Annie Get Your Gun
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Cast (alphabetical order)Florence Andrews As Cast/Understudy Niall Ashdown Sitting Bull Buffy Davis Mrs Wilson/Mrs Potter Porter Alice Fearn As Cast /Understudy Jane Horrocks Annie Oakley Paul Iveson As Cast Eric MacLennan Pawnee Bill John Marquez Charlie Tanya Michael-Davis Jessie Anoushka Mutanda-Dougherty Jessie Julian Ovenden Frank Amy Papa As Cast/Understudy Davina Perera As Cast David Ricardo-Pearce As Cast /Understudy Frank Liza Sadovy Dolly Michael Taibi As Cast Matt Turner As Cast Chucky Venn Buffalo Bill Adam Venus As Cast/Understudy Jessica Richardson Jessie Creative TeamDirection Richard Jones Additional Dialogue April De Angelis Choreographer Philippe Giraudeau Set Design Ultz Costume Design Nicky Gillibrand Sound Matt McKenzie Musical Supervision and Arrangements Jason Carr Musical Direction James McKeon Assistant Musical Direction Jonathan Williams Pianist Lindy Tennent-Brown Pianist Mary McAdam Dialect Julia Wilson-Dixon Fight Director/Gunslinger Bret Yount Assistant Director Oliver Mears Assistant Director Rikki Henry Wigs and Make-Up Campbell Young
Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show arrives in a diner in Ohio (‘Colonel Buffalo Bill’). Its star, the handsome Frank Butler (‘I’m a Bad, Bad, Man’), and the show’s manager Charlie Davenport, announce a shooting match. They leave declaring that if anyone beats Frank they’ll win $100. Local girl, Annie Oakley enters and shoots a bird off the hat of Dolly Tate, Frank’s assistant, believing it to be real. Whilst Annie and her little sister, Jesse, sell their day’s kill to the diner owner, Mrs Wilson, they explain their backwards upbringing (‘Doin’ What Comes Naturally’). Mrs Wilson, impressed by Annie’s amazing shooting ability, enters her for the match. Annie meets Frank and is instantly attracted to him. He explains that he likes feminine women (‘The Girl That I Marry’) and Annie laments her lack of sophistication (‘You Can’t Get a Man with a Gun’). To Frank’s horror, Annie wins the shooting match and Buffalo Bill invites her to join his tour. To be near Frank she agrees and everyone explains what her new life will be like (‘There’s No Business Like Show Business’). As the tour progresses, Frank begins to fall for Annie and they sing about love as the show’s train crosses America (‘They Say It’s Wonderful’). That night, Bill and Charlie discover that Pawnee Bill’s rival show is playing in a nearby town. To compete, they ask Annie to perform a special shooting trick which has never been attempted before. She agrees, believing the trick will impress Frank and, satisfied with the plan, sings Jesse to sleep (‘Moonshine Lullaby’). The following day Frank attempts to propose to Annie but she asks him to wait until after her act as she has a surprise for him. After she’s gone, he admits to his male friends that he’s smitten (‘My Defences are Down’). Annie’s new act makes her an instant star and the Native American Sioux chief, Sitting Bull, adopts her into his tribe. Frank however feels upstaged by the Annie’s act and, his pride hurt, leaves to join Pawnee Bill. Act II Buffalo Bill’s show tours to Europe and Annie performs for heads of state to great acclaim, receiving many medals as gifts. However, a now more refined Annie, still misses Frank (‘I Got Lost in His Arms’). On their return to America, Bill announces that, despite their critical success, the show is broke. Meanwhile Pawnee Bill tells Frank that his show is also sinking. Both Bills believe the other one still has money, and make separate plans to suggest a merger of their companies. Dolly and Charlie celebrate the plan (‘I’ll Share It All with You’). Pawnee Bill hosts a grand reception and invites his enemies; Frank and Annie are excited but nervous about seeing each other again. It is soon discovered that both shows are broke but Annie steps in, offering her medals as finance saying that money doesn’t matter (‘I Got the Sun in the Mornin’’). Frank arrives and he and Annie admit they’re still in love and decide to marry. As a declaration of love, he offers Annie a medal he has recently been awarded, however Annie shows him her collection and his trophy pales in significance. His pride hurt once again, the couple argue and call off the wedding and merger. They decide to have one more shooting match to once and for all settle who is the best shooter in the world (‘Anything You Can Do’), with Annie’s medals as the prize. Sitting Bull convinces Annie that if she doesn’t lose the match she’ll then lose her man and she decides deliberately to concede the match. His pride restored, Frank donates the medals to fund the merger and the couple reconcile. 