Anything Goes Musical Analysis

Every year Austin Peay State University decides to produce two musicals and two straight plays for their theatre season. This year one of the musicals selected was Anything Goes by Cole Porter. Anything Goes concentrates on the story of Hope Harcourt and her family trying to sail from New York to England. With the production being a musical a lot more work was put towards additional skills like voice techniques and choreography, rather than in a straight play where the task is to just memorize your lines and create a connection with your character. The overall performance is based on how well the extra work such as, voice techniques and choreography complement the acting and set pieces.

Good acting is accomplished when the actor has allowed themselves to connect with their individual character and with their partners as well. One of the actors that stood out from the cast at Austin Peay was Emily. Emily used the connection she had with her character to create facial expressions and meaning to her lines. Up until now audience members

For Austin Peay’s production of Anything Goes there were two major set pieces. One piece was the ship itself and the jail. Both pieces took a mass amount of creativity, detail, and time. The best part of the ship was the stairs and arch created at the top. The stairs were such a great aspect to the ship being that they became useful for the movement of the cast throughout company selections. The image of the company being spread out between the stairs , arch, and main floor are great pictures for the audience to see. The audience experience perspective is always the key to a show’s success so the arch must be considered the best part of the ship. The arch gave the appearance of a ship actually on water and someone could step outside by the rails and watch the water flow. It gives the audience the thoughts to put themselves on a boat and live the experience with the