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A Fresh Take on a Classic

Tue, 07/23/2019 - 09:25
The cast of “Annie Get Your Gun” is small, noted the director Sarna Lapine, “which means everybody is featured and everybody is an individual.”

Reviving a timeless musical, as Bay Street Theater in Sag Harbor does every summer, is not as simple as it might seem. In the case of “Annie Get Your Gun,” which will open next week, Sarna Lapine, the production’s director, consulted four different versions of the script, starting with Dorothy Fields’s original draft from 1946, which was written before Irving Berlin signed on to write the music and lyrics.

Significant changes were made from the original version to the 1966 Broadway revival, and even more substantial alterations were crafted by Peter Stone, a multiple-award-winning writer, for the 1999 revival. 

“I thought Peter Stone did an amazing job,” said Ms. Lapine. “He totally honored the original spirit, the original characters, the original story, but there was a shift in structure and point of view. He chose to set the entire play within Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show, so it became a show within a show, with Buffalo Bill more like a narrator than in the original production.”

Stone revised the libretto to eliminate what were considered insensitive references to Native Americans, including Annie Oakley’s song “I’m an Indian Too,” and made “There’s No Business Like Show Business” the production’s opening number.

The on-again, off-again love affair between Annie Oakley and Frank Butler, both sharpshooters, provides the through line for the play. Before they knew each other, a Cincinnati hotel owner arranged a shooting match, which Annie won. Despite their competitive natures, they married a year later and joined Buffalo Bill’s show in 1885.

Among the memorable songs from the play are “Doin’ What Comes Natur’lly,” “I Got the Sun in the Morning,” “They Say It’s Wonderful,” and “Anything You Can Do (I Can Do Better).”

The new production came about when Scott Schwartz, the theater’s artistic director, asked Ms. Lapine, who directed “Frost/Nixon” last summer at Bay Street, if she had any musical revivals she was interested in directing. 

“I grew up with a lot of the classic musicals,” she said, “and ‘Annie Get Your Gun’ was one of my mom’s favorites, so I knew the score very well and loved it. I felt it could use a re-examination, and I wanted to approach it through a fresh pair of eyes. I was also interested in the real historical characters. Annie was a fascinating person, as were Buffalo Bill and Sitting Bull.”

Mr. Schwartz noted that Ms. Fields’s original script had a more progressive view of women and women’s power in society than the show had when it opened on Broadway in 1946. “And Sarna has assembled a team comprised entirely of women, so it’s ‘Annie Get Your Gun’ from a woman’s perspective. It’s still the beloved show, but the lens through which we are viewing it is very fresh.”

Ms. Lapine recently directed “Into the Woods” at Juilliard, “Noises Off” at Two River Theater, and “Sondheim on Sondheim” with Boston Pops and the Los Angeles Philharmonic. She also directed the 2017 Broadway revival of “Sunday in the Park With George,” which starred Jake Gyllenhaal and Annaleigh Ashford.

Annie Oakley will be played by Alexandra Socha, who recently starred in the Broadway musical “Head Over Heels” and has worked extensively in television and films as well as theater. Matt Saldivar will portray Frank Butler. Mr. Saldivar’s many Broadway credits include “Saint Joan,” “Act One,” “Honeymoon in Vegas,” and “A Streetcar Named Desire.”

Other key players are Jennifer Sanchez as Donny Tate, Jonathan Joss as Sitting Bull, Orville Mendoza as Buffalo Bill, George Abud as Charlie, Isa Mooney as Jessie, Meaghan McInnes as Nellie, Oge Agulué as Pawnee Bill, Stephen Lee Anderson as Foster Wilson, and Will Hantz as Little Jake. 

Choreography is by Sarah O’Gleby, set design by Mikiko Suzuki MacAdams, lighting design by Jiyoun Chang, costume design by Valérie Thérèse Bart, and sound design by Jane Shaw.

“Peter Stone really highlighted the link between the spirit of the Buffalo Bill show and the way actors and show people still choose to live today,” said Ms. Lapine. “The play made me think about how communities are made up of unique individuals from all over the world. In the theater, people really choose a lifestyle and they make sacrifices, they give up other things, but gain a family of choice.”

“In this version I was able to distill the story down to its bare bones, its essential elements, and really have a very small cast and a very small band, which means everybody is featured and everybody is an individual. That’s something Annie Oakley gained in pursuing this life; it opened doors to great opportunity and great adventure. That is a very beautiful element to the story and why I wanted to tell it today.”

After preview performances Tuesday through Friday, Aug. 2, “Annie Get Your Gun” will open on Aug. 3 and continue through Aug. 25. Show times are Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Sundays at 7 p.m., Thursdays through Saturdays at 8 p.m., with 2 p.m. matinees on Wednesdays and Sundays starting Aug 7. On Tuesday, a limited number of pay-what-you-can tickets to that evening’s performance will be available at 11 a.m. at the box office on a first-come-first-served basis.


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