5. ANNIE GET YOUR GUN – A HISTORY Written in 1946, Annie Get Your Gun was Irving Berlin’s most successful stage musical. The original Broadway production ran for 1,147 performances. The 1949 film version ensured its longevity and there is still an average of 400 amateur revivals each year in the US. The score produced a series of hit songs including the classic ‘There’s No Business Like Show Business’. The idea of a musical version of Annie Oakley’s life [see Chapter 6] was the brainchild of Dorothy Fields, a lyricist and librettist [musical scriptwriter] who’s most well-known success was Sweet Charity. Fields knew that her friend Ethel Merman (then the Grande Dame of Broadway) would be perfect for the leading role and enlisted her brother, Herbert to co-write the lyrics and book [musical script] with her. After her usual producer rejected the project she was signed by new producing team Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II [see Chapter 10]. The creative team recruited Jerome Kern, one of the most prolific composers of the era, to write the music. Oscar-winning Kern was then based in Hollywood writing film scores after the success of his musical, Showboat. On November 3, 1945 he returned to New York to begin work on Annie Get Your Gun, the following day he collapsed on the street and died a week later. Despite this set back, the creative team did not take long to consider his replacement; Irving Berlin had just returned home from touring This is the Army and was looking for a new project. Initially Berlin rejected their offer because he had never written a book musical before [see Chapter 10] and was used to having sole ownership of a production. He also claimed he knew nothing about writing “hillbilly music.”1 After persistence he agreed to trial the project (on the proviso that the show would be billed as “Rodgers and Hammerstein present Irving Berlin’s Annie Get Your Gun”) and retired to Atlantic City to write. He returned a week later, gathered the creative team (which now included stage and film director, Joshua Logan) and played ‘Doin’ What Comes Naturally’, ‘They Say It’s Wonderful’, ‘The Girl I Marry’, ‘You Can’t Get a Man With a Gun’, plus a short number for scene changes called ‘There’s No Business Like Showbusiness’. The producers were ecstatic (indeed, all 4 songs have since become musical standards) and set Berlin to work completing the score. (Berlin nearly cut what was to become the musical’s most famous hit, ‘There’s No Business Like Showbusiness’, as he had got the impression that Rodgers didn’t like it!) It only took a few months for Berlin to finish the show, meanwhile the producers put together a stellar cast including Ray Middleton (Frank Butler), William O’Neal (Buffalo Bill) and, of course, Ethel Merman (Annie Oakley). The musical was an instant hit, opening on May 16, 1946 at the Imperial Theatre in New York to critical and public acclaim. The success on Broadway spawned a West End production which opened at the London Coliseum on June 7, 1947 and ran for 1,304 performances. The Australian version opened in July, and the U.S. tour began the following year, launching the career of Mary Martin (who was later to play the original Maria in Rodgers and Hammerstein’s The Sound of Music) who played Annie whilst Merman continued on Broadway. Hollywood was quick to note the success and eager to get its hands on the film rights. Berlin, however, had already written several successful film musicals and was determined to get the best deal. Producer Arthur Freed later noted that “it took longer to write one of Irving’s contracts than it did the script.” A year later MGM studios finally agreed to pay Berlin a record amount of $650,000. But the film was to gain the reputation of being one of the most troubled in MGM history. Sidney Sheldon, the writer hired to adapt the stage script, wasn’t exactly sure how to interpret the character of Annie Oakley, torn as he was between Mary Martin’s pretty, wistful tomboy on tour and Ethel Merman’s raucous, lustful simpleton on Broadway. Freed didn’t assist matters by miscasting Judy Garland in the title role. On the 2nd day of filming the notoriously demanding director, Bugsy Berkeley insisted that Howard Keel (playing Frank Butler) ride his horse faster. Keel slipped and broke his leg, putting him out of action for weeks. With his leading man unavailable, Berkeley compressed Garland’s schedule so she had to shoot all her scenes consecutively. This was only a year before Garland’s first suicide attempt and signs of her depression were already being to show. Overworked and exhausted she soon crumpled under the pressure. Freed responded by firing Berkeley and then, a few weeks later, Garland