Anyone Can Whistle: Rarely Seen Sondheim for Sydney

Anyone Can Whistle: Rarely Seen Sondheim for Sydney

Sydney musical theatre fans are in for a rare collectable musical theatre experience, with the opportunity to enjoy what is believed to be the NSW Premiere of early Stephen Sondheim musical Anyone Can Whistle.

Bankstown Theatre Company stages Anyone Can Whistle at Bankstown Arts Centre from October 25 to November 3, 2013

Variously described as ‘ahead of its time’ and a ‘cult favourite’, despite a short initial Broadway run Anyone Can Whistle has lived on, thanks in part to the original cast recording (recorded the day after the show closed on Broadway) which preserves the score, featuring some wonderful Sondheim songs.

This rarely-seen show, a precursor to Sondheim’s stream of landmark Broadway musicals which redefined the form, beginning in the early 1970s, provides intriguing glimpses of what was to come.

Musical Director Greg Crease describes the show as “an astonishing mixture of styles; it is part black comedy, along the lines of Black Adder or The Office, part satire, like The Producers or How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying, part screwball comedy and part love story. Holding all these disparate  elements is the magnificent score which has become a cult classic.

Anyone Can Whistletells the story of a corrupt mayoress Cora Hoover Hooper (Glenda Kenyon), who fakes a miracle to revitalize her bankrupt town, and the romance between the rational nurse Fay Apple (Melissa Goman) out to expose the fraud and the easy-going Doctor Hapgood (Greg Kenyon) determined to enjoy the chaos it brings.

Glenda Kenyon traces her family’s association with BTC back to her grandparents, pre World War 2, in the opera company which pre-dated the current company. Her mother Edith Paull was company’s long-term resident director, and Glenda grew up, doing her homework in the theatre bio box. Greg Kenyon was playing Prince Charming in Cinderella on stage for the then Bankstown Theatrical Society, when off-stage romance blossomed with choreographer Glenda.

Greg and Glenda have continued to be favourites on numerous Sydney Community Theatre stages (and beyond in the Illawarra), with their talented off-spring Danny, Lauren, Lesley and Jordan continuing the family tradition into yet another generation.

In Anyone Can Whistle the Kenyons initially seem set for yet another onstage romance until Nurse Apple appears on the scene.

Casting mirrors life for the first time for real-life nurse and popular BTC regular Melissa Goman, whose roles for the company include Mabel in The Pirates of Penzance, Sister Mary Leo in Nunsense, The Narrator in Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, Amalia in She Loves Me and Katherine in Pippin.

Between rehearsals Melissa is a nurse at RPA, where she has featured in the TV series, nursing patients including the well-known child patient Safari from Kenya.

In the end, Anyone Can Whistle delivers a message about the importance of the individual in a conformist society-but not before aiming its still-relevant barbs at government, religion, science and anything else that stands in its way.

Image: (l-r) Melissa Goman, Greg Kenyon and Glenda Kenyon.

Anyone Can Whistle

Book by Arthur Laurents

Lyrics & Music by Stephen Sondheim

Director: Diane Wilson

Musical Director: Greg Crease

Choreographer: Edward Rooke

Cast:

Cora - Glenda Kenyon

Fay - Melissa Goman

Hapgood - Greg Kenyon

Schub - Christopher Thurgood

Cooley - Neil Litchfield

Magruder - Malcolm Haynes

Baby June - Maya Stempien

Mrs Schroeder - Stacey Wilson

June - Hilary Cole

Dr. Detmold - Arthur Pickering

Dr Osgood: Joy Pennock

Ensemble:

Glenda Buchanan, Vince Cairncross, Terese Corkish, Gloria Collins, Ben Dodd, Christopher Griffith, Glen Marie Hollebone, Kim-Van Huynh, Sam Lee, Sue Mason, Alexis Motassam, Raymon Ortinez, Ann Pantel, Scott Roberts and Robert Taylor

Bankstown Arts Centre

Cnr Dale & Olympic Parades, Bankstown

Friday 25th October 8pm

Saturday 26th October 1pm and 5pm

Sunday 27th October 1pm

Friday 1st November 8pm

Saturday 2nd November 1pm and 5pm

Sunday 3rd November 1pm

Bookings

9676 1191/ www.bankstowntheatrecompany.com

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