Devon Perry as Annie Oakley         Photos by John Vecchiolla

 

                                     By Ed Lieberman

 

Buffalo Bill’s Wild West show has settled in Elmsford for Westchester Broadway Theatre’s year-end production, Annie Get Your Gun. Familiar real life characters, including Frank Butler, Buffalo Bill Cody, Pawnee Bill, Sitting Bull and the title character, Annie Oakley, inhabit the stage in this great staging of the classic Irving Berlin musical. 

 

The show is a loose biography of Annie Oakley and her on-again-off-again relationship with fellow sharpshooter Frank Butler, the star of Buffalo Bill’s touring Wild West show. When the show comes to a small town in Ohio, Buffalo Bill makes a side bet with the local innkeeper that his star, Frank, would beat any local in a shooting contest. At first, the innkeeper scoffs and turns it down but, providentially, Annie shows up with her illiterate siblings and shows off her acumen with a rifle. A match is arranged and, much to his embarrassment, Frank loses to Annie. The rest is history, but, as in life, the fun is in the journey; Annie’s and Frank’s egos keep getting in the way of love until the inevitable denouement. Interestingly, much of the story told in the book, by Herbert and Dorothy Fields, is true; Annie and Frank were married in real life, and Annie did rise (like Mollie Brown) from illiteracy to world travel and fame. And Sitting Bull really did tour with Buffalo Bill’s Wild West show!  

 

Adam Kemmerer as Frank Butler & Devon Perry as Annie Oakley

 

The production features a bravura performance by WBT veteran Devon Perry, as Annie, performing a score that includes such classic Broadway tunes as “Doin’ What Comes Natur’lly,” ”You Can’t Get a Man with a Gun,” ”I Got the Sun in the Mornin’ (and the Moon at Night),” and the two stand-outs, “Anything You Can Do (I Can Do Better)” and “There’s No Business Like Show Business.” Ms. Perry’s looks, personality and voice are admirably suited to the role of Annie (much more so than Ethel Merman, for whom the show was written), and her performance is worthy of the role’s pedigree, which includes such stars as Merman, Debbie Reynolds, Patti LuPone, Bernadette Peters (who won a Tony for her role in a 1999 revival) and, this reviewer’s favorite in the role, Reba McEntire. Adam Kemmerer, as Frank, while not as hunky as those who have played the role in the past, has good on-stage chemistry with Ms. Perry, especially in the classic duet, “Anything You Can Do (I Can Do Better).” Standouts in the supporting cast are Kevin Loomis as Innkeeper Foster Wilson and Pawnee Bill, Gary Lynch as Buffalo Bill, WBT veteran Kilty Reidy, as Charlie Davenport, Marshall Factora, as Sitting Bull, and Sarah Cline, as Dollie Tate. Standouts in the ensemble include Lucy Horton and Brittany Williams.

 

Clockwise from bottom left: Kilty Reidy as Charlie Davenport, Devon Perry as Annie Oakley, Adam Kemmerer as Frank Butler & Gary Lynch as Buffalo Bill.

 

As usual, WBT’s crew, including lighting designer Andrew Gmoser, set designer Steve Loftus, and sound designer Mark Zuckerman let the actors be seen and heard at their best. Unlike some productions where the actor’s words were hard to hear over the orchestra, Shane Parus’s musical direction, together with the aforementioned sound design by Mark Zuckerman was spot on; even the children’s words and voices were easily heard. Finally, kudos are in order for Director/Choreographer Richard Stafford, for his staging of the many musical numbers that did justice to the Irving Berlin score.

 

NOTE: One of the fascinating “what if’s” of Broadway history is the fact that Jerome Kern was hired to write the music and lyrics for the show, but he suffered a stroke and passed away just days after arriving in New York to begin work on it. Irvin Berlin was reluctant to step in, as he didn’t feel he was able to write music for what he dubbed ”a situation show,” but the show’s producer, Oscar Hammerstein, II, prevailed upon him to do so. I guess this proves the adage, coined by Berlin for the show: There [really is] “no business like show business!”  

Annie Get Your Gun will be performed through November 12, 2017

 

Show Schedule:

   Matinees: Wednesday, Thursday, (some ) Friday and Sunday 

   Evenings: Thursday – Sunday

 

Box Office: (914) 592-2222 or www.BroadwayTheatre.com

                  One Broadway Plaza, Elmsford, NY 10523    

 

Upcoming Shows at WBT:

          Christmas Voyager:   November 20 - December 23, 2017                                        

          Neil Berg’s 100 Years of Broadway: December 28-December 30, 2017

          The Night the Music Lived: A Tribute to Buddy Holly, Richie Havens and the Big

               Bopper: January 4-January 7, 2018

          A Chorus Line: January 11 – April 1, 2018