All Aboard the Original Love Boat in Anything Goes

Wednesday, April 19, 2017
Anything Goes

High Seas Hijinks: The acting, dancing and singing talents of Rose Drama Club members are featured in the spring musical, Anything Goes, on the Hatfield Hall Theater stage.

Audiences will set sail on the original Love Boat as the Rose Drama Club concludes its 2016-17 season with a rendition of the long-running Broadway musical Anything Goes at Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology’s Hatfield Hall Theater.

Shows are scheduled at 7:30 p.m. on Friday, April 21; Saturday, April 22; Friday, April 28; and Saturday, April 29. A special matinee show is planned on Sunday, April 23, at 1:30 p.m.

Featuring music by Indiana native Cole Porter, Anything Goes is a tale of shenanigans on the high seas, as characters try to sort out a love triangle while aboard the S.S. American as it sails from New York to London. Young Wall Street broker Billy Crocker (Thomas Janssen) has snuck onto the ship to pursue his love, American debutante Hope Harcourt (Victoria Johns). Unfortunately, Hope is already engaged to wealthy Lord Evelyn Oakleigh (Brian Suchy). With the help of his friend Reno (Alia Robinson), Billy seeks to win Hope’s heart before it’s too late.

Along the way there are a variety of tap dance numbers and such popular Porter songs as “Friendship,” “I Get a Kick Out of You,” “It’s de-Lovely” and “Anything Goes” that people will remember well after the closing curtain falls.

“This show is a timeless classic full of heartache, humor and love,” says Johns, a freshman chemical engineering major from Baltimore, Md. “This cast really makes all of the emotions of the show come alive, and makes the show thoroughly entertaining.”

Suchy, a senior computer engineering major from Lake Zurich, Ill., adds, “Anything Goes is about a bunch of people in different situations all put on a cruise ship together. From there, the dynamics of the show play out, whether it be an English 'gentleman' falling for a scandalous celebrity, or Public Enemy No. 13 failing to prove why he is a dangerous figure to everyone else.”

Anything Goes first debuted on Broadway in 1934. “The songs, the dancing and the acting work together, but are not incorporated in a way that audiences since the 1940s have become accustomed,” explains director Terence Hartnett. “Part of the magic of Anything Goes is that it invites the audience into its historical moment: Broadway of the 1930s. We have sought to enhance the show’s sense of period in the choreography and costuming. The acting, too, follows the contours of Porter’s distinctive stylized dialogue, which exemplifies a 1930s theatrical sensibility.”

Tickets for each show are $20 for adults and $15 for youths, and are available online at hatfieldhall.com, by phone at 812-877-8544, or at the Hatfield Hall ticket desk Monday through Friday from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., and 90 minutes before each show. Tickets and complete show information also are available at hatfieldhall.com.