“Anything Goes” Opens the 2018-2019 Theater Season

The theatre program at Hardin-Simmons University proudly presents “Anything Goes,” a musical love story set on board an ocean liner in 1934. Directed by Teri Wilkerson and Dr. Melody Rich, this show will open the 2018-2019 theatre season. Showtimes for “Anything Goes” are October 3-6 at 7:30 p.m. and October 7 at 2:00 p.m. in Van Ellis Theatre. Ticket costs are $15 for general admission, $10 for military, seniors, or outside students, $3 for Alumni, and $5 for Hardin-Simmons University faculty, staff, and students.

Emily Hatch and Aaron Dominguez during rehearsals.

Students of the theatre program are thrilled to see their hard work result in a final product. “I’m so excited for the opening of ‘Anything Goes!’” says cast member Emily Hatch, “being able to witness audience members be immersed into a story makes it all worth it. I’m so happy that I get to be a part of a wonderful cast and crew that can help make all this happen.”

Cast and crew members prepared for months to perform a finished product, but the long hours were worth it, cast member Cameron Wisener explains, “’Anything Goes’ has been an absolute thrill ride, I’ve never enjoyed anything so much in my life. It’s been a long process for everyone involved in this cast, but we’ve come together to perform something so harmonious and beautiful. I’m so excited to finally get to see this incredible piece we’ve been working on and how talented our department is!”

Cameron Wisener and Michael Kelly during dress rehearsals.

Written during the Great Depression, “Anything Goes” was a precursor to the Golden Age of Broadway and provided entertainment to the American people in an era of misery. Running four-hundred-twenty performances, “Anything Goes” is the fourth longest-running Broadway musical of the 1930s. HSU cast member Michael Kelly states, “the show was just written after a few of the most horrific moments in American History occurred. America needed to feel joy again, and this show is just that, pure joy. I’m grateful to be a part of that.” Kelly continues, “this show to me represents an opportunity. It’s hard to think of another show that captures the atmosphere and energy of the emerging Golden Age of Broadway more than ‘Anything Goes.’ The fact that we as students get to step into that, to experience firsthand the music, the wit, the characters, and the energy of that era is completely extraordinary.”

“Anything Goes” takes place on the S.S. American, an ocean liner traveling from New York to London. A young Wall Street broker, named Billy Crocker, falls in love with a mystery woman while in a taxi headed toward the docks to see his boss, and his good friend Reno Sweeney, onto the ship. After seeing that the mystery woman is on board the ship, Crocker stows away with two gangsters, in disguise, only to find out that she is married to the wealthy Lord Evelyn Oakleigh. The cast embarks on an adventure filled with blackmail and secrecy set in the jazz age of the 1930s.