoon cover). There's a lot of great Porter songs on it!

Yep. I saw it sung by Erma both times I saw it, actually.

It seemed odd to me that what appears to be the 11:00 number, "Buddy Beware," isn't given to Reno. The song seems utterly pointless. And I like the character of Bonnie and her two songs.

Is there any reason for all the changes?

The change were made because the original script allowed for a lot of specialty material for the original stars (William Gaxton and Victor Moore - who had starred on Broadway a few years earlier in OF THEE I SING. Think of them as the Broderick and Lane of their day!)

The original script was thrown together durring rehearsls (Merman recalled the authors came out of the mens room on the day of the dress rehearsal with teh final scene sketched out on paper towels.)

The show was a hit in its day thanks to the great songs and the fact that audiences did not expect a musical to have much of a book. To streamline it for later revivals, authors took the basic premise and rewrote the book.

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This thread sent me back to the books last night-- Thanks to Front Row Center for all his info. I was thinking of Buddie Beware as a Reno song because I think it turned up by Merman in another Porter show but couldn't track down which one- Something for the Boys perhaps?

And Anything Goes had a very turbulent preview period. It was originally written as the story of survivors in a shipwreck stranded together on a island when The Morro Castle (a reknowned cruise ship of the day) sunk, spoiling the mood for a light hearted romp about ship wrecks. The plot was then changed to an Atlantic crossing.

It was a great hit in it's day and Porter delighted in revising and adding to it's popular "list" songs, thrilling audiences with surprise references to events that happened only days earlier. That has also had the effect of leaving behind dozens of verses that were performed for at least part of the Broadway run, which is why "Your the Top" for example has so many different "real" versions. It's a pop culture lesson of it's time, touching on so many events, scandals and catch phrases: Cellophane, Garbo's Salary, Pepsodent toothpaste...Imagine a broadway show today that would be able to drop in, at a moment's notice, Nicole & Paris' fights, the latest AI performance, the new Pope.....

Porter was also tossed in many racy references that were delightfully shocking on Broadway but verboten on Radio or sheet music. The stage version of "I Get a Kick Out of You" contained the line "Some get a kick from Cocaine/I'm sure that if I took even one sniff it would bore me terrifically, too" which had to be changed for other media. It ended up variously as "I get no kick in a plane" or "A bebop refrain."

Thanks for reminding me about one of my earliest Broadway Loves!

I have five different recordings of ANYTHING GOES. They all vary. After its original Broadway outing, songs started to be added from the Cole Porter treasure chest of music and other songs were of course removed. For me, the best song compilation, by far..........was the 1960s Lincoln Center Revival starring Hal Linden and Eileen Rodgers........I think they made some very poor choices in the 1980s Lupone revival. I love every song on the Linden/Rodgers recording with the exception of Bon Voyage and Public Enemy Number One. As I mentioned here previously, I suspect at one time, those numbers were probably used to perform while scenery was being moved or something like that. :)

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frontrowcentre2 - You missed two! The 1987 version of the show also received an impressive Australian recording which, other than poor American accents, it quite good. Then the 1987 revival just recently received its own revival from the Royal National Theatre with John Barrowman as Billy (who replaced Howard McGillin, the original Billy on both the London and Broadway prvious recordings).

I've always been fascinated by the flexibility of this show and its various incarnations. The 1987 score is really the most appealing to me as far as its tunestack and orchestrations. The 1962 score is fun, but Take Me Back to Manhattan is one of the weakest finales I've seen in any musical. I would campaign to have Heaven Hop and Let's Step Out added to the 1987 score to create the best score of the show.

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