herself. Not to be beaten he soon returned with a new director, George Sidney [director of the film version of Show Boat] and Paramount Picture’s leading lady, Betty Hutton. Shooting recommenced in September 1949 and the film was released in May 1950. Costing a record $3.8 million, it was nominated for 4 Academy Awards and made $8 million at the box office, becoming one of MGM’s highest grossing musicals. The curse of Annie Get Your Gun recurred however when in 1973 Berlin and MGM had a dispute over copyright. The film wasn’t available to the public for 27 years (on TV, cinema or home video) until differences were resolved in 2000 and a DVD version was finally released. The Young Vic is not the first theatre to launch a major revival since the original production. There has recently been a craze for producing ‘revisicals’, taking a classic musical and updating it for a modern audience. The first revisions of Annie Get Your Gun were in 1966 when Merman returned to play the 20 year old protagonist at the ripe age of 56! Berlin and Fields decided to take the opportunity to finesse their show and cut the juvenile lead characters of Tommy and Winnie (who had a romantic subplot in the original) and added a new number, ‘An Old Fashioned Wedding’. These changes were intended to streamline and perfect the original show, but contemporary alterations tend to centre on eradicating any material that is now considered politically incorrect. The original Annie Get Your Gun can be viewed as both sexist and racist. Richard Jones, director of the Young Vic production, notes that “the original production’s politics are very right-wing” [see interview, chapter 12]. The Broadway revival of 1999 attempted to tackle these concerns by bringing on board writer Peter Stone to update the script. Stone’s concept was to make the story of Annie Oakley part of the evening’s entertainment at Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show. The production began with Buffalo Bill directly addressing the audience: “Ladies and Gentleman, children of all ages, I am Colonel Buffalo Bill Cody, the owner and founder of the most famous Wild West show on earth. You are now going to see my own personal version of the tempestuous and romantic story of Annie Oakley and Frank Butler.” He then proceeded to sing ‘There’s No Business Like Show Business’ to introduce each character in turn to the audience. This clever framing device granted the audience permission to enjoy the show despite any political misgivings. They were absolved of responsibility as it was Buffalo Bill’s interpretation of the story. Stone reinserted the Tommy and Winne subplot but cut the controversial ‘I’m an Indian Too’ number and altered the result of the end shooting match between Annie and Frank to a tie (in the original Annie pretends to lose to save Frank’s pride). The production received great critical praise and won 2 Tony Awards for Best Revival of a Musical and Best Actress in A Musical (Bernadette Peters). The Young Vic production is more faithful to Field’s script and contains no framing device. Jones has restored the traditional ending, Tommy and Winnie have been cut again (in line with Berlin and Fields’ 1966 revisions) and ‘I’m an Indian Too’ can be heard, but in a very different guise: CHARLIE: You like her, Chief? You wait till you see the rest of the show [...] Our piece de resistance; the Great Indian Ghost dance number, a tribute to you and your people plus a lot of feathers. That’s it starting up now. INDICATES TANNOY WHICH CHIEF TEARS OFF THE WALL. THE TANNOY LIES ON THE FLOOR. IT MAKES A FINAL HICCUP AND ANNIE SHOOTS IT. CHARLIE: Guess you didn’t like the Indian number? SITTING BULL: I have reservations. This subversive reinterpretation is typical of Jones’ work, recently described by the Guardian as “blazingly imaginative”. This excerpt aside, it may seem surprising that a venue like the Young Vic (with a reputation for creating artistically challenging theatre) has been quite so reserved in its revision of the script. This answer lies in the choice of Jones as director who has chosen to tackle the issues of creating a contemporary version of Annie Get Your Gun on the stage, rather than the page. The casting, characterisations, staging, orchestration and design all work together to create a very modern, fresh interpretation of this classic musical. 