"Anyone Can Whistle is sort of a music student's score. That whole score is based on the opening four notes of the overture, which is a second going to a fourth. All the songs are based on seconds and fourths and the relationship
between a D and an E and a C and an F."
-Stephen Sondheim
Anyone Can Whistle is the story of a town that has gone broke, consequently the town's comptroller, Schub, comes up
with a scheme to save it; a fake miracle to attract tourists(Water flowing from a rock). The Mayoress, Cora Hoover Hooper(the towns wealthiest and least popular occupant), hesitant at first, agrees to go along with the plan. By accident, the patients at the town's mental institution (The Cookie Jar) escape and merge with the tourists and the locals. Soon Dr.J.Bowden Hapgood, arrives on the scene (a phony psychiatrist), he tries to separate the well, from the unwell. Chaos erupts. Anyone Can Whistle is absurdist social satire, a comedy that deals with sanity and insanity, conformity and non-conformity. An experiment and a musical with three acts; Anyone Can Whistle is a mixed bag, and it was Sondheim's biggest flop. It ran for only nine performances, but in a way it's a landmark show because it's the show where Sondheim came into his own unique voice, using an off-beat blend of traditional and non-traditional music he would later employ more successfully.
Anyone Can Whislte has become a cult classic, and it conatains some of Sondheim's loveliest songs, such as, "Anyone Can Whistle" and "With So Little to Be Sure Of."
Anyone Can Whistle opened April 4, 1964 at the Majestic Theatre and closed April 11, 1964: Music and Lyrics by Stephen Sondheim, Book by Arthur Laurents. Produced by Kermit Bloomgarden and Diana Krasny; Directed by Arthur Laurents; Dances and Musical Numbers Staged by Herbert Ross ; Scenery Designed by William and Jean Eckart ; Costumes Designed by Theoni V. Aldredge;
Lighting Designed by Jules Fisher; Dance Music Arrangements by Betty Walberg.
Synopsis
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