6. CHARACTERS The Wild West [sometimes called Old West or American West] is the term given to the states west of the Mississippi river before they were fully inhabited. When the US government announced that the western territories were being opened up, there was a rush to claim the new land. Between the end of the American Civil War [1865] and the late 19th century, hundreds of thousands of Americans joined the race, seeking a new life in unchartered lands. Stories of danger and heroism, filled with larger-than-life characters, from this exciting period in American history have always captured the public’s imagination. The leading characters in Annie Get Your Gun are historical figures from this period, but to what extent do the musical’s characters differ from their real-life personas? Annie Oakley Born Phoebe Ann Mosey, Oakley was delivered in a cabin in rural Ohio in 1860. Her father died when she was 6 years old and Annie was sent to a local poor farm2 that placed her in the care of a foster family where she was physically abused. She learnt to hunt in order to sell her kill to support her mother and siblings. By the time she was united with her family aged 14 she was able to pay off the mortgage on her mother’s farm. As Annie Get Your Gun recalls, her prowess was well known throughout the region and when Frank Butler arrived in 1881 offering a money prize to anyone who could beat him in a shooting match, the local hotelier enlisted Annie. Butler lost to the 21 year old Oakley on his 25th shot. They began courting and - this is where reality breaks from fiction - the couple married a year later and stayed together until her death aged 66. 
At first she worked as Butler’s assistant but he soon realised that her talent was both greater and more unique than his own, and soon quit performing himself to become her business manager. It is believed Annie took her stage name from the local neighbourhood Oakley, Cincinnati. The couple joined Buffalo Bill’s show three years later and Oakley was an instant success, prompting a rivalry with Bill’s other female shooter, Lillian Smith (the character of Dolly in the musical.) The show toured Europe where Oakley performed for royalty (including shooting a cigarette out of the hand of the future Kaiser Wilhelm II, later prompting remarks that if only she’d missed she could have prevented World War I.) In 1901 Oakley was badly injured in a railway crash in North Carolina3 - it is claimed that her hair turned pure white two months later as a result of the shock - and chose to retire to the quieter life of acting, starring in a play penned for her called The Western Girl. In 1903 a Chicago newspaper published a sensational story citing that Oakley had been arrested for stealing to support a cocaine habit. The tale was quickly discounted but she spent the next 6 years fighting a libel case to clear her name, she eventually won but at a great financial cost. Oakley continued to do sporadic exhibition shootings as she got older, although she refused invitations to rejoin Buffalo Bill’s show. After her death in 1926 she remained a famous Wild West legend, despite the fact she had never even visited the western territories. The story of her life has inspired countless books, films and TV portrayals. Frank Butler Whilst little is known of Frank E. Butler, it is apparent his arrogant, competitive characterisation in Annie Get Your Gun was a creation of the authors who wanted the rivalry between Frank and Annie to provide the dramatic tension in the musical. In reality it appears Butler was a supportive husband and a shrewd businessman who recognised the commercial potential of Oakley’s talent. His handling of her financial arrangements was thorough and his clever manipulation of the press ensured her high profile. He also astutely used their association in the public eye as shooters to secure a role as a paid representative at both the Union Metallic Cartridge Company and the Remington Arms Company, helping to increase their sales of guns and shooting apparatus. 
Frank Butler Born in Ireland, Butler moved to the US aged 13 and developed a touring shooting act. Unlike in the musical, he only joined Buffalo Bill’s show as Annie’s manager, never actually performing there himself. It’s reported that upon Annie’s death he was so distraught that he stopped eating and died 18 days later. Buffalo Bill William Frederick Cody was born in 1846 in Iowa. He was only 11 when his father died after being attacked by a mob whilst giving an anti-slavery speech. Cody managed to get a job with a wagon train to support his mother, riding up and down the length of the train delivering messages. His second job was with the US army was the dual role of scouting for Indians and supplying railroad workers with the meat he hunted; he gained his nickname after shooting a record 4,860 buffalo over the 18 months he was employed. In 1872 he travelled to Chicago to join one of the original touring Wild West shows, The Scouts of the Prairie. Ten years later he set up his own show, Buffalo Bill’s Wild West. 
Buffalo Bill The spectacular exhibition featured many western celebrities and prairie animals, and recreated dramatic scenarios such as Indian attacks and stagecoach robberies. The performance ended with a re-enactment of General Custer’s last stand at the Battle of Little Bighorn with Cody playing Custer [see Chapter 9]. He expanded the show in 1893 to include horse-riders from all over the world, adding and Congress of Rough Riders of the World to the title. Cody also applied himself to environmental causes in the western states. He was instrumental in persuading the government to build the Buffalo Bill Dam in order to irrigate the Big Horn Basin so it could be farmed, and also founded the agricultural town of Cody, Wyoming. In 1912 his show became financially unstable and, as portrayed in Annie Get Your Gun, he joined forces with Pawnee Bill’s rival show. Cody died in 1917, his once great fortune having dwindled to under $100,000. His legacy is confused as he is often accused of exploiting and contributing to the stereotyping of Native Americans. However his supporters claim he is misunderstood, quoting his statement “Every Indian outbreak that I have ever known has resulted from broken promises and broken treaties by the government” in his defence. Despite his controversial reputation, his show captured the public imagination and his grave remains the most visited tourist attraction in Colorado. Sitting Bull A member of the Lakota (‘Dwellers of the Prairie’) branch of the Native American Sioux tribe, Sitting Bull was born circa 1831 in South Dakota. He excelled in horse riding and shooting (with a bow and arrow) at an early age and became a tribal holy man in his early twenties. The Dakota War in 1862 began decades of conflict between white settlers and the Lakota branch, eventually leading to the Great Sioux War of 1876-77. Sitting Bull became accustomed to leading war parties during these years and in June 1876 he took charge of the 2000 Sioux warriors who finally defeated General Custer and his army at the infamous Battle of Little Bighorn. White public anger against the Indians for the annihilation of the soldiers and death of the popular Custer led the US army to pursue relentlessly Sitting Bull and his band. They eventually sought exile in Canada. Sitting Bull refused government offers of a pardon for four years until hunger and the cold forced him to admit defeat and re-enter the US. The natives were transferred to the Standing Rock Reservation. 
Sitting Bull and Buffalo Bill In 1885, Buffalo Bill offered Sitting Bull a role in his Wild West show where he earned $50 a week, often donating his wage to the homeless. He only remained with the show for four months but during that time became a celebrity. When Sitting Bull returned to the Standing Rock Reservation, the Ghost Dance movement was rapidly spreading throughout the Native American reservations. This movement reintroduced traditional, spiritual practise amongst the native population at a time when US government policy encouraged them to adopt white social practises. In 1890 James McLaughlin, the government representative at Standing Rock, tried to arrest Sitting Bull, fearing that he would use the popularity Ghost Dance movement to rally resistance against the Government. Sitting Bull refused to go peacefully and his followers attacked the white men, leading to McLaughlin shooting Sitting Bull dead. Sitting Bull remains symbolic of Native American resistance to white settlement and supremacy. Pawnee Bill Gordon Lillie was born in 1860 in Illinois. As a child he was obsessed with the Old West and Buffalo Bill, devouring novels about the subject. After his family relocated to Kansas in the 1870s, the Pawnee Native American tribe camped near Lillie’s home whilst being relocated by the government to Indian Territory. Lillie struck up a friendship with Blue Hawk, a Pawnee scout, and decided to travel with the tribe when they moved on to Oklahoma. Over the next few years he learnt to hunt buffalo with the Pawnee and taught in their reservation school. In 1886 he married May Manning and together they launched Pawnee Bill’s Historic Wild West Show, with May starring as a horseback shooter. Financially unsuccessful, they were forced to scale down operations until Lillie struck on the idea of adding Chinese and Japanese performers to the show and renaming it Pawnee Bill’s Wild West and Great Far East Show (1907). 
Pawnee Bill After amalgamating with Buffalo Bill the following year, Lillie had his first major financial success. This continued for the next five years but money issues began to affect the new partnership and Lillie retired with May to build a cabin on the Pawnee Reservation. In 1936, as they returned from celebrating their 50th wedding anniversary, Lillie lost control of their vehicle and May was killed in the accident. Lillie never recovered from his injuries and died in 1